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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To remove the toy baby feeding bottle from my dd's new doll bath and feeding set?

1001 replies

Springfleurs · 30/05/2009 15:23

I was brought up to think that breast feeding was a strange and rather disgusting thing to do.

Luckily managed to overcome this myself and b/f both dc for 5 months and 14 months respectively.

Took dd to a toy shop today and she chose a doll bath and feeding set. Unpacked it for her when we got in and there is a feeding bottle in there. I know it might seem a bit precious but it irritated me slightly, as though it was a mandatory piece of equipment for all babies/dolls.

Or

I am taking it all rather too seriously?

OP posts:
scottishmummy · 30/05/2009 23:55

and your point is what HM?that AIBU is vapid elbow pushing?

where do the non elbow pushers go

scottishmummy · 30/05/2009 23:55

and your point is what HM?that AIBU is vapid elbow pushing?

where do the non elbow pushers go

hunkermunker · 30/05/2009 23:56

"AIBU is vapid elbow pushing?"

I wouldn't be so polite about AIBU

scottishmummy · 30/05/2009 23:56

Hola!donde esta plastic bottles r us

scottishmummy · 30/05/2009 23:57

i love vapid elbow pushing.AIBU rocks the MN gladiatorial arena

Tortington · 30/05/2009 23:58

By QuintessentialShadow on Sat 30-May-09 23:41:16
"How DARE you interfere with your daughters doll feeding practices?!

You have to tell her as a mother of a plastic doll she has options! She can breasteed or bottlefeed, and whatever way she choses is JUST FINE!"

pmsl

well said

MillyR · 30/05/2009 23:58

LTOS

Your point about expressing has already been covered. Not all babies need a bottle. that doesn't mean the mother never works or goes out. I was at the beauticians today and she had left a 6 month old at home with her DH, a cup of water and weaning food. Why is that hard to understand?

It is recommended that babies (FF as well) are not given drinks in a bottle over 12 months (NCT - google it). Women are also not advised to bottle feed when establishing breast feeding (google it). It can take some women months and months to feel that bf is properly established. So there is only a short period of time when it is 'okay' (for want of a better phrase) to have both breast and bottle, and why bother introducing a bottle when you are then going to have encourage the baby back off it and on to a cup? So many women who express feed milk from a cup with a spout. There are very few women who go back to work or frequently go out for whole days leaving very tiny babies in the care of others, so expressing is really about older babies anyway.

So you are basically saying that a bottle should be in the toy set to represent the choices of a number of women who are out for more hours than just between feeds AND expressing AND have a young baby AND are not feeding from a cup or from a spoon. So, that is a few women but hardly anyone.

Compared to the millions of women who choose to formula feed?

It is obvious what that bottle is meant to represent, and it isn't career woman with a breast pump and new age dad.

Plonker · 30/05/2009 23:59

Ok, referring specifically to your OP - I think you overthinking this.

It's. A. Doll's. Bottle.

That's it.

Do you have the same reservations when it comes to cloth/disposible nappies for dolly?
Or what about whether she is pushed in a pram or carried in a sling? Does it matter?

I see your point (and everyone elses) wanting to normalise breasfeeding rather than bottle feeding, but how much influence do you really think that a dolly's bottle has? Dd 1 and 2 both breastfed their dollys whilst I bf-ed their sister, despite them both (baby borns) having their own bottle. Parental influence is far greater, IMHO.

So yes, I really think that you are taking it rather too seriously.

LovelyTinOfSpam · 31/05/2009 00:00

I enjoyed QS's take on this

Coming in to an AIBU thread like this to point out that AIBU is full of people shouting, to the people shouting, is brilliant!

Do I really need to read a book about the politics of BF? What's to know?

scottishmummy · 31/05/2009 00:02

my maw smokes like a lum,ff us all i didnt follow her example

LovelyTinOfSpam · 31/05/2009 00:03

By which I mean, as a woman and feminist in the UK who has experienced the various campaigns and experienced BF in this country, why do I need to read a book?

My reading is behind enough as it is. Mainly due to having children and BF them

violethill · 31/05/2009 00:03

Totally agree Plonker.

If you are pro bf, if you talk to your children about it, if they know that they were bf, isn't that going to carry some weight??

I loved my baby doll with feeding bottle when I was a kid, and I bf all my babies (apart from when I expressed and they were bottle fed!)

I think the OP doesn't have enough to worry about if this is such a big deal

vlc · 31/05/2009 00:04

Ah well, the staticians and marketers can take a night off then, spanishmummy. You've clearly proved them all wrong with your sample size of one.

hunkermunker · 31/05/2009 00:06

LTOS, what do you think the book covers?

oystersandcrackersinthesnow · 31/05/2009 00:07

If you think the bottle influences small children to see ff as the norm and anything else like bf as the 'different/weird' option, and you care about that, then yanbu to take it away.

If someone doesn't think the bottle influences small children to see ff as the nrom and anything else like bf as the 'different/weird' option, or if they don't care if it does, then they're going to think yabu.

And never the twain shall meet...

scottishmummy · 31/05/2009 00:08

hola vic!Vienen a mi casa para el almuerzo podemos hablar aout los niños

LovelyTinOfSpam · 31/05/2009 00:11

Millie.

Seriously.

"I was at the beauticians today and she had left a 6 month old at home with her DH, a cup of water and weaning food."

Classic.

And you said:

"BF women are advised that where possible, they should not introduce a bottle because it makes breast feeding less likely. I thought this was very widely known."

That is a load of rubbish. please stop telling me to google stuff when you can't even get the basics right. And where have I said that children over 12mo should be drinking from a bottle? You are reading things that are not there.

FWIW I know many women who returned to work before their children were 6mo and the children were bottle fed, either EBM or formula.

Yet another example of people being unable to comprehend people with different situations to their own.

violethill · 31/05/2009 00:12

.... I guess I would just hope that as a parent, talking to my child, telling them I bf them, and later on explaining the benefits of bf to them... I would hope that those things carried a bit more influence than a doll's toy bottle. In fact I would probably feel a bit of a failure as a parent if I didn't feel confident than I was a more important influence than a plastic toy bottle!

LovelyTinOfSpam · 31/05/2009 00:19

HM blimey too much to list! It's a complicated subject with massive influence from things like our patriachal society, the way our earning/value systems are constructed, the bizarre disconnect between things like pg 3 and BF, class structure and expectations, advertising, the way BF is promoted and who by, feminism and the different qualities/ambitions that this leads to and how it may conflict, our accepted levels of body exposure and so on.

That's off the top of my head, of course there is more, a lot more, does the book contain anything novel enough to put on my lengthy reading list?

vlc · 31/05/2009 00:29

SM

You come to me instead, ndi makala pafupi ndi pa nkukhu.

Tortington · 31/05/2009 00:40

jesus shit

this is 'my dick is bigger than your dick' alpha mummy supreme

look how many languages i can speak.

lordy.

what violethill said makes the most sense.

hunkermunker · 31/05/2009 00:43

Well, I think it's worth a read, since I'm reading it - and yes, it contains more than you've listed. Have a squiz through it in a book shop first, maybe?

vlc · 31/05/2009 00:52

Custardo - I speak one language; English. Therefore I have no doubt that you have a bigger dick.

Violethill is confusing parental choice with parental lack of confidence. That doesn't make sense to me. I'm happy to see my dd pretending to breastfeed, some people seem very determined that she should pretend to bottlefeed. That seems odd to me.

I don't feel threatened if someone doesn't emulate my own choice for my family, why should anyone else feel I should mimc their choices?

Odd.

scottishmummy · 31/05/2009 00:55

custardo,i speak many European languages and Scottish.in which one shall i say you are the dick

JodieO · 31/05/2009 00:59

I think it's the normalisation of bottlefeeding that was the issuse here, not that fact that women bottle feed. Yes we all have a choice, but that doesn't mean that dolls should be supplied with a bottle as that's the "norm". Breastfeeding is better but, again, that doesn't mean that bottlefeeding isn't adequate. I bottlefed dd and bf ds1 and ds2 so I've been on both sides and am not judging at all.

The fact is that we all learn from what we see, especially as children and if there was at least a choice, in mainstream shops, then it could make bf more of a real option or something that is SEEN. Less tuts and eye rolls when women bf wouldn't hurt either.

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