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

[Springfleurs]

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?

Stealth it's not less important than the rest. It is one source of information. Just that. It's possible that it could instigate a converstion about feeding (like this thread) and a child could get more information about it's possible uses which might stand the child in good stead later in life or have no impact at all. I do think that children need to know that these things exist. The information they are given about them is more important so that they can make their own choices and use them for the best advantage for their baby and family without feeling a failure in anyway because the bottle was a hidden thing, to be talked about in hushed voices if at all.

stealth leonoie has made those statements but I can't be arsed to trawl.

leonie some women have no choice but to return to work. Shame on them, eh, and their runts.

I would also like to reiterate that anyone unsure about BF and reading this thread would likely be totally put off the idea of BF by some of the more strident preo-BFers on here. I don;t think that that is helpful.

If you tell women who want to BF that they are only doing it properly if they never use a bottle for EBM, so effectively can not go out to work or in the evening to see their friends or whatever, that will not encourage them to give it a try, quite the reverse.

I would have thought that telling people they can express so do not have to be glued to their babies 24/7 if they don't want to be is a positive thing. Choice and freedom and all that. Apparently not.

Leonie - I too suffered from mastitis a few times. And cracked nipples.
And my very prem dd2 had to be fed EBM through a tube in her nose for a month - now that's the closest bf came to being hard work - when you express several times a day and have to make a 50 mile round trip to hospital to visit your baby in NICU.... however I still wouldn't describe it as 'work'. It was a labour of love, because yes, I know the advantages to a baby of breastmilk.

Just don't make the huge error of equating feeding a baby breastmilk with believing that you cannot go out without your baby or go to work. It is perfectly possible to do both!

VH - some of our husbands are so clever they don't have to pretend at breastfeeding to feel part of our DC lives.

The argument about expressing not being liberating was a sideline from the main thrust of this thread, which as far as I could see was that,

Bottles symbolise formula. Doesn't matter if it's ebm, most people will think it's formula.

Promoting ff as the norm is bad.

So smash the toy bottle with a hammer.

These little things do add up, it's how advertising and marketing works.

Nobody thinks ff mums are crap.

I am not a nazi.

Have to go again.

yawn - great response leonie! You obviously feel threatened by women whose babies have breastmilk and also go out!

wasting - how offensive to suggest fathers 'pretend' to breastfeed. Feeding a baby expressed breastmilk is not 'pretending' anything.

I thought (sorry if I am wrong) but it was breast MILK that was the important thing not how it got in to baby?
I had a friend who had so much trouble getting her baby girl to latch on so I think it must be hard work for some people.

My sister in law was really good at it and BF all 5 of her children with no problems at all so for some I think it is a lot less difficult. I also had a friend who expressed so her DH could bond with their son,

I know making bottles and cleaning bottles and so on was time consuming and making sure I had feeds with me when we went out and keeping them cool/warm was a bloody pain in the butt.
I would have loved to stick DCs up my top and just have the whole thing sorted out.

How ever I did not.

Well I'm sure thousands of mothers and fathers out there are delighted to be described as not treating their precious babies 'normally' leonie and wasting.

You two obviously get off on that sort of nasty comment.

Sunfleurs - you don't remember your mum and dad's wedding when you were two. You have seen photos and heard stories about it, maybe watched a video which makes you think you remember it - but you don't.

FruityNNutty - I can understand how emotive an issue bf is for anyone who couldn't do it. And also that if you can't see a good reason for people seeming to be 'militant' about it, you must think that they're doing it just to be smug or put down people who ff or whatever. But there are good reasons for people being 'militant'. For every person like you who simply can't bf there are dozens who wanted to but who have their efforts to do it sabotaged by lack of support and good information - by health professionals like midwives who don't know enough about bf to give good advice (and who by their bad advice cause pain, misery and failure to bf), by family and friends who think it's a bit weird and put pressure on mothers to do the convenient and 'normal' thing of giving bottles.... etc. You get the idea. There are thousands of mothers out there who like you are unhappy because bf didn't work but who unlike you could have fed their child the way they wanted to IF they had lived in a society where bf was seen as normal so everyone around them would automatically support them to do that before driving them towards formula instead at the first sign of difficulty. Real women who are also unhappy. So while it's a difficult thing to read for the people who couldn't bf at all, talking about normalising bf and making ff be seen as the 'special circumstances' alternative only has a purpose, and that's to help people who want to bf and who are currently being sabotaged - and their babies who could be having breastmilk and aren't.

Unfortunately there isn't a way to have people who couldn't bf hear nothing but neutral/positive things about ff, AND solve the problem of bfing going wrong over and over again for successive generations of people who could and want to bf. To some extent, they're mutually exclusive aims. Which makes it very very hard for people who couldn't bf, I know.

VH - just responding to your 'clever' husband with mine.

Really do have to go now.

Yes Kimi, you are correct that it is the breastmilk which is the issue, not how it gets into the baby. A point which seems to be escaping some people entirely!

violet how is your dd2 now?shame people have to disclose personal details to justify a feeding decision

how did we get to this stage?can we not accept individual choice and preference without berating someone else choice and hurling research as tool to beat someone up with

you know what love,attachment, affirmation,consistent support, shape our children not wholly the mode of feeding.we pass through our developmental stages and adolescence with good parenting.that shoul e the emphasis

Who said fathers need to feed EBM from a bottle in order to bond with their children?

Er.... no one. Many do it because they enjoy that aspect of parenting along with many other aspects.

I am a freak, I bottle fed DS with poison - oh sorry, I meant to type formula.

I loved breastfeeding leonie - it wasn't me who described it as a chore! That was you!

Doing it for every feed doesn't make it 'better' though. I loved breastfeeding, my DH loved feeding EBM through a cup or bottle, and I loved being able to do things with and without my baby attached to me. With raising and nurturing my babies at all times being my number one priority.

Sorry - don't really get what you don't understand about that - unless your point is deep down that actually you do think it's all about how many hours a day your baby is actually hanging off your breasts.

The problem for me was due to health reasons my milk was no good, so I had no choice.
It really pissed me off the the woman at the AN class just assumed I could not be bothered and tore in to me about it. She was a charm really, the hospital I was at is in a very mixed culture area and she managed to upset a lot of mums to be there by ramming a tiny tears doll through a pelvic bone to demonstrate crowning and birth then telling the class (90% of whom were not white) well of course it is different for you black women as your pelvis tilts the other way
She really was in the wrong job.

well go stand in the naught corner.some bampot will be along shortly to no doubt berate you about feeding the chemical fish eye dayglow soup to baby

Some medications could make bfing impossible (though not as many as you'd think)

well to be fair leoni, we don't know kimi's actual cicumstances. It could be that she is on medication that is incompatible with bf. although, in many cases there are alternative medications that are bf friendly.