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?

YANBU - DD was breastfed and never had a bottle so I wouldn't bother with the excuse that it could be for water or juice etc.

I didn't take DD's baby's bottles away as frankly, she had so much plastic accessory crap that came with her dolls that trying to locate, let alone remove, half of the stuff would be pretty difficult. I did used to say, however, that babies should have milk from their mother's breasts rather than from a bottle.

I also used to 'bottle-feed' my dolls as a child but never considered anything but breastfeeding. However, I do think that by playing with bottles and associating them inextricably with feeding babies, that bottle-feeding becomes increasingly normalised in our society, to the detriment of breastfeeding. It was only when I had DD, started to go to a breastfeeding support group and read 'The Politics of Breastfeeding' that I realised quite how distorted the normal view of infant feeding has become.

I breastfed, and I enjoyed it very very much.

BUT I find these kind of threads irritating. And smug. And repetitive.

OP. YOu answered your own question. You were brought up to think BF was "disgusting" but you still did it. Good for you. Do you REALLY think a doll will change your DD's views in 25 years time? Or did you just want to publicise your BF creditials?

Ponders, I don't doubt that they tried hard.
Just riles me that there is an assumption breast-feeders must have had an easy time of it and can't imagine how tough it might be.

bubbleymummy see my post 19:11:16 as to why opposition to bottle feeding can be construed as sexist.

wastingmyeducation you make the assumption that all bottles contain formula. I make the assumption that they may well contain EBM. To deny women the choice to feed EBM from a bottle denies them and their families a whole range of care and work options. Which is a step backwards. Removing freedom from women in this way is a step back, it's sexist.

what a risible extrapolation that toy bottle=promotion of FF.and chucking away toy bottle is ejecting ff promotion

wht a big daft ole conspiracy theory "the desire to chuck the toy bottles away is an opposition to the promotion of formula".

oh yeah sisters get liberated and empowered and sock one to nestle by getting in a tizzy about a toy bottle

FFS! I never read all the thread I have to admit. I got a tiny tears when I was 7 or something. It came with one of those magic bottles where the milk vanished when you tipped it up. I was surrounded by lactating aunties for years at about the same age.

Little children do not give A SHIT about all this. IT is not in their consciousness! I have no clue at all as to whether i was breast fed or not. It makes no difference to MY choices.

Ooooh loving risible extrapolation.

That's what these threads are all about though, innit. Risible extrapolations and intractable positions and shouting.

In this country, most babies get no breastmilk.
Statistically, the assumption that a bottle contains formula is likely to be correct.

I don't want to deny women the choice to feed ebm.
We're discussing chucking out toy bottles, not real bottles.

I actually think that there is an expectation in contemporary times that a woman will express milk.
There seems to me to be an assumption that in order to be a liberated female I need to leave my baby.

A society that truly respected women wouldn't separate them from their nursing infants. Not to say we shouldn't work, but there are ways and means.

i haven' read the thread. but this is ridiculous.

dd1 has a doll with bottle and loves it. yet she constantly asks me when she'll get big boobs like mine so she can breastfeed dd2!

Top post porto you are absolutely right.

Womens choices re feeding influenced by many factors, magic milk vanishing toy bottle not one of them.

oh jolly good wee dig at working mum's too.has it all now this thread

I don't think anyone blames the toy bottles solely for the bottle-feeding culture.
It is just one more instance of formula being the norm.

I am not having a go at working mothers, it's the way society has it all arranged that makes breastfeeding difficult.
In much of the world mothers take their babies with them.
Or the person caring for the child will bring it to the mother to be fed.

I haven't bothered to read most of this thread but would like to add that I bought my ds's a doll and am glad that it came with bottle as how else could they pretend to be like daddy and feed the baby??? it isn't all about dd's you know

I exclusively bf both till 7mo btw but expressed often

wme,what societal model of BF are you referring to?

i live in a society were i pay the mortgage,work and no funnily enough don't cart lo about everywhere with me (least of all not to work)

It's total bollocks! I didn't BF. I wanted to, but ended up with emCS and despite much trying nothing ever happened. There was never a sign of any milk . I have told dd when she has grabbed my boobs that THAT is what they are for though. She is 5. I swear by the time she gets round to having babies, anything i have done or said will long be forgotten....

I totally agree with insywincy.

Teach your DD to pretend to express milk and put it in the bottle for the doll.

Or get over yourself and stop being so damn smug

This is all contradictory.

"Statistically, the assumption that a bottle contains formula is likely to be correct."

Yet at the same time:

"I actually think that there is an expectation in contemporary times that a woman will express milk. "

Um righty-ho.

I'm getting a bit tired of this now.

You choose to equate bottle to FF.

I choose to equate it to an additional tool a parent has in raising their child.

You see bottles as a removal of a womans right to nurture her young properly.

I see it as means by which additional people can participate in the raising of the child, giving additional freedoms to women.

The real thing for me in all of this, which I haven't mentioned before, is how much this over-zealous BF position turns ordinary women off. I mean I had an easy time BF DD and this thread makes me want to give next DC formula. Seriously. I find the messages given by the zealous pro-BFers patronising and inflexible. And it makes me not want to be associated with that way of thinking.

What happened to live and let live FFS.

I think the society we live in is sexist and anti-family. I think it could be better.
Maternity leave could be better, on-site nurseries where mothers are encouraged to feed their babies would remove a lot of the stress I see on the breastfeeding boards about babies refusing bottles, there could be more WAH opportunities.

YANBU. I see were you are coming from although I don't know if i would do that myself (have not yet).

I think there is an expectation that breastfeeding women will express.
Look at baby magazines, selling us all the kit. You get a free breastpump in one of them for sending in the star letter.
And of course Boots 'Breastfeeding Essentials' kit, everything but the real essentials - boobs and a baby.
And I think it might put some women off.
It certainly complicates matters. Many ignorant HCPs advise women to express to check how much milk they make, which is ridiculous and damages many women's chances of breastfeeding.

don't agree with your societal analysis at all wme.yes spme scope for change/improvement but i dont see systemic prejudice or sexism

The society we live in could be described as sexist and anti-family.

On the flipside women in this country enjoy a vast array of rights and freedoms denied to women in many many parts of the world.

I would be disinclined to give up my freedoms in order to be part of a society of the sort that you are talking about, where womens rights are often far behind those that we enjoy here. I am assuming BTW that women who take their babies to work or have people bring them to them for feeding are not doing particularly high powered jobs. Show me a selection of high earning, powerful, decision making women from countries where women take their babies to work with them as a norm, and who have done it, and I will naturally eat my words.

in fact it could be sexist and suppress choice to suggest mum at home and carting baby around is the optimum

I don't imagine that any society currently treats women respectfully. Just illustrating that there are alternatives.

I am a dreamer.