To think my sister is selfish for choosing not to breast feed?

[IHateWinter]

She hasn't even had her baby yet but has already decided that she doesn't want to try it and if she does she'll only do it for a month at most.

I've told her that breast milk is healthier and gives the baby antibodies etc, but she won't listen to me. I gave her a baby book that explains why breast is best but she won't read that either.

What else can I say? I worry about my future neice. I understand that she many not want to carry on doing it for a long time, but I really do feel that if you have a baby you have the responsibility to try and give it the best start in life. I really feel she is more concerned about what her breasts will look like than her babies needs.

I'm suprised by how strongly I feel. I find myself avoiding her in case I end up saying something upsetting. Am I being unreasonable?

Oh, and before anyone says, I AM NOT A TROLL I am a regular poster who has name changed.

Sabire, I give up. You are right. I am wrong and you are much more reasonable that I thought you were originally.

I keep on trying to be sympathetic to ff but I think I am becoming less and less. The thing is that I really wanted to do 6 months and I was gutted when I had to give BGrylls high energy formula - I know it was the right thing to do but it was really horrible to accept this was the way things had to be.

Maybe next time.

Agree with undercovermutha

thankfully this de debacle nearly done.only 319 opportunities for humphy faces left

Well better seize the opportunity then.....

Aahh that feels better - very cathartic!

LOL we could do with a bitty more

ouch my eyes hurt!

"I keep on trying to be sympathetic to ff but I think I am becoming less and less."
Not sure what you mean by this? Formula is essential, would be nice if it wasn't, but it is.

it looks worse scrolled at speed,hallucinatory

feeding threads are a mn perennial.lots of high octane posturing

Scottishmummy, you must have too much time on your hands
(but I'm now thinking that would make fantastic, eye boggling wallpaper!)

Re: the OP, I agree with you - boobs are there for a reason - to feed babies, and I get all frustrated when mothers plan not to BF, not even to try.
(I've only read the OP - and the big smiley post!)

thanks for warning me, I feel a headache coming on
not sire I understand / agree with the high octane posturing, a lot of confusion and high feelings on both sides maybe

You can do magic eye with them too - but without the hidden picture
If that makes sense

sg, they pretty much sum it up

I don't think I should wade into this thread, but I loved the TikTok 'moon is made of cream cheese' argument and I am going to use it whenever possible.

yes, I know exactly what you mean- when magic eye fiirst came out I used to try to do it with non ME pictures to see if I could see anything, I never could

hi fairycake123 and welcome to mumsnet. i see you are enjoying the debate.

you have accused tiktok of being biased as she is a bf counsellor and certain learned medical journals of being "campaigning". I wonder if you would like to say what your interest in this subject is?

FWIW I have no professional interest in infant feeding. On a personal level, i am a mum who has Ff some of her children and bf others

Ooooh is this a private argument or can anyone join in?

Looking at the response (or lack of) to geraldinerose I'm guessing some people are treating it like a private argument. There is geraldine telling us she has "issues" with bf (thus possibly similar to the lady in OP's post) and is basically told to sod off take herself to another thread? Charming.

geraldine if you are still reading, what is your take on whether a bit of friendly persuasion/ engagement would work with you??

Oh for goodness sake....geraldinerose , a newbie, was invited to go to a more appropriate folder, where she would get support and no arguments.

AIBU is not the place to seek support for particular personal bf and ff issues, as was explained to her nicely and politely!

cruella, you must know that if you start a thread you get more advice & help than if you post on a fast moving debate thread, you must! geraldine has been welcomed by me & tiktok, possibly others. stop seeing conspiracies where there aren't any, quite frankly it's pathetic
it's not a private argument it's a debate on a public forum. childish in the extreme and VERY frustrating

Can I ask where is the OP? Is she still participating in the discussion? Was she a troll who has now name changed and is taking part covertly? Or did she just start this thread and disappear into the sunset to let everyone else fight it out?? Hmm I wonder??
(hmm)

she said she was a name changer
has been back to say ok, swbu
now, the thread isn't really related to the op, so she's well within her rights to as far as i'm concerned

KristinaM - Hi.

"you have accused tiktok of being biased as she is a bf counsellor and certain learned medical journals of being "campaigning"."

Would you mind quoting the post where I accused tiktok of being biased; and where I referred to her being a bf counsellor? That would be great.

I didn't accuse any "learned medical journals" of being biased. The International Breastfeeding Journal is a pro-breastfeeding publication, and they are very open about it on their site. They state explicitly that they seek to promote breastfeeding - and good for them. But it means that they are not the best source to use if you want to support your position on breastfeeding, because it is fair to assume that they are going to cherry-pick articles that chime with their ethos. I'm fascinated by the reaction to my having pointed that out. There are surely countless articles about the merits of bfing in straightforward peer-reviewed medical journals (learned medical journals, even), which would constitute far stronger support for the pro-bf side.

"I wonder if you would like to say what your interest in this subject is?"

I'm not sure why you seem to think I have to explain my presence to you. But since you ask, my interest is in evidence-based medicine - I LOVE it. The annoying thing is that high-quality research does sometimes produce results that I find objectionable!

fairycake - you asked specifically for research about maternal mental health and bf - there are indeed many, many research papers which cover other aspects...no need to be puzzled about why you got no refs for more general 'merits' of bf, because that was not the question.

I furnished you with a couple of refs - one was indeed from the IBJ because this was a paper that was a review of other papers which you could follow up if you wanted.

I also discussed the challenges in researching mental health and infant feeding - the issue of 'reverse causation' being one of them.

The IBJ is a peer-reviewed academic journal which seeks to discuss/publish papers which promote breastfeeding. I don't know about cherry-picking - seems to me like any other specialist journal they take papers which discuss their specialism. You won't get articles which discuss the merits of different ways of setting a fracture in the brain surgeons' journal. Nor, in the public health journals, will you see research about brain surgery etc etc etc.

I'm stepping in here (and flippin eck it's still going) to support tik-tok - geraldinerose was clearly seeking advice and support and as this is a debating section - after all the OP said 'AIBU to....' not 'please help me' - and geraldinerose is as likely to get 'ooh I absolutely agree with all your problems etc etc that's why...' (not from me I might immediately add, but it would be entirely reasonable for anyone to say that on this thread rather than offering any support or advice).

Having agreed with tik-tok I also have to reiterate that I agree withscottishmummy as per her conclusions to the thread. I also have the slight impression as per others that some covert name chging and possible winding up or rather attempts to move discussion into areas that nobody engaged in the general bunfight would wish to go has gone on at times - attempts which have been admirably resisted on all sides. Naturally I could be totally wrong in any of my suspicions which therefore do not deserve expanding on in any way.

Back to work again (see the is MN addictive and will I get sacked thread)

i hope she did start another thread...haven't spotted it

Actually BF is quite selfish..just tell her that it will make her feel all tingly (down there) and that she will regain her figure much quicker.
Also, it beats having to get up in the middle of the night, get a bottle ready and sit with the baby.
I managed to get lying down breastfeeding going and it was so much easier, especially when my 2nd kept waking every 3 hours day and night!

Stealth, in response to your post to me about what I meant by becoming less sympathetic to ff.

I had to start supplementing with ff out of necessity I am therefore not anti-formula.

However, sabire and tiktok have both made the point that for some people it is not like this and they choose to go straight to formula. What I was trying to say is that I can't understand how a person could not want to give bf their best shot.