to have an issue with a poster at our local children's centre?

[hogshead]

there's a big display at the children's centre where our health visitors do their weekly clinics and it really quite upset me. It shows a picture of a mum bf'ing with the caption "mummy" underneath and a picture of a single bottle with the same caption. I wasn't able to bf - subsequenty i felt incredibly guilty and inadequate as a mum for failing and i spent weeks agonising over whether it was something i did wrong. My initial reaction to this display was to feel guilty all over again but lately it's really started to annoyed me - this poster implies that my beautiful baby doesn't know the difference between me and a bottle which is rubbish. I know bf needs promoting and is the best for baby but is there any need to pile on the guilt on those mums who for whatever reason can't bf? DH says to let it go. I need to know - AIBU?

YANBU that poster is though. How insulting, I mean I've BF my DC, but I was bottlefed myself and I think I've always been pretty clean about the difference between my mum and a plastic bottle.

I think it's outrageous

it's implication that DS doesn't know the difference between human contact and the bottle that has really annoyed me. Yes he knows what the bottle is for (and he will track it with his eyes) but he makes eye contact with me not the bottle. Interestingly (although slightly off thread) DH has found ff with a bottle very empowering and despite his worries about becoming a Daddy for the first time, has thrown himself into the role and wants us to `mix feed' the next baby so he can be as involved (yes he's already talking about the next one and DS is only 12 weeks old - i've told him not just yet!!!)

Starlightmackenzie - I too was googling for this poster and also found some weird shit.

I think the scariest was this

I thought at first it was some kind of diseased boob - not so. Look closer...

Honestly, I have no idea why everyone's getting so worked up. Surely it's trying to make women who don't breastfeed, feel on a par with those who do.

And that's a bad thing?

That particular poster sounds ridiculous. But.... the same argument is used against most BF promotion literature as well, unfairly.

I have to take issue with the general idea that bf promotions make formula feeders feel bad. Thats not fair. Saying that breast is best, which most of us know, does not equate to you are bad if you didn't/don't. And removing all bf posters because they may make you feel bad about it is not fair, because it even more undermines the normalisation of breastfeeding.
People go on and on about BF being forced on people and breastapo and feminazis blah blah blah, conveniently forgetting that formula feeding is the norm and the most common way of infant feeding. And many mothers who wanted to BF never got a proper chance because of lack of support and information. Campaigns are part of providing information, they are not there to make you feel bad. Anything that makes breastfeeding normal, that gives people the confidence to have a proper go at it is a Good Thing.

I agree that some posters are rubbish and the message could be put forward better. I'd prefer to see posters that dispel some of the most common misconceptions and misinformation that abound about breastfeeding (I can see several lurking in this thread already) Information that would actually help people. After all, if you feel bad that you didn't breastfeed for whatever reason, don't you want other people to have a better experience than you so that they don't feel bad?

So my point (which I'ver probably put badly and will get jumped on for), is that YANBU about this poster by the sounds of it, but YANBU if you extrapolate to all BF promotional literature.

Huwedwards - I don't think that's what it's saying at all. If that was the case surely it would be a bfing mother and a ffing mother - not just a bottle?

Also I don't think there is any funding out there to promote the equivalence of the two types of feeding.

The fact that none of us seem to know what it is trying to say, though, indicates that whatever message it was trying to convey, it apparently failed (not that I've seen the poster myself of course).

That's not how I read it, Huw.

YANBU. Sounds dreadful.

oh ok thanks theyoungster, I'm getting the point now.

rasputin - that just isn't possible with a small baby -trust me I tried it (not every time but once in a while when I was still trying to juggle a pre-schooler and a small baby with DS2).

When they get older

the display is surrounded by bf information and information about bf support groups - this implied to me that the message that the bottle is mummy

oo that's weird! What's it trying to say - you can bf and have sex?

Or is it saying, hey, there's one boob for your baby and one for your husband?!

Or maybe, your boobs will never be your own again and you will spend your life fighting someone for custody of your tits?

I agree, it makes me think "arg - touched out - everybody geddoff!"

my surgery has this one which I think is fine?

It's nice that it shows an older baby, I think, and also that it focusses on the importance of bfing being positive all round, not some kind of exercise in martyrdom.

well I never figured out a way despite FFing both DS2 and 3 - I kept having to go back to put the bottle back,

Christ - what a depressing message

Does that mean when your tits go south, your kids will fly the nest and your husband will leave you for a perkier model?!

crikey that `seseame boob' poster is frightening!

or should that be `sesaeme' (as in the seed? i just can't spell)

starlight I was trying to find a link to that poster earlier. (The bond with baby one). There are a whole series of them. I ordered them for our Mat Unit, but the head of midwifery tore them up saying they turned a woman into a pair of boobs. She didn't believe I had got them from the DoH.
Didn't mind them.