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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to not want to breastfeed?

704 replies

VixeyV · 20/04/2010 23:04

Hi this is my first post but I have been a lurker since the start of my pregnancy.

Anyway, my question is I'm 20 weeks pregnant and the midwife keeps pushing me into breastfeeding. I just don't want to and don't get why she won't stop asking me how I'll feed.

To be honest, the thought of it freaks me out. I didn't breastfeed my daughter and she's fine on formula, she has aptimal because that's the best.

So what do you think? Should my midwife stop nagging me?

OP posts:
MiladyDeWinter · 24/04/2010 22:07

"there are times when i am not constantly at my babys disposal.....like when i need to go to parents eve for dd or PTA meeting or dare i say it...having a night out!!!"

I took baby DS to my DD's parents' evening, fed him beforehand to be sure and it was fine.

My daughter has a life-threatening medical condition and to be honest it was a bit difficult taking my son along to the hospital with her because he was exclusively BF, but we managed, so I'm sure we could have had a night out if we thought it was in any way important.

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:09

WELL DONE TITTY!!!! AREN'T YOU AMAZING AND AREN'T I RUBBISH!!!!!!

How did you work etc..... take it you expressed..... some people cant express enough!

WHY DO THESE THREADS HAVE TO GET NASTY AND CRITICAL..... surely we all love our babies an wouldnt see any harm come to them.

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:14

dds parents evening includes children and every now and then i feel she deserves my undivided attention. she is 8 and ds is 4 months.... she has had a lot of adjusting to do!!! ANYWAY I AM GOING TO BED!!! This discussion is going round in circles with certain bf mothers making me feel like a lesser species for making the choices i have made!!!

booyhoo · 24/04/2010 22:16

titty's post was in no way nasty or critical. if it was then show me where. she pointed out that she was able to breastfeed, like most of the breastfeeding mothers in the world, and carry on her normal life.

baskingseals · 24/04/2010 22:17

sparkly, you are a lovely lovely mum. i can tell by your posts. titty is NOT having a go at you. if anything you are having a go at yourself and you shouldn't be. It's all good, it's all okay, it's not about loving your children, it's about encouraging more women to bf, that's all.

MiladyDeWinter · 24/04/2010 22:23

sparklycherry (love your name) I am not meaning to be critical at all. Did you read my post where I said that I tried to BF my dd and "failed", that I was so depressed about it that I wanted to FF my new baby who arrived seven years later from the start? I understand the difficulties people have, I do!

Mumsnet threads show up very very often as a result of Google searches. Very often indeed. And there are very many lurkers as opposed to posters. I think it's important to balance arguments here and to arm people with the facts.

Nobody is saying that you are rubbish. Expressing particularly is incredibly difficult. I couldn't get on with it at all, was always tempted to express loads so then my boobs made far too much milk thinking i had triplets so I'd wake up every three hours bursting, so much for getting a long stretch of sleep and leaving DH to it!

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:23

I AM BF BUT FF TOO..... WHICH SIDE OF THE FENCE DO I SIT ON ooooppppssss caps. i am hormonal and one of the unfortunate bf mums whos periods came back almost straight away,...... and before formula was introduced. but ds sleeps well and that why they started again but when they did start my milk supply went off and he got terrible tummy ache.... i resorted to ff and he loved it.

bf is wonderful and yes its best but i get wound up when people get on the campaign bus.

to me tittys post was saying that there is no reason for doing what i am doing therefore that was critical right????

MiladyDeWinter · 24/04/2010 22:24

Oops, sparklycheery! I still like it though

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:26

i have just spent an hour whilst typing here expressing 5 ozs and ds takes at least 7 so will have to leave it an hour and try again. my periods are horrid and my mik just disappears for a few days. i am working hard to keep bf at all..... i like letting him suckle just cos i can but i struggled to keep up with such a big babys demand..... he was 10lb 11oz at birth and was feeding every 2 hours in day!

booyhoo · 24/04/2010 22:27

she was saying that a bottle was unneccessary in all the 5 years that she breastfed. she was not criticising you for using one, simply saying that it isn't neccessary.

bubbleymummy · 24/04/2010 22:27

See this is the problem, titty has made some excellent points and delivered the facts and a mum who used formula takes offense and feels like she is being attacked. This is why it is so difficult to take about the issues with formula in real life. People don't tend to like upsetting others and will therefore keep their mouth shut rather than offend someone who ff by pointing out the risks. We have to be able to talk about these things so that people can get the information they need to makd educated decisions.

Ps. I dislike the whole Dads NEED to feed to bond argument. Who started that myth? A formula company no doubt!

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:28

not very sparkly cheery mummy here........ venting on here is quite therapeutic.

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:30

bubbleymummy .... i am mix feeding...... i see the benefits and disadvantages of both!!!

how do you go out for a few hours without leaving a bottle..... this is a question not an attack cos my ds is one hell of a hungry boy!!!

booyhoo · 24/04/2010 22:31

sparkly every 2 hours sounds normal tbh and suckling is good, it will increase your supply.

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:32

it was normal in the beginning.... he is 4 months now and i wasnt enough.... he was screaming at the end of a feed sometimes and gnawing at them when there wasnt any milk coming out. i tried fenugreek, expressing to increase supply. hey ho

baskingseals · 24/04/2010 22:32

he's your baby sparkly - whatever you're doing is the best thing.

fwiw I exclusively bf dd until she was 2.5, ds1 until 18mths - ds2 however gets a bottle of formula every night and has done since he was about 5mths. he's now 8 mths. Every baby is different and the life you're living with each one is different too.

But I do know what Titty means about that breastfeeding dance, and however long or short that dance is none of us would have missed it for anything, and I think essentially we all want women to experience that with their babies, god knows they deserve to, and that's why some of us find it so upsetting when women DON'T have that experience.

It's one of the things that makes life worth living imho.

MiladyDeWinter · 24/04/2010 22:36

sparkly where is your ds while you have been expressing? It helped me to look at him even if he was sleeping.

I think everyone agrees that of all the feeding methods, expressing is by far the hardest! Pumps aren't half as effective as a baby and you still have to do all the washing of bottles and sterilising. Fair play to you lady!

booyhoo · 24/04/2010 22:41

16 weeks (four months) was when my ds had a mega growth spurt and wanted to feed constantly. my mum just could not understand why i was starving him, i wasn't he was just taking on more calories. then she was saying, "well he hasn't grown has he so it isn't a growth spurt." no he didn't put on weight mum but did you notice he just rolled over for the first time and tried to clap his hands?

anyway, what i mean is he could just be having a wee fill up in order to perfect his genius. stick with it, you sound like you are really trying hard. and i know it's not easy, ive been there.

bubbleymummy · 24/04/2010 22:46

sparkley, are you asking me in particular how I leave ds? I have expressed in the past for him but tbh if I fed him before I left then I was usually home before he needed fed again. 3-4 hours max. I'm pretty crap at expressing so I would usually just collect a couple of oz at a time and freeze them. He is 13 months now and still feeding away. He's a v hungry boy! I don't have a problem with bottles (who did?) but I only feed ebm never formula. I know I am lucky in that I did not have to go back to work so I rarely needed bottles but my sister is back at work full time and her ds has adjusted his feeds so he only needs one bottle of ebm during the day (which she can express while she is away from him) and he just waits for mummy the rest of the time.

sparklycheerymummy · 24/04/2010 22:47

i express a bottle every day with the monitor next to me so i can hear him breathing. it was wonderful that 2 hours after giving birth he latched straight on and never had a problem .... but boy did he have a powerful suck then...... he is much calmer now.

a funny story though..... my friend is bf and her dd will only feed when she uses a nipple shield..... which is ok until she is feeding her in a cafe and babe turns round to see whats going on with the nipple shield still dangling in her mouth LOL

ds used to sound like a donkey when he fed..... he was so desperate to get at them!

all i am saying is i wish there wasa more gentle supportive pressure than hard hitting scary one......i like the campaign someone suggested once on another thread....'EVERY BRESTFEED COUNTS'

booyhoo · 24/04/2010 22:54

i totally agree with you every breastfeed counts.

my neighbour had terrible support when in hospital with her ds, she fed him for 1 day and feels soooo proud of herself that she did. that is how it should be. that one day meant the world to her.

lisaleelu · 24/04/2010 22:57

Wouldnt get involvd in dicussing it with the midwife.

If you can bear it give the first couple of feeds as I have heard the colustum is 50% of the benefit from breast feeding. then move to formula as a happy mum is more ikely to have a happy baby.

I breastfed my two for the first 4 weeks but hated and wished i'd stopped it sooner than i did.

MilaMae · 24/04/2010 23:30

Titty you do write absolute rubbish.

I loathed and despised every single minute of bf(as do many women) there was absolutely zero oxytocin swimming about at all believe me .The minute I started ff it was absolute heaven,I loved every minute of it as did my dc ,we all chilled and became far more in tune. The feeding dance thing happens with bottle feeding too.

Oh and as I was with my dc 24 hours a day at 5 weeks instead of leaving my baby 2 1/2 days a week unlike yourself I'm not really sure you can lecture me on bonding.

You chose what was best for you and your family I chose what was best for mine.You don't know me or my family so have no right to comment or presume what is best for us. I'm sure you wouldn't like anybody lecturing you on the perils of leaving babies under the age of 1 anymore than I relish your constant diatribe on the perils of formula feeding.

You might care to actually read previous posts from Elusivemoose and myself re the copious amount of issues we as mothers continually have to battle with. Breast feeding is indeed preferable but so are many other things when raising children. You may wish to remember that as I'm pretty sure you don't do everything perfectly.

scottishmummy · 24/04/2010 23:51

this alleged euphoric i am goddess description of breast feeding may be true for some not for all.florid and effusing descriptions of breast feeding aren't applicable to all women.as op illustrates.

mums should feed however they wish

tittybangbang · 25/04/2010 07:25

"I loathed and despised every single minute of bf(as do many women) there was absolutely zero oxytocin swimming about at all believe me"

I don't know why you hated breastfeeding and I accept that in our society there will be a significant number of women who find it emotionally very difficult. Even in the days when non-breastfed babies died there were still a small number of mothers who couldn't bring themselves to nurse their babies. I assume these things run very deep. I accept that this is the case, like I accept there will be some people for whom sex (which like breastfeeding part of the normal physiology of reproduction) is very unpleasant and distressing. But I can't help feeling that an aversion to performing a normal physiological function must be pathological in some way.

"You chose what was best for you and your family I chose what was best for mine.You don't know me or my family so have no right to comment or presume what is best for us.

I didn't tell you what was best for you. I described the normal physiology of breastfeeding.

"I'm sure you wouldn't like anybody lecturing you on the perils of leaving babies under the age of 1"

No - I don't mind. I'm very interested in this issue and have often discussed it here on mumsnet. I didn't like having to leave my baby and worried about what it was doing to her and to me. Since those days have read a lot about the importance for babies of early care - I haven't turned my face away from information which has made me feel uncomfortable about my 'choices' (in inverted commas - at the time I felt that I didn't have a choice financially to not work).

"I'm pretty sure you don't do everything perfectly".

No, I don't. I don't expect to, or expect other people to. But I do expect to be able to have an adult discussion about the issues which interest me without it turning into a cat-fight.