Why does my mil hate breastfeeding so much?

[nickytwotimes]

Jesus, it's not like I am asking her to do it?

Why are some people like that?

My MIL is pro-breastfeeding and has said lovely things to me about how nice it will be the first time I feed the baby and feel so close to it - that's great. However, she is also very pro-routine, and keeps telling me I must have baby in a routine and on a four-hour feeding schedule from day one. I haven't yet broached it with her that that's not exactly how breastfeeding works, especially in the early days! Am waiting to see if she will interpret me feeding on demand as "baby isn't getting enough milk" and start pressuring me to give a bottle. Hopefully not, but I wonder if routines have a lot to do with it? They were really impressed on that generation, so perhaps that meant a lot just couldn't make breastfeeding work.

I'm sat in hospital with my 2 day old DS trying to establish feeding...FIL has just described breastfeeding as a 'fad' Was quick to point out the 'natural' basis for this current fad...

Mercedes - congratulations on your two day old ds - and good luck with the bfing!

Mercedes, that'll be a 20 million year "fad" then

Def a mix of listening to myths and jealousy.

Keep up the good bfing work, ladies. DS is 6.5 months old and I'm still going strong.... despite the comments I've heard from family and friends.

good thread.

i posted v upset about my mil when i had ds2. lots of not enough milk, feeding too much etc. also had the 'my babies fed 4 times a day by now (6 weeks!), of course then i lost my milk' with no idea of the significance of this. also convinced no benefit to bf beyond 3 months, and that bf isn't for everyone. was very cat's bum face about feeding until 2yrs! She is a GP...

cloudy, i too think i have hypoplasia on 1 side and struggled terribly with ds1, mix fed, then it was much better with ds2, now on ds3 and my supply is better still, so keep going!!

love the comment about mil doing well with her kids and so marrying one, v nice thing to say.

as the mother of 3 boys i hope i'm not an annoying mil if/when my time comes!

My IL's believe strongly that you should only BF until your DC get teeth. Older BIL was BF until 9 months, DH until 7 months and younger BIL until 3.5 months for this reason.

Each time we see them (weekly), FIL inspects 7.5 mo DD for teeth (none so far), asks if I'm still BF and upon receiving the affirmative remarks "Ah well, don't worry - it won't be long until she gets teeth and then you can pack it in". I smile vaguely and change the subject... although each time he asks if I'm still BF I have the urge to say "why, are you thirsty?". Ask a silly question, get a silly answer...

Thanks weasle! I have read before that it can improve with subsequent pregnancies / babies, something about stimulation + hormones from pregnancy urging those late blooming milk ducts to grow up and start producing :)

Really good to hear anecdotes of people that was true for, so thanks for taking the time to tell me!

My MIL (English) breastfed all her three children (this was in the 50s). My mother (Indian) did not (60s) as she had big babies and was scared that we would drink her dry ! So she got my grandmother to give her some herbal shite to dry up her milk.

She was surprised that I BFed both DC; DS for seven months and DD for a year. But she understood how important it was for me.

She said at the time, routines and FF was the given and very hard to go against trends.

Overwhelmed that is awefull! Dh's uncle was born with a tooth so no bf for him by that reckoning! Not even colostrum

Fwiw someone pointed out t'other day that a baby has to put it's tongue over teeth to suckle.

Envy.

I honestly think that there is a massive denial thing going on - the love relationship between a breastfeeding baby and his/her mother is one of greater affection and intensity than any other and one of life's greatest pleasures. I think lots of people are very, very envious!

I had to ff two of my dc as well as bf dd2 for 2 yrs. The pain of seeing other mums bf when you didn't - for whatever reason - cannot be underestimated unless you have really gone deep and examined everything that happened and come to terms with it.

My aunt was in her seventies when I had my dc. She told me with such sadness when I was bfeeding dd2 that she'd had to stop feeding my cousin 'because my milk was like coconut milk'. I didn't have the heart to tell her that foremilk is supposed to look like that. Another time dh's uncle visited with his gf and she asked me with tears in her eyes if I felt that I'd bonded better with my dd2 than my other two because of bf, because she hadn't been able to bf her sons and she felt they must have missed out. Her boys were in their twenties!

It's really not hard for me to put myself in the position of a woman who years ago believed the cultural pressures around womens' bodies and lies about ff and now feels a mix of guilt and anger. And because these women can't go back and change anything they subconsciously believe (wrongly) that it's less painful to hang on to their old ideas than to really open up to the pain of what they and their dc missed out on all those years ago.

Wow, more great posts.

spirit, yes, I can understand what you say there.

I ffed ds1 from 2 weeks because of lack of support/unrealistic expectations/bowing to the God of routine, etc and I do still have a lot of sadness and regret. I also used to feel incredibly sad/envious of bfers as well as admiring them!

I love feeding ds2 so much I am even more upset at times that I didn;t persevere with ds1 and I cannpt look at photos of him as a wee baby being ffed without feeling weepy. Though I do not judge other Mums, I certainly judge myself!

Nicky, I used to feel the same. Then I realised that there's the hypothetical baby for whom bf was best, and my baby, for whom for whatever reason bf wasn't best.

We all try out best and do what we can at the time. That's all we can ever do. And that first time mum thing is so hard.

Yes, first time is a steep leaarning curve!

I have 'forgiven' myself. I am more angry really that the odds are stacked against bfing for a lot of us. I think it is amazing that so many of us manage at all, given the bottle feeding culture/tits as wanking fodder/babies as inconvenience society we live in. My Gran bfed 7 during the war no problems because it was the norm! Nowadays it is an achievement to bf at all.

nickytwotimes i have felt all the emotions you describe and still feel awful on a daily basis.
i ff my first from birth by "choice" and 2nd from second feed.
I am more mature,informed etc now and to be honest the whole breastfeeding thing has become an obsession for me.

I find it ironic that from being pregnant with my first to having had my second i had never seen anyone bf(yet now that is all i seem to see and i feel so jealous)
It was an alien concept to me and feeling highly uncomfortable with the idea of it combined with the fact that the good old MIL said she hadnt wanted to either,it was fine not to .......all my friends ff etc etc

I still dont know how i am ever going to get over it actually and whether i will ever "forgive" myself.
All i can think is how i have failed my children and thinking maybe i should have another baby to make up for all these feelings.
Silly i know,and i wouldnt do it unless for the right reasons.....it just all makes me so sad

i still feel angry and my MIL for letting me believe it was all fine.It is ultimately my fault though...think im just looking for someone to blame

Nicky, where I live bf is the norm and ff is seen as lazy/weak/stupid.

The support that I got was still crap though.

I'm glad that you've forgiven yourself. I felt angry about the way I was treated both when I was trying to bf dd1 and when I had to give up. In the end I spoke to my GP about it so that she could talk to the mw in particular about being more sensitive. I don't like feeling angry and in the end I just decided that things are the way they are.

One of my closest friends was born just before the start of the war. She was one of twins, and her mum couldn't manage to feed them both, so an Italian lady down the road bfed one of them. Can you imagine the reaction to that now?

buttercup, read the politics of breastfeeding.

she describes wonderfullly how the odds against bfing are stacked against us. we shold not feel guilty but should feel angry that us and our babies were let down by health services, family, etc.

i think there are lots of people feel this way, even my poor mum and that is going back 36 years! there is a lot of unackowledged grief. dh says 'oh well, ds1 is fine and healthy' but we all know it is about a lot more than that!

please don't feel bad. how the heck can you do something you've never seen? in our society it is like bfing is the bottle substitute, no the other way round!

yy, spirit, cross nursing went on among my granny and her peers. it is a wonderful thing to do for another woman and is stil really common in other societies i believe. But yes, my ils would be appalled!

buttercupp, there are so many other aspects to parenting - breastfeeding is just one small thing. Can't you forgive yourself and try and think of some of the things you did right for your children? There is terrible neglect and abuse going on, sadly, every day all around the world If you gave your children love and care in many other ways, then please forgive yourself, I'm sure you did the best that you could at that time.

Buttercupp, I am so sorry that you feel like this.

From the perspective of someone who has both ffed and bfed I can promise you that it makes no difference to the dc, certainly in terms of ther bonding and happiness, and if our family are anything to go by, their health.

But it made a difference to me and that is what I needed to get over.

We can only ever do what we can. If you weren't aware of bf, if everything around you pushed ffeeding as normal, how on earth were you to do things differently?

I do understand about feelings of anger because I have been there, but ultimately anger is a destructive emotion and it is possible to try to bring about change without being angry. I've also found it massively helpful to use my experiences to help other people; by talking to my GP about the services here, by being there for my friend who had to stop bf and who was devastated too, and by posting on here, which I hope helps sometimes.

The problem I found was that anger and sorrow were affecting me as a mum. But honestly, it has made no difference to the dc as to how they were fed.

Buttercupp, how old are your dc?

thanks for the kind words..my dcs are 3yrs and 9 months.

silly as it sounds its only recently i realised what a huge mistake i had made with my children.
I started to see people bfing,i started reading up on it more etc etc and it all began to dawn on me the enormity of my decisions.
People say oh how could you not know this that and the other,you would have to live deaf and blindfolded to not know blah blah blah but you know what i had my first dd in Spain and i was asked how i would like to feed.....the box was ticked nothing EVER said about Bfing

2nd dd in Uk again i was NEVER asked about it,NEVER given a leaflet or one of these dvds that people go on about.I was asked when dd was born if i wanted to try and i did.When i struggled on my own i was too shy to ask for help so just got on and did what i knew.

I genuinely thought BFing was for older women and the only benefits i was aware of were slight increase of risk in allergies which dont run in my family anyway so comparing that risk with what i knew and how i felt about it it all seemed fine.

I can honestly say hand on heart that up until about a month ago i had no idea there were any long term benefits

I know that this is negligent on my part now as i shouldve looked into it but when you see something as the normal way to do things i dont think that helps.

spiritmum i completely relate to how it affects you as a parent because i simply see myself as a bit of a failure now actually and spend so much time reading posts about breastfeeding etc,worrying about it,berating myself for it thinking how selfish i must be etc when i could be putting those energies into other things like spending that time doing things with my children

Buttercupp, of course you weren't to know. Genuinely. You were doing what was normal for you.

Yes, there are long-term benefits but there are all other kinds of things which give long -term benefits also - the biggest thing of all that you can give your dc isn't bf but love, time and attention. My three are now 8, 6 and 4 and I can say hand on heart that I do not believe that bf has given dd2 any advantages over her siblings, in terms of weight, health or intelligence.

Okay, so let's put the bf thing to bed now. It's done and you cannot change it, and going ove rit will only make you sad.

Look at the present moment. What can you do right now for your dc that reflects the type of mum you want to be? Finger painting, going for a walk and splashing in puddles, making cottage pie for tea...these are the things your dc will remember, not whether they were bf or not. Eating well, having fun, reading with your dc, playing counting games, looking at natural ways to boost their immunity through diet etc - all these will give your dc so many advantages. But the biggest advantage of all is that they will have a happy mummy who is giving them the best start possible and who is creating a great life for herself and for them.

Good luck, and if I can be of any more help you can CAT me or contact me via my website which has an ad on classfieds somewhere.