Who regrets giving up breatfeeding and how do you cope with the guilt

[kat2010]

I have a 12 week old DD and ever since I gave up breastfeeding 8 week ago I have been wrecked with guilt. I gave up breastfeeding because the pain was so bad when my breasts were engorged. At the time all I thought about was stopping it as the pain was so bad but thinking about it now I wished I had gotten help rather then just gave up. I really feel like I have let my DD down as i so wanted to give her the best start to life.

You can phone a breastfeeding helpline. They are good at debriefing mothers.

Relactating may also be a possibility and they can talk to you about this option too. Good luck on your journey. You are a wonderful mum.

You poor thing :( From what I can tell you fed for a month, and so did give her the best start to life, including colostrum.

You can call a breastfeeding counsellor to talk through your feeling about how breastfeeding went and your guilt over stopping

Are you feeling it is spoiling your time with her now? Is there any chance you could have PND?

You have not let her down you gave her the best start in life someone will be along now with a excellent link showing the benefits of 1 feed, a week, a month.

You did great much better than a lot us women had please don't feel guilty.

It's called Reasons to be Proud - and you should be. You fed your DD for a month at great pain and difficulty, and you have (I assume!) continued to be a great mum.

Look at your baby and see how beautiful they are, be happy for what you did manage to do for them at the very beginning when they are so delicate and need it the most.
Then... put your baby in their pushchair and go for a walk, sing loudly down the high street to make them smile and 'teach' them things about the world around them.
Let it go. It will eat you up otherwise and it is just one aspect of parenting. There is so much more to come.

you absolutely DID give her the best start, well done. bfing is a shock, i think, how difficult and painful it can be.

I have 3 dcs and only bf my first for 3 weeks. I developed pnd as a result. I've had more success feeding the other two and that helped me get over it as I realised a lot about why it didn't work with ds - expectations, lack or knowledge and support. But ds is now 12 and is very healthy, handsome and intelligent. Fight the guilt by remembering that bfvff is so important now but so unimportant later and get on with enjoying your baby.

I stopped BFing DS at 19 months when I had to spend 3 days/nights in hospital following surgery for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. This was 6 months ago and I still feel sad and guilty that our BFing relationship was cut short - and so suddenly.

No guilt at all. How can I feel guilty for feeding my child?

Stop reading this forum and you'll soon feel better!

I have struggled to breastfeed each of our 3 dcs for any longer than 10 weeks, with a mixture of expressing and formula. Each time it was heartbreaking when I stopped, that mix of post birth hormones and grief at not being able to do something which seem to be the most natural thing in the world is overwhelming.

I do however feel immensly proud of the fact that I managed for as long as could, despite a lot of pain and misery.

The only advice I can give is something my dh said to me when I stopped b'feeding dd1, which was that if we were going to f'feed lets do it in the best way we can. Lots of cosy, skin to skin cuddling in bed, gazing into her eyes. F'feeding can be a beautiful experience, feed your baby with love, and please try not to beat yourself up.

hazey your DH sounds fab - great advice :)

It is possible to restart - it is not too late with the right help.

I think it's a bit unfair to blame MN for any guilt about bf. There was no MN in 1998 iirc but it didn't stop my pnd. You have to fight the guilt, focus on enjoying your baby who is wonderful, be proud of yourself for being a caring mum and ff every feed with love.

Thankyou organiccarrotcake - he is rather lovely

Guilt is what comes with being a mum! I was exactly the same but now I look at my healthy happy 2yr old little girl and think she won't hold it against me. I tried my best for her. Admittedly I still look at other BF mums with a pang of guilt but you have to let it go. Being a good mum is not based on how long you BF for or if indeed you managed it all.

You are a Good Mother.

Here you are: Reasons to be proud

kat, i know how you feel.

i had a really awful time breastfeeding my first baby. i started mixed feeding him and expressing rather than direct feeding when he was 4.5 months.
I never got him back to the breast and eventually stopped expressing at 6 months

5 years on, i still feel guilty. i regret not pushing for more help, for not feeling like i COULD push for more help, for giving up

but you know what, he is a happy, healthy boy now. in fact, he is healthier than my 2 subsequent exclusively breastfed babies who both have egg/dairy intolerances!!

i think you just have to try and remember that you did what you felt was right at the time.
hindsight is a wonderful thing, but we CAN'T change the past, so we have to learn to live with it. you fed your baby for 4 weeks yes? that's far more than a lot of babies get and every single breastfeed makes a difference. she got the colostrum which is so important, she got that early bonding and closeness with you... you gave her the BEST start in life that you could.
yeah, it ended sooner than you would have liked, but it's ok. it really is

mskalo makes a good point.... if you wanted to relactate you could. it's a lot of hard work, but possible

Good on you for getting through 8 weeks!

I expressed for 6 weeks, I had hardly any milk as I was weak as a kitten, but dd got what milk I could give her, plus formula. When I realised bfing wasn't going to be possible, I cried for 48hours solid. Seriously. Dh thought I had PND and took some convincing that it wasn't

Dd thrived and is as healthy as a proverbial horse, has hardly been ill and has a good immune system. Whenever I worry or fret about whatever I did or didn't do, I remind myself of that - that and 'I did my best!'

Please don't worry or give yourself a hard time

You have nothing to feel guilty about. Enjoy your baby and the fact that you are now pain free and look forward to fantastic times together. I went through similar with my first baby. He's 15 now. You know what -he doesn't remember breastfeeding. He remembers collecting 500 conkers in the rain; being "man of the match" for the first time; falling off the monkey bars; and when mum went bonkers and threw the mega size box of frosties across the kitchen! Breastfeeding - nope - means nothing to him. Being loved - everything - and he still comes lies on the bed for a hug and a chat occasionally.