Buying bottles. First step to failure?

[TotorosOcarina]

Firstly this is a thrad about ME. This thread is not intended to judge anybody elses feeding choices, I am talking about MY on experiences and my own perception of those.

All 3 times I've tried breastfeeding I haven't been able to.

This pregnancy I've been pretty flippant about it, but my thoughts go from 'I'll just give it a go and not really think about it too much' all the way to 'I'll just buy bottles and not even try'

I went to get all my bits for baby as I'm 30 weeks but have bad hips and its getting hard to do bus journeys and all day shopping trips.

So I was in Boots and I bought bottles.

Now I feel like they are there to use.

But I don't want to go straight to bottle.

I just feel like I've put so much pressure on myself.

I geuinly do not know what to do on the feeding front.

I don't feel like Formula feeding is failure, its how I've fed all 3 of my kids.

But I feel like the failure will be my own lack of trying something that in an ideal world I would like to do.

If that makes sense??

I bought bottles. I breastfed, sucessfully, and used them for ebm.

buying bottles is no kind of decision.

I have found that if bf gets hard, someone here will help me.

You sound like you want to try.

why not say, I'll do colostum, and go from there? If you end up ffing, so what?

i copied your posting style. weird.

What stopped it working out before? I've always found it quite easy to bf in hospital when theyve just arrived, i dont know where id sterilise my bottles and all that stuff in hospital, so it could be most convenient to bf dc4 at the very start? Could you set a time frame in which you'd feel successful, like 2,4,8 or 12 weeks of bf? Hope someone has some good advice for you.... I bf dd for 6 weeks and found it a very difficult experience and felt a bit rubbish that I couldn't get the hang of things and Ds I'm still bring at 5.5 months, so I think it can be quite a different story with every new baby.

I had not only bottles but - gasp! - samples of formula in the house (US hospital, they were shoving it as us, we took the 'free diaper bag' and it was full of wee bottles of formula). DS had some of that formula, in the first week, when we hadn't got his Tongue Tie figured out and he was getting dehydrated. In the end I've EBF from day 8 for 7 months so far, and there's no signs of stopping.

I think that establishing breastfeeding can be really bloody hard work (even if just the hard work of "now I must sit here and not do anything else and feed this baby for 45 minutes, after which he will sleep for 20, and then wake and want to feed again. And I must not go crazy. And I can't reach the remote.") So for some people having the bottles/formula right there can be too much temptation, like having cake right there can hurt your diet.

I was very bloody-minded and determined to breastfeed and I could afford to call in a lactation consultant when, in my particular circumstance, it went tits up (hah! Sorry). Therefore it worked despite the bottles and the formula. I don't think having the bottles in the house will hurt your chances, exactly, but I imagine the thinking behind 'don't do it' is simply that there's no way having bottles around will HELP you breastfeed. In the way that, say, someone else doing your housework and some dvds will help you breastfeed. (thanks mum!)

The nice nurse who got us started in the hospital said "Every breastfeed counts. Just do it as long as you want, because every one counts, and then there's no pressure." It got so much easier for me after the initial 6 days of "oh god why isn't he getting milk" and then the initial 8 weeks of him feeding NON STOP... but at first, it's hard. Taking the pressure off helped. I found myself thinking 'well I could stop tomorrow, I've done really well to get this far. I'll just feed him tonight and decide in the morning' - and then each morning thinking 'aah, ok, I'll keep going, he's so cute when he's face-in-boob...'

So now I'm determined to get to a year because that's when the health benefits for ME kick in, and I feel like I should get something out of this! Plus, bfing has been downright EASY since about the fourth month, so when I thought "oh I could stop now" at six months, I couldn't face the faff of formula.

Erm. I rambled, sorry! I think if you can find your balance point between being determined enough to push past the frustrating parts, and cutting yourself slack if you've actually had it and you'd like to stop, you'll do fine. Every drop does your baby good, and if you decide to stop, congratulate yourself for every drop that your LO's had. :)

Thankyou.

I have homebirths so don't even have those first few days or even hours being around alot of midwives for help.

With DS1 I was only 20, I found it very painful, I was tired, had stitches, blah blah blah. I just went to bottles.

With DS2 I was determined, he was born I fed him for a few days but it really hurt and the MWs told me he was latched on, I was worried he wasn't feeding right, still hungry etc.

I don't think I have faith in my body to feed them properly.

If milk was there from the go i might fee different but i just get drops frm my breasts - how ds that feed a baby when a botle would give them an ounce or 2?

With DD i just went straight to bottles (after colostrum feed) and then tried to relactate at 2 weeks old, which was a disater.

We had saved up for the money for a lactation consultant, and we had three recommended names on the fridge. That, to be frank, and the fact that we called one, she came over, and fixed things - that was what meant I could bf successfully. Might that be a possibility for you?

You do only produce a few ml of colostrum at first, but it is enough - babies' tummies are very very tiny, and also, the colostrum is sort of like extra concentrated with all the goodness etc. It's definitely enough for them in the few days before your "mature" milk comes in. Their tummies then stretch to accommodate the larger amount of fluid. I guess this just happens earlier if you give bottles.

this is good about stomach size.

it's no failure to buy bottles. i can see how you might see it like that, given your feelings about wanting/hoping/not sure about breastfeeding this time round.

some people find that getting really informed helps them cope with the early days of breastfeeding which can be a total nightmare!

Here are some great website that its a great idea to bookmark if/when you need help:

jack newman's website. he is very experienced with breastfeeding mothers and babies and knows what he is on about

http://www.kellymom.com/ is a real find. you can google 'kellymom _' insert issue, and a great page with loads of links comes up top in the list.

i guess just take it a step at a time. you are more than likely to succeed with the right information and a good dose of determination.

...the little drops of colostrum are quite high in protein and have a laxative effective, helping the baby to poo out the meconium - it kick starts the whole bowel .

hth

this thread has also got some great links

Your experience with Ds2 sounds a bit like mine with my dd . I had no confidence and didn't understand how bf worked, it seemed like a pitiful amount if I expressed, it really hurt, she didn't gain weight, mw's and hv's were really unhelpful and it was just too hard so I went to bottles.

With Ds I felt determined and learnt a little bit about how bf actually works (from the kellymom website) which I hadn't done before and that helped me adjust my expectation of what it should be like and helped me continue when I thought I wouldn't be able to. I wanted to get to January, which has come and gone and now I don't really want to stop for a while. For me, the key was to start feeding and keep feeding, I knew it would be worrying that would stop me succeeding so I just kept my head down and kept going until I realised it was really working. Luckily ds took to it relatively easily. Not sure if any of that helps...

It really does sound like you want to give it a try again, it took four days for my milk to come in with Ds and between birth and then I just fed him all the time and that seemed to work for us.

I didn't buy any bottles- so not sure if Id have used them if they'd been here.

btw I REALLY sympathise with your last sentence. It's so hard to trust your body, and it shouldn't be - bloody world has taught us that we can't possibly do as well as SCIENCE and MARKETING but we absolutely can. I read up a bit and found that knowledge increased my confidence. If you're interested, 'the food of love' is great, as is the info on www.kellymom.com (specially this link). I can't find it right now but somewhere on that site there are pictures of the capacity of the infant stomach, which made me feel reassured about how much milk my newborn was actually NEEDING and able to hold. A stomach the size of a big grape or a marble isn't MEANT to hold even an ounce of fluid - it's meant to hold one or two tablespoons, at most... etc.

Ah! Others got there first and explained it better. Hurrah for information!

Formula is not designed for a baby at every stage like breastmilk. Colostrum is hugely concentrated, so they hardly need any when their tummies are tiny (plus babies are born with fat reserves they can lose without health problems before Mum's milk comes in). So to get the same amount of calories, you need a lot more formula.

Having bottles does not mean the end of bfing, but I'd say a lack of confidence and knowledge (and/or support) could well do so. My DD started out mainly bottlefed after a SCBU (and tube fed) start, but she's now ebf. But I was very stubbornly determined to make bfing work and had support from my DH and a BFC (and then a local BfN clinic). I'd also done a lot of reading beforehand and expected it to be hard.

I think a lot of people assume that if bfing isn't easy, they're doing something wrong. Actually bfing is incredibly hard at first and needs a lot of working at it!

i bought bottles and exclusively breastfed for 7 months. i didn't buy formula though so only intended to use them for expressed milk. it has been difficult and painfull but i made my decision and know it will pay off in the long run. This is my 3rd so i'm well prepared for the growth spurts and i know it will take a few months for things to really settle down and become easy.

i had one very sleepy baby who hardly fed at all in the first few days which was very frustrating. they won't starve in the first few days, they hardly need anything untill your milk comes in - your body will produce what baby needs so if you believe that and trust your body and your baby you will be fine. if that's what you want?

i've had all of mine at home as well and very limited help. i went to a breastfeeding group a couple of times but the main thing that worked for me was to look at the guides and pictures then just sit with baby and practice. i went to an nct breastfeeding course while pregnant which helped. it takes baby a while to get the hang of it as well.

THANKS FOR THE REPLIES.

I think I will get some books togher and read up a bit, I did buy a book with DS2 but it ws rally militant and scared me a bit TBH! was like reading an encyclopadeia!

Hi - After I failed spectacularly to BF DC1 I bought in bottles and everything I'd need to feed DC2. Strangely, having it all there made me more relaxed as I could always bottle feed.

As it was I bf DC2 for over a year.

Its not the first step to failure at all. Its just being prepared just in case!

See if you can get the NCTs little breasfeeding book. I found that really useful.

Also second time around I found a great bf support group, which I didn't have first time around and that was good. You can go along before the baby arrives too.

The other thing I did which really helped while I was anchored to the sofa feeding in the early weeks or if I felt like I was getting a bit disillusioned was browse this forum or dip in to a bit of kellymom (kellymom really is a super place to start). Also dh was v supportive and spent time entertaining dd so I could bf in peace.

A great book to read is The Food of Love by Kate Evans. She's a cartoonist, so the pictures are brilliant and it's written in a very easy, non judgemental style.

I know what you mean about home births though. I had my three at home and I think the mws just assumed I didn't need any help and pretty much just left me to it. They are so short staffed now that the daily visits are a thing of the past.

Another great thing to have a look at it biological nurturing (sorry if this has already been mentioned). It's all about enabling the baby to find the breast and use its natural reflexes and instinct to latch on and feed. Have a look when you get a mo anyway.

I bought bottles,thought i'd buy them to use but i'd bf for a week or 2....12 weeks later ds has only ever had 3 bottles of expressed breast milk. Just relax! You've bought bottles to use but your going to try bf if it works out then it works out if not then u have bottles :)