Why New Mothers End Up Quitting Breastfeeding

[Treadmillmom]

My great niece was born at 8.23am yesterday morning.
At approx 12pm my nephew is on the phone to his grand mother (my mom).
She over hears the wail of the baby over the phone and asks, 'Why's the baby crying?'
'Oh, she wants the breast grandma'.
'You shouldn't give it to her everytime she cries for it', replies my mother.
What utter b* s**.
Oh so a 3.5 hour old baby should be refused a feed, or what, you'll spoil it?
For Gods sake, why do people come out with such utter tosh?
It made me so cross.

That is desperately, desperately sad...and you are absolutely right, that new mothers give up because of attitudes like this

:( I hope the mum and dad didn't listen.

Things like that made me stop bfing dc1.

Luckily I knew better 2nd time.

Seen this too, so often. I still get told 'make him wait' occasionally by my mother.

It gives new mothers the idea that there's something wrong with them/their baby, because they 'should' be going longer between feeds. Which is really sad. And I can't stand seeing tiny babies being jiggled and bounced and having toys waved in their faces when they are just hungry.

It seems to go hand in hand with that weird attitude to small babies, where they are treated as if they are much older, and capable of cunning manipulative behaviour. 'oh, he knows how to get YOU doing what he wants...' 'he's not hungry, he's just doing it for attention...' etc etc. I can't stand that.

My mothers generation were told a load of crock about bfing that meant many of them didn't manage to bf to 6 months let alone longer. My Mum got to the 6 week growth spurt with me and was told to supplement formula!

I do hate all the concepts of "spoiling" babies. They're babies for chrissakes.

Agree with you glowy about applying adult characteristics to babies. My friend put her baby in to a cot in her own room from birth because she was a 'big girl' and wouldn't feed her until the hands on the clock were at the right place even though she was crying. I had to bite my tongue very hard that day.

There's an interesting website here. It talks about the 'booby traps' that sabotage women's breastfeeding.

my mum often remarks that the reason DD fed every 2/3 hrs at about 5 weeks was because i was giving her little and often and she was greedy... I should make her go 4 hours then she'd have a good feed

:(

My mum was told by her health visitor to only feed my brother for 10 minutes each side every four hours. Unsurprisingly, she couldn't get breastfeeding established, the poor baby was ravenous and he ended up on formula, which she regrets to this day.

With me, armed with a copy of the book Breast is Best, she did the 'smile and nod' routine with the HVs, fed me whenever I wanted, and carried on until I was two.

So sad that all the crap peddled about breastfeeding undermines women who desperately want to make a success of it.

I find it really weird that before you give birth everyone is telling you how easy and natural breastfeeding is (which I also think is a type of bs). Then once the baby is here everyone goes on about how difficult breastfeeding is and tried to persuade you to give a bottle at the first little problem.

I fed my DD for 10 months and in the long run it was great and I'd definitely do it again but the first 2 weeks were really hard and it didn't come naturally - I needed a few tips from my fantastic midwife. Luckily she was very supportive and encouraged me to keep going and more importantly made me feel confident about following my own instincts. I really think a more realistic picture of breastfeeding before the birth followed by a bit more support afterwards would help so many more mothers feel confident to carry on.

My mum was told to breast feed me only every 4 hours. Unsurprisingly she ended up switching to bottles because I cried all the time and her milk dried up.
She was amazed at how often I fed DS but she was very supportive - she said she wished she had been told to feed me everytime I cried. What was worse was when my DTBs were born and were in the prem baby unit she expressed milk for them but everytime she went to give to him the nurses refused as they had already given formula

I think you need to remember that the older generations who come out with this "bullshit" only do so because this is what they were told by the HCPs of their day

But yes it is a major contributing factor to mums stopping bfing before they want to - so we need not only to educate the mums and dads but also their own parents.

it's awful isn't it - I do feel very lucky that I had such good support from my MWs and HV with DS, and that I got the referral to have his tonguetie snipped because it was all such bloody agony and took 2h at a time to feed him, poor little soul. Not one of them suggested I should give up though.

I have little doubt that my mum would have told me similar - she only bf me for 3d because I made her nipples bleed; and I don't think she even managed one feed with my brother and sister, although she might have just got the colostrum into them (can't ask her because she died while I was pg). My sis didn't bf because she found the whole idea nauseating and "didn't want to be like a cow" :(

i do think a lot of it is managing expectations and that feeding often (hourly or more) and for a long time is usual and healthy breastfeeding behaviour, especially in a new born

i read hardly anything about cluster feeding for example, but it is very common breastfed baby behaviour

it can be a shock to the system - how many posts are on MN about getting babies to go longer between feeds becuase a book/HCP/relative etc thinks they should be

i failed with breastfeeding my first but am still going with my now 18 month old

wish i knew then what i do now

Totally agree rubylovingmum (and rubyslippers) - a more realistic expectation of what BF-ing might be like would be SO much help. And better support afterwards.

The question of realistic expectations cropped up in my BF support group a while back. The HVs got a bit defensive, and said they were only 'allowed' to be 'positive' about it when they discussed it with expectant mums. I said, but surely creating an unrealistically rosy picture means they are more likely to think something's wrong, or for it all to come as a huge shock?

They said if they told mothers about cluster feeding, it would put them off!

I think that's SO misguided. Every mum I've known who stopped BF-ing early on fed formula in the 1st 6 weeks because they were convinced their baby was hungry, was feeding too often, there was something wrong with their milk, why weren't they sleeping longer, etc etc. They just had no idea what BF-ing was actually like. And I don't blame them, how could they know.

Misinformation about BF-ing isn't solely the preserve of the older generations either, although they were given very different advice in their day. I have heard some awful nonsense from young women who for one reason or another didn't BF. And it's misinformation which is more damaging in the absence of really good consistent HV/MW support.

I think the problem is that some women don't want to hear of how hard it can be because it may put them off BF. Yet, they may moan that they weren't informed of the possible difficulties WRT BF ie, cracked/sore nipples, mastitis and blocked ducts and tongue-tie, to name some.

Women who are hoping to BF need to be told about common BF behaviour in infants like feeding hourly/on demand, lack of sleep due to BF frequency, cracked/sore nipples, tongue-tie in babies, not latching on properly, how long it may take to get a good supply up and going (weeks/months), fussing at the breast, emotional/mental health WRT BF, possible lack of bonding during BF. All these things and more have been the experience of friends or myself.

Yes, BF is the physiological normal way to feed babies, but in a heck of a lot of cases, it's no walk in the park getting it established.

I think that very often we don't realise what normal newborn behaviour is and this makes us question what we are doing. I have bf 4 babies - but have an eight year gap between 3 and 4 and at the beginning with ds4 I was unsure I was doing the right thing - I questioned his need to suckle almost constantly and his need to be close - it was only through the encouragement of a good friend that I realised I was comparing him to a much older baby because that is what my most recent experience was. I have a mum and mil, who both bottle fed and had no experience of bf baby behaviour - and was frequently told not to fed if he cried and that he couldn't possibly be hungry - when I knew he was. Luckily I quickly caught on and could stand my ground again but our life was very different from the quick feed and put the baby down that some people envisage.

Cosmosis I BF 3 children and I'm a Breast Feeding Peer Supporter so I have told my nephew and partner that a newborn BF baby should be fed everytime she asks for it and they are not to listen to ANYONE who tells them different. I've told his partner to kick back and relax, watch TV, surf the net, watch a movie, have a doze all whilst feeding and allow her visitors whom I assume will be close friends and family to help pick up the slack on the domestic side.
I can't help but feel like a nag and perhaps step off the gas until she needs me. We're not close mainly due to local so I sincerely hope she remembers my urge to call if she's unsure about anything at all.

My theory is that pro-bf advertising is aimed too exclusively at pregnant women, and should be spread more widely around, because it's very hard for grandmothers and DPs to be supportive when they see the new mother in pain and don't really get why she wants to carry on.
A very bright male friend of mine came out with "she wants to bf but I think it will be very hard work for her and I want to help, after all we were all FF and it never did our generation any harm" I responded "well apart from X Y Z" and he literally hadn't heard any of it.

Treadmillion - thank goodness they have your voice of reason
Dilysprice - LLL do info sheets for Dads (Dads are special) and grandparents but a lot of HCPs won't talk about LLL or reccomend them as a support group.

I don't think I could have carried on if my husband hadn't been so supportive. I never heard any one talk about how dads could help with getting breast feeding established but my DH certainly did - bringing DD to me, keeping track of which breast I had used first on previous feeds, counting down the painful let down, watching DD get the latch right then helping us to keep latch like that the next time... this was in addition to the usual domestic chores that dads have to do whilst we're busy feeding. I think that if more men knew of how they could help in the early days it might dispel the myth that BF is just the mum's responsibility. I think that breast feeding is a parental choice, not just a mum's.

I also agree with previous posts that whilst BFing is natural, it is not always easy, especially at the start. I'm the kind of person who pushes herself to be great at everything (obviously, I don't always succeed!) but having such high expectations of myself was not a good quality when beginning BF- I felt like a complete failure when I couldn't do what I really believed to be the most natural thing in the world absolutely perfectly from the very start. I agree with previous posts that the possible difficulties need to be made clear to prospective parents so that when they arise, they don't feel like they are doing something wrong.

DD has thus far (fingers crossed, touch wood etc) been a great sleeper (8hr stretches over night from birth, often 12 hours now) My Mum was always amazed at how well she sleeps but then says "why is she always hungry in the day" and "you are always feeding that baby". Yes Mum, do you think the 2 may be in some way connected? She is also a big fan of "Do you think your milk is enough for her?" suggesting Formula or starting solids but I can't ever get out of her what she thinks that would achieve...

Gloyw I totally agree. It's so patronising all this "Oh let's tell everyone the best bits of breastfeeding, wouldn't want to put them off!" Just fucking give people the information, if someone chooses to FF based on that, so what? She's an adult, not a child, she can make whatever decision she thinks is best for her and her baby. It's not a massively dangerous choice to make in this country.

Misinformation pisses me off because it means people get their information from inappropriate sources, whether that's teenagers swapping contraception myths on the playground or new mums taking the advice of friends and family as gospel when quite often it's not. I mean, would you believe a midwife with a shiny pamphlet telling you something which sounds like only half the story or too good to be true, or your best mate saying "Oh save yourself the bother, they shred your nipples, they don't sleep and you end up switching to bottles anyway and then you feel guilty."

DS1 was born six weeks early and in special care being tube fed for one week. They insisted on feeding him formula down the tube (even though I was expressing) then letting me try breastfeeding, of course he wasnt interested as he had a full tum. Thankfully on day 5 a super nurse came on duty, said this was ridiculous and let me attempt BF before he was tube fed and he has loved my boobs ever since!! In hospital with DS2, I was a lot stronger and now despite having to use nipple shields everytime I feed due to flat nipples, we are now on week 13 of breastfeeding. It is bloody hard work but for me its relaxing and I really do enjoy it. DS2 does have the odd bottle of formula so someone else can feed him while I spend time with DS1, but thats OK too. New mums should be encouraged to BF but also need to know that bottle feeding is not wrong, everyone is different

I think I was very lucky to have a good NCT breast feeding counsellor and course leader in my antenatal classes. They were very balanced on breastfeeding. Told us a feed could be done in 15 minutes or it might take an hour. Told us about cluster feeding. Said it could be painful when they first go on but shouldn't stay painful or leave our nipples damaged. And most importantly said it wasn't always easy right from the start and if we thought something was wrong to get help right away and not hope for the best.

That meant when I had problems I got help right away and got it sorted before it went horribly wrong. And I mostly don't worry about my crazy cluster feeding baby. Although I did go to a breastfeeding cafe to recheck the latch to make sure we were doing it as well as we could.

Knowing what to expect has kept me breastfeeding, not put me off.

FEED ON DEMAND BFing LADIES !!!!