Breast feeding- is it really cheaper?

[MissWing]

Hi all

Was suprised when I did the sums, but I think it's worth pointing out that although breastfeeding is regularly promoted as free, and theoretially could be, it's not necessarily the case:

misswingandsnaffles.blogspot.com/2011/04/breast-value-for-money.html

Interested to know your thoughts.

Miss Wing

breastfeeding itself is free,

there is no need to buy bottles, pumps sterilisers etc, if you choose to express then that is not exclusively breastfeeding and doesn't count as a cost of breastfeeding it is a cost of feeding from a bottle.

Nursing Bra's are a cost I suppose ut I certainly didn't have 4 nighttime ones and 7 daytime ones, more like 2 daytime ones and none for nighttime (£16 mothercare 2 pack)

breastpads, I wore for the first few days but not after that so not a great cost

Pregnacare supplements?? didn't take any extra tablets, didn't know I was supposed to

Didn't buy any specialist breastfeeding clothing aside from the bras.

'Silly' is my tuppenceworth.

15 nursing bras, though!! I don't think most people would shell out that much :)

(You would have to buy bras anyway - whether bf or ff. )

You don't need branded bags or bottles - and if you're ff you'd have to buy bottles!

24 breastpads are not needed - I used old hankies that belonged to DH.

You absolutely don't need pregnacare supplements. If you want to use supps, then of course you can do so, but ff might use these, too.

Clothing - you have to wear something when you ff, too :)

No one needs a pump. I hand expressed, though I know not everyone finds it easy.

You'd need to subtract what you would buy anyway, unrelated to bf (clothes), then subtract the unnecessaries (branded bags, supps) and then consider if the other stuff is useful or necessary.

Bf can be virtually free, and as you say on your blog, ff expenditure on the milk, bottles and teats and sterilising stuff goes on.

but those totals are only for 16 weeks

once you've got nursing bras/pads/anything else you might want that's that.

the cost of formula goes on for a year! surely increases as your child gets bigger and drinks more. we used to go through a tin of formula a week with ds1, at £7 a tin that's £364 a year JUST for the formula.

so.. yes, breastfeeding IS cheaper, It's up to you if you choose to buy lots of unnecessary items like special tops, breast pumps and stuff like that

no-one I know has spent anywhere near £200 on nursing bras! that's fairly ridiculous, isn't it? I've had probably 6 bras over the last 4 years of breastfeeding and 2 of them I picked up for £5 each in sales

I have six nursing bras, 40 euros each, used over five years of bfing (and counting). I think I've gotton my money's worth.

Even if I wasn't bfing, I would still wear a bra.

I can't even be bothered to read that silly article.

the bf part is free!

If you include bras then about £100 i suppose, but I would have bought new bras by now anyway so it doesn't really count as breastfeeding expense I dont think.

I haven't used nipple cream, more than one pack of washable breast pads, a steriliser or supplements. I bought a bottle of sterilising solution and that was it.

I have no special clothing either.

I didn't have any nursing bras , just well upholstered Matalan (of all places) old lady bras.

So,in almost 6 yrs of bf I spent £30 on my breast pump and a couple of quid a month on breast pads initially.

Yes- I completely agree that I overspent massively on nursing bras.

My first mistake was buying the them before the birth- within a few days of the delivery they did not fit.

And as you say the baby carries on feeding one way or the other way beyond 16 weeks.

FIFTEEN bras? Sheesh. I don't own 15 bras, nursing or otherwise.

I bought one box of disposable pads initially since then I have used washable pads, 5 euros each, just two pairs.

I also bought breast shells as I had so much milk. The breast pump I have I think I paid just two euros for it, second hand unused.

Yes. It is.

You don't actually have to buy anything. I didn't even wear nursing bras. Oh...tell a lie, I bought some breast pads and some rotasept first time round. Cost me about £10.

Wow 7 bra's I've never had that many in one go ever. Had about 4 altogether with DD 2 of which I've resued and the other 2 hopefully will fit again in another 6months. Although I have splashed out on a nice HOT Milk one recently. It's not really an etra cost though is it. I'd have had to have new bra's anyway even if I didn't BF as my shape changed so much.

Plus you can't included the cost of bottle's and sterilies as you don't really need them and you'd also have that cost if formula feeding, you'd probably need more bottle's I've only ever had 3.

I've never need nipple cream and breatpads are washable but I certainly didn't have 18!!

So it really can be very cheep, there is no way I've spent £300 and I've got two, so lots of things have been reused.

But you will need to buy bras for the last trimester anyway, and I found mine to be the right size for the bf period (though I guess that's not true for everyone). And surely most people replace bras roughly every year. Clothes ditto, I planned ahead when I was buying the maternity wear I would have bought anyway (the middle trimester wardrobe is normally good for the bf stage). and topped it up with a couple of tops from New Look in my bf size.

I did use a load of disposable breast pads in the first few weeks, and about half a tube of Lansonil (worth every penny). And multivits, but if you're the sort of person who's going to take bf multivits then you're probably the sort of person who's going to be taking multivits anyway.

But I saved a ton of money on booze, theatre tickets, babysitters and espresso .

I think the moral is that if you are gullible insufficiently sceptical about the claims of the advertisers in the back of the NCT magazine there is no limit to the amount of money you can spend on unneccessary gubbins.

Ridiculous article. I have bought five nursing bras over four years and one tube of Lansinoh.

Thought this was going to be about the extra food you have to eat. Breakdown of calories in/milk out, that kind of thing. Seems the most obvious cost.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with owning 15 bras, nursing or otherwise. I probably spent a similar amount on chocolate, which is more of a breastfeeding essential, IMHO, than multivits.

Each to their own.

I'm surprised so many people get by with no breast pads. I had to wear them for the full 6 months I BF my DD and I tried reusable ones but they were useless so it was disposable ones all the way.

Another point that my DH raised was that you need to eat more to sustain yourself when BF which is another hidden cost.

I still think BF is indisputably cheaper, but not free for most people no.

Most of the stuff you buy can be reused though - not like formula which you use up.

I bought breast feeding tops - which I liked using but don't think are necessary (now i feed in whatever i am wearing) - I bought quite a few nursing bras (but all mothercare) and wish I'd thought to buy nursing bra's when I bought bras at the end of my pregnancy - other than that a lot of the expenses are really as a result of expressing.

FFing needs to include the cost of eelctricity in boiling/sterilising etc as well

The only real extra costs I can think of is extra food (though given that we waste a lot of food anyway, don't really need to buy more, plus I had plenty of baby weight to burn off), a couple of nursing bras (£25 for 2 in M&S - would have had to buy new bras regardless though) and breastfeeding pads (about £5 for washables). Oh, and some Lansinoh - that was about a tenner.

So all in all maybe £40, though the bras are questionable. An extra £5 a week on chocolate as well

Mouseanon - you don't need to eat more to sustain bfing, fat deposited during pregnancy can then be used for energy to make milk. This is why so many women successfully lose weight while bfing, particularly from their waists and hips.

I, on the other hand, totally took it as an opportunity to eat more, and have put on weight as a result.

I breastfed both of mine, using the same nursing bras. And it cost me nothing.

Ritamorgen - good point about food wastage - apparently in the UK we waste about a third of all food.

Most of these costs are down to how well companies these days create markets - who would have thought they'd be able to sell £100s of unnecessary stuff for breastfeeding fgs!!

I shall have to ask my nan, but I have a feeling she didn't buy 10 nursing bras, bottles and a breastpump when she was breastfeeding her children

URM..nah.

i have four crap nursing bras which i only wear at all in the first week after birth...

id use breast pads for first week each time.

after that it is normal bra without pads. a sponge-cup bra will take minor leakage during the day without showing.

Total - maybe £40-£50 across three years of breast feeding.

if anything i have put off spending money on new bras because i don't know what my size is anymore, or what it will be when finished.

That woman really dos love spending money though. Why hasn't she tried Hot Milk mursing bras? I've been lusting after one of those for ages...