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

I'm going to cry, I wrote a long reply and it got eaten!

I've never added up before what I've spent on breastfeeding, it goes a bit like this:

Breast Shells - £30 (two sets, useful in NNU)
Nursing pads - £10 (one box for each pregnancy plus Bounty samples)
Manual Pump - £5 (Tommee Tippee special at Asda, had a steriliser and bottles included)
Lansinoh - £10 (only needed one tube)
Bras - £100
Milk Bags - £8
Total - £163
£/ baby - £81.50

I'm pregnant with #3 going to have to buy more nursing bras because after 5 years these are on their last legs. So an extra £100 makes it £87 per baby. Averaged over 5 years that's only £17.50 a year breastfeeding has cost me. Yes I have some nursing tops I've not counted because they cost the same as normal tops, I also use maternity shirts and maternity night wear usually opens up at the top too.

You could also factor in HSV which if I was formula feeding would have to be spent on formula and as I'm breastfeeding they count against my food bill.

£83.70 (pregnancy 1)
£317.20 (First year of #1's life)
£483.60 (Age 1-4)
£86.10 (pregnancy 2)
£317.20 (First year #2's life)
£483.60 (Age 1-4)
??? (Don't know how long this pregnancy will last)
£317.20 (First year of #3's life)
£483.60 (Age 1-4)

Total £2,572.20

I think it's fair to say I'm in credit from breastfeeding!

6 bras - about £25 each as I'm a weird size and only one manufacturer makes bras that fit me. I wear them at night as well which is why I have so many.

No extra clothes, though I do keep looking despondently at all the nice tops in my wardrobe I can't wear because my BF boobs won't fit in them. If I'd known I was going to be BFing for 9 months plus (we have a really stubborn bottle refuser), I would have bought some more tops in my BF size early on so that I felt less depressed about looking terrible.

2 boxes of breast pads about £10.

2 tubes of Lansinoh £20.

Manual pump £10 (TK Maxx).

So about £200 in total for 9 months of BF and counting (and I would have had to buy new bras post-pregnancy anyway).

Oh, and the pump was a waste of money - I could cry when I think of the amount of time I spent expressing just so DS could refuse the bottle and the milk could go down the sink.

DP would like me to point out that you are not factoring in the cost of a continuous supply of Dairy Milk

BF was pretty much free for me. I bought my BFing bras on eBay (new, I hasten to add!). I remember one cost £1.99. And I only bought about 4.

I bought re-usable breast pads - the washable fabric kind.

I did buy a steriliser and pump and stuff on advice of HV who thought DD wasn't getting enough milk and needed topping up but TBH I never really got the hang of expressing and DD never wanted to take bottles so that was all waste of money and certainly not an essential BFing cost.

Probably bought one tube of Lanisoh.

Didn't get any special BFing clothes.

TBH, don't really get why anyone would argue that BFing is expensive Surely you can make these things as expensive as you want. It's a natural function of the human body. Yes, you could buy £80 agent provocateur nursing bras. Or, like the millions of women around the world since the beginning of time have done, you could just do without.

Urgh, the thought of doing without bras - they're not necessary in the sense that I'd have died without them, but I can't even bear to sleep without one at the moment because of huge flopping boobs. Certainly couldn't contemplate exercising without them!

What a steaming pile of horse shit.

Can't be bothered to read your blog.

A friend gave me some washable breast pads, bought a couple of bras in the right size (bra free at night) and bob's your uncle. If I expressed it was into a cup and generally by hand or by manual pump that a lovely MNer gave to me when she'd finished with it.

So I spent about £10 in 3.4yrs of breastfeeding.

I think the cost argument is a bit of a red herring. Comparing the relative costs is almost impossible. You could bottle feed fairly cheaply, if you had secondhand bottles passed on to you, did coldwater sterilising in a washing up bowl, never bought cartons and used the cheapest brand of formula you could find. And breastfeeding can be expensive if you buy lots of nursing bras, and disposable organic breastpads, and an electric pump and a nursing pillow and lansinoh and do as I did and meet the extra calorie requirements with fancy cakes!

But for most of us cost isn't the main reason why we breastfeed. And since most women start off breastfeeding and move on to bottle feeding when it doesn't work out I doubt many of them are going to think 'I've had no sleep for 72 hrs, my nipples are bleeding, my baby won't stop crying but if I just persevere I could save as much as £500 over the next year'.

On a side note - those people who hand expressed how did you catch the milk? Whenever I tried milk squirted in every direction apart from into the bottle. One memorable evening DH had a go at milk-catching which we agreed was very entertaining but not really sustainable in the long-term.

I bought breast pads. Never used them, have never leaked.

I did buy a breastpump, used it three times maybe. Sold it on ebay so got most of that back.

And what everyone else has said about bras.

For DS2:
3 bras - £90 (but used 2 of them during pg anyway)
Breast pads - about £15, can get away with a bit of tissue now, as only need on the one boob when feeding!
Few cheap tops with buttons, but would have bought post-pg clothes anyway

Although I did spend a small fortune on probiotics to see off thrush at the beginning!

This report sounds ridiculous. I don't need to read it to tell you what i needed to breastfeed:

2 nursing bras, 1 tube of Lansinoh, one manual pump, 2 sets of washable pads, some bottles for expressing.

Total about £50 max. And you don't have to express of course.

The only thing I will have to get again for no.2 is the Lansinoh (have you noticed btw that the expiry date is just a bit less than the gap most people have between their children? I only needed mine for a few weeks). I might treat myself to a new nursing bra!

What next? The hidden costs of breathing?

I spent a fortune due to lack of care in hospital on top of flat nipples and poor attachment which tore me to shreds.

For the first few months I bought every cream, pump, bra, shell, pad, shield, book, bottle going in an attempt to not hurt so damn much.

Anyhoo, at around 4 months it all fixed itself, mainly due to ds growing bigger I think, and I spent not a penny on baby milk for the next 10 months.

I still think I'm massively quids in compared to ff - the price of formula is crazy for what it is.

Didn't buy any special bf clothing though.

Main cost for me is definitely all the extra cakes I treat myself to need to eat for milk calories

What a ridiculous load of stuff to buy. I'm feeding still at 8 months and all I bought were some crappy vest tops I cut the bottom half off I wear underneath my old clothes to give me some more cover, cost me £6. I used one tube of nipple cream and some breast pads the first week and no longer need them. that's it. no bottles, I did have a hand pump given to me and some bottles I don't use. Breastfeeding bras I have two, £15 and I think they were a waste of money, I use some old bras of mine.
You can spend as much or as little as you want, depends how savvy you are. this article has annoyed me a bit tbh, really silly. bf is hard work to get off the ground and this is just another way of putting peeps off it, it's best. Fir Bubs and this shite article seems a crap way of trying to make it seem less attractive to do.

It seems cake is a reoccurring theme on this thread

I've just remembered why I didn't use many pads last time - I had to use a folded muslin! Boy did I leak! I was sort of jealous of myself. My first baby spent three weeks being fed nasally and I couldn't keep up, but I had so much leakage second time around I could have kept a baby fed in NNU just by wearing shells!

I'm 32+2 so hopefully this baby is going to need less pumping now. (Yup I count my pregnancies in pre-term milestones!)

I agree with pag

Of course breast feeding is cheap - it's free .

Most of the things listed in your link are extras, and you can obviously breastfeed without them. I probably spent about £30 on BFing bras, which I used when BFing each of my children. I also bought one pack of washable breast pads which lasted me through.

The list in your link is ridiculous IMO.

breastfeeding is free. if you want to lumber yourself with paraphernalia connected to the act then thats your choice. but none of it is necessary. i don't think caveladies had nursing bras.

Two Anita underwired feeding bras (35 quid each) and a second-hand Boppy (a fiver) got me through getting on for 3 years of feeding.

I also saved on never buying a pram or a cot. And I had no period for 2 years so saved on sanitary protection.

So I'm off to buy myself a Bottega bag ....

Oops, I forgot I spent 75 quid on a breastfeeding counsellor, who just told me everything was going well (I had my daughter overseas)

I don't know what feeding my 2 dd's would have cost me but it would have cost a lot more than 1 tin of formula week at £7 a week(I'm taking the word of others that this is the average required throughout the feeding) & that alone would have cost £1456 (2dd's fed for 2 years)

That is without allowing for:

Cost of boiling water for all feeds
Cost of steraliser
Cost of steralising daily (electricity)
Cost of washing bottles teats (must add up to several more dishwasher loads a year)
Cost of bottles & teats
Cost of premade formula for travelling/out & about

I'm sure there are a few more costs for the gullible, just as companies like to market to bf mothers they also make stuff for ff too, bottle warmers, formula measuring storage thingies etc etc.

And yes 15 bras is bizarre- I have 6 which have done for dd1 & dd2 at £10 each. I don't count them as an expense as I would have worn bras anyway..

As the consensus seems to be that it is rubbish- I have taken the item down.