Is Breast Best?

[ADaddy]

First of all I want to say that my heart goes out to all the women out there that are struggling trying to breastfeed their child and feeling the pressure to continue.

My wife gave birth nearly 3 weeks ago and since then has had a really rough time with breastfeeding. I just wanted to share some words with women in a similar situation. I'll put them in points to be more concise.

1. There is so much more to being a mother than just being a milk supply. Don't ever forget this!

1. This is about feeding your baby. It is too bad that they don't have "Feeding councillors" rather than just "Breastfeeding councillors".

1. Your baby's nutrition and hydration is vital. Don't feel guilty for making sure your baby has both of these.

1. The well-being of the mother is also vital. You need to be there for your baby, does your experience with breastfeeding enhance your well-being or make you feel like the contents of your babies nappies?

1. Unless there is imminent danger, Healthcare professionals will put breastfeeding above things such as sleep, washing, bonding, jaundice. It pains them to say the word "formula" so don't expect them too.

1. Healthcare professionals are mainly interested in the colour of poo, if wee is coming out and if the baby is at least gaining some weight. In that case all is well, forget the rest. This is NOT a holistic approach and one of my main bug-bears with breastfeeding promotion. There is a much bigger, far more complicated picture to consider to determine if breastfeeding really is working for you.

1. If you have a latch problem then they like that, they can help solve that. It's different when it is a supply problem, that is not always solvable and they tend to be in denial about it (mainly because it is far more difficult to solve).

1. Demand feeding:

a. Is lack or sleep good for mother or milk supply or to that end baby?
b. Is not being able to find time to eat good for anyone?
c. Is no time to wash good?
d. Does baby sleep a lot and forget to demand only to wake up ravenous and too fractious to feed?  Can't be possible, this does not fit in the ideal world of demand feeding :)
e. No routine, no structure, no way for an adult human to live?
f. Are you told, don't worry, keep going your milk supply will come through soon?
g. Feels like it is driving you insane?  Maybe it is!

1. Is the difficulty of breastfeeding affecting your bond with your baby? It is hard enough, healing, hormones, baby blues and worse, don't be pressurised into sacrificing this important step under some misguided notion that your baby will suffer by not being breastfed. He/She is likely to suffer more if you are not able to nuture this all important bond.

Of course, these questions and statements come from our personal experiences, although from what I have read on the internet, we are not alone.

If you read through my points and breastfeeding is still the right approach for you, great! If not, then do the best thing for you and the baby (yes, that is YOU too) and consider alternative approaches.

And before you ask, the only vested interest I have is in the health of my wife and baby and doing what is best for them.

Comments welcome.

I do wish you'd get your wife to post here. It would be very helpful to know why she feels she has supply problems and whether she would really like to switch to formula or would actually prefer some help with BF.

I haven't read anything in your posts which suggests that there is actually a supply issue. This bit in particular ... the statistic that measures a woman?s ability to satisfy her baby's hunger within a defined schedule may be better, or perhaps we can establish supply issues and hence breastfeeding issues by identifying a statistic that looks at breast milk production during a defined feed. suggests to me that the problem may actually be unrealistic expectations of what tiny babies are like. Whose 'defined schedule'? What is a 'defined feed'? I don't believe 3 week old babies generally have a schedule!

I was very very lucky with BF - loved every minute of it, never had latch or supply problems, not so much as a sore nipple, but they were still plugged into me for most hours of the day and night during the early weeks, my boobs resembled sad deflated little bags as soon as the engorgement went and there was never any such thing as a 'defined feed' or a 'schedule' - sometimes they'd feed for over an hour, sometimes for 5 mins or even just a few seconds (checking it's still there, I suppose). I couldn't have done it without co-sleeping and I couldn't have done it if I'd been worried about how often they 'should' feed and how long for.

Adaddy to be frank this is becoming deeply frustrating.

You still haven't told us your wife's experiences or wishes.

This thread seems to be all about you. Your ill informed ideas about bf. Your wishes for your infants feeding. Your ego.

Where does your wife figure in all this?

Tiktok I always love reading your posts :)

OP: 'If you do what you've always done you'll get what you've always got'

Just isn't true when it comes to bf - bf can be very difficult to establish, I well remember my first baby being 3wks old. That feeling that you'll never feel normal again, that you'll feel this tired forever, that baby never stops feeding!

BUT, it does get better, bf changes and once established gets so much easier as the weeks and months go on. Hard to believe now, I'm sure, but there will come a time in the next few weeks that baby will have more regular feeds, and will last longer between feeds - it comes with age!

I had a horribly shaky start to bf my first - quite literally a case of blood, sweat and tears! My poor dh supported me completely though - taking the baby wile I had a bath, and basically doing everything else so that I could concentrate on getting feeding established. Many a meal was eaten one-handed! At 3wks, I was constantly sat on the sofa, or lying on the bed, feeding for what felt like the whole time - still having to really concentrate and grit my teeth to get him latched on properly. Then I remember somewhere around the 2-month mark thinking this is fantastic! I can do this! I was so glad I hadn't given up - it was just so easy and convenient. I bf him for the whole first year.

By the time I got onto ds2, I was such a pro I could walk around the house/answer the door etc while bf and even keep ds2 latched on while helping ds1 on the toilet! Not asking for a medal or anything - just saying that 3wks is such early days - it can and does get better.

OP you haven?t actually told us what you believe the problems to be, if you were to specifically detail them we may be able to offer some suggestions.

As primrose above, after an initial period where he wouldn?t latch on, and then a couple of night where lazy latch on my part lead to some soreness, I had no bfing issues at all. But even then the first few weeks are just constant constant feeding. All I did was sit on the sofa and feed, or lie in bed and feed. What I didn?t do was look at the clock. When he needed feeding he needed feeding whether it was an hour or 5 minutes since he last fed.

The thing is, having a baby is hard work, but swapping to ff doesn?t change that. Tiny babies will mostly still need holding all the time, however they are fed, it?s what they are programmed to do. They don?t even know they?re a separate thing, they?ve never known cold, or hunger or loud noise really bright lights before, it?s such a shock to the system to them, being born.

To answer your question to tiktok regarding mother's diet and compostition of her milk can I direct you to this and this.

From all yourposts it seems that there is no concern for your baby's well being, and that your baby is behaving in a normal newborn fashion. It seems to me that the problem here is that you (we can be sure of your wife's feelings or thoughts on this) are very concerned about your baby fitting in, finding a pattern, schedules and routines. Unfortunately this just isn't in the nature of small babies (regardless of feeding method), they do not 'fit' into the adult world immediately (and in fact for many years to come). Some babies fall into a pattern sooner than others but IME and from other those of my friends, it has very little to do with what the parents do and depends mostly on the baby itself.

Perhaps the expectations of having a baby and what they do have been so different from the reality that you (and perhaps your wife) are struggling to deal with it. I really, really, really urge her (and you can help her with this) to get out and meet other mothers, a bf cafe/group is a great place to meet other mums going through the same 'culture shock' at the same time and will really help to put her mind at rest.

'As for support groups, NCT, midwife, breastfeeding councillor, breastfeeding support groups, help lines, yes we have tried them. Unfortunately, as was amplified by these posts, the advice is always very very similar.'

I am starting to see holes in this whole thing. If your wife wants some real help from experts such as tiktok get her to post herself. If she wants to stop breastfeeding because it is not the best thing for her, support her to do so, but stop coming on here with guff about statistical variation of supply. Women are more than capable of feeding their babies if they DON'T come at it from your type of logical, analytical, MALE point of view.

Thought I would link to thisthread for you, so you can see that it isn't just bf mums who have to feed their babies all the time.

As I said before, babies are individuals and very few slot into some sort of predetermined regimented schedule.

peanutdream I think you have hit the nail on the head here - OP is doing the typical male thing of trying to fit a newborn into a logical plan. I just read a few bits of this thread out to my DH, who is Mr LogicalBrainExtraordinaire and he laughed, remembering the early days with our DSs!

You just have to go with a newborn and forget schedules and routines. It is very hard for many people to do this - I remember feeling like this myself and I had loads of pressure in this direction from my MiL about routines and four-hourly feeds. But I resisted and fed our two DSs for 12 months each in the end. These early chaotic days do settle down in the end and years later, you look back and smile about the sometimes loopy ideas that you had - then you get the equal chaos of the teen years!

OP, please listen to people like tiktok, she is wise, knowledgeable and sensible :)

OK, if you want to know my wife's opinion and her own words then perhaps you can gauge it from some of these statements

"I hate breastfeeding with all my body"
"I can't wait to get my tits back"

These are just two that spring to mind.

Experiences:

Hours of breastfeeding at a time, and a screaming baby as soon as he is removed
No sense of engorgement at all.
1 week of no pooh in the nappy
Midwifes reporting that the baby was probably getting only just enough nutrition
A happy, settled baby after some substituting with formula.

Is there something else you would like to know?

It is someone insulting that some posts seem to suggest I am putting words into her mouth, I am not. Why would I? What could I possibly gain by doing that?

My ego? My wishes? This is not about me, although I understand you're upset and frustrated since I am not asking for your advice, merely raising a question that every mother is entitled to ask, without feeling guilty or pressurised.

Where does my wife figure in all of this? Paramount. That is exactly why we have discussion together on this, since as far as most breastfeeding advice goes, it is OK not to sleep and be exhausted all in the quest for the breastfeeding baby.

She hates it, but want's to give the baby the best start she can, and I will support her in every way I can. She is still trying but as time goes on there is still little improvement. The last thing she needs, after all this effort is some of the attitude and dogmatic approaches presented here. There are so many complaints of lack of support, I suggest that you all look deep inside yourselves and ask if the limited support that is actually delivered (by yourselves and others) is any good. How could you improve it?

As for schedule PlentyOfPrimroses, I think you missed the point. Until you can establish a consistent, meaningful metric, disregarding a mothers reported experience of supply is a very bad idea.

Thank you peanutdream and TotallyUtterlyDesperate.

Not just content with your dogma, you are also into sexism now. That's fine. None of this changes anything.

TotallyUtterlyDesperate my DH bless him actually started a spreadsheet. Looking back now it makes me ROFL! At the time I was a bit as I didn't want to be run by an excel spreadsheet fgs but it was obviously just his way of trying to make sense of a newborn's feeding habits so I thought aaahh. I think it lasted a week - bless - and when he saw no discernable pattern really (except for constant feeding, particularly between 4-8pm ish lol) he gave up!

'Hours of breastfeeding at a time, and a screaming baby as soon as he is removed
No sense of engorgement at all.
1 week of no pooh in the nappy
Midwifes reporting that the baby was probably getting only just enough nutrition
A happy, settled baby after some substituting with formula.'

Have you actually been to a LLL group? Or seen an IBCLC as one week with no poo is very worrying! Midwives are not breastfeeding experts.

I'm not trying to be sexist,, but breastfeeding is a female thing, not a logical, analytical male thing. Indeed, childbirth and breastfeeding have perhaps been ruined for women by the male, very medical, approach of the last 100 years but that is perhaps another thread.

"There are so many complaints of lack of support, I suggest that you all look deep inside yourselves and ask if the limited support that is actually delivered (by yourselves and others) is any good. How could you improve it?"

Don't get me started ADaddy. The lack of adequate support for breastfeeding women is the NUMBER ONE COMPLAINT of all those on here and in RL that know how breastfeeding actually works.

I am really sorry you and your wife are having such a worrying time. Given the (very few) bits of information you have volunteered, your wife needs some expert help with the breastfeeding immediately.

I think there is much wilful misunderstanding of posts coming from Adaddy - as is often the case when posing a leading question on an internet forum the op was seeking support for his pov and chooses to ignore/ misinterpret any counter arguments.

I can understand it too as I know how bewildering the first weeks with a new baby are - I clearly recall what seemed like weeks passing where I sat on a sofa or lay in bed with a baby latched on (with my first child) and when ds wasn't latched on he was crying or puking - I was obsessed with his weight gain, attended clinic at every opportunity and thought I had lost control of my previously relaxed, independant and easy life! So latching on to one aspect of the baby's care - breastfeeding as being the sole cause of all the worries, stresses and loss of control is very attractive as you think ok maybe 'breast isn't best?' maybe we are being pressurised into doing something and it should not be like this?! Eureka! etc.

Then 6 months down the line all the stress and worry is being caused by something else - introduction of solids or weight gain, or whether baby is sitting up yet, then nest comes when the child starts to walk then talking, reading, writing, behaviour, choosing the right pre-school.... ad infinitum there won't be a scapegoat for every obstacle.

Good luck with getting the ultimate answer ... you are just trying to get through like the rest of us I hope things get easier for you soon op.

You seem to be asking 'Is breast best' or is it better to starve a baby when breastfeeding is not working? You seem to imply that that is what should be done. Absolutely not! A baby needs feeding! I don't know what help exactly you have had so far but if this is all you have received in terms of help then yes, you are right to wonder what on earth its all about?!

"i'm not asking for advice" well this is the problem isn't it. Tbh, you should be. If your wife doesn't want to bf fair enough. But as said before there are issues around stopping bf that she could use advice about.

As she is torn between benefits for baby, and her own feelings about bf she could opt for mixed feeding. There are strategies for doing this that maintain supply.

You have a 3wk old baby and a struggling wife. This is not the time to be doleing out your pearls of wisdom. You should be helping her find information. You should be seeking advice.

"You seem to imply that that is what should be done." I don't mean that - I mean you imply that that is what you/women/your wife have been told should be done at all costs.

"I hate breastfeeding with all my body"
"I can't wait to get my tits back"

I said this with both my dc, I hated breastfeeding as well but I still did it because yes breastmilk is best is a fact.
I am still not sure what u r trying to achieve adaddy you seem to just want us all to agree with you, which we don't. Do have a problem with females having a different opinion to you?

If your wife really does want to continue to breastfeed (and it seems that despite her assertions of 'Hating [it] with all her body', she actually does) it would be a great help for her to work with a real breastfeeding expert (like and IBCLC or breastfeeding counsellor) who can sit down with her, talk to her, observe a feed etc. Not pooing for a week at this age is an indication that there is some problems with supply BUT it is not an insurmountable problem. There are many, many things that can be done to help her build up her supply and improve milk supply.

It is not a quick fix though.

Telling her that the answer is changing to formula, if she wants to continue to breastfeed may solve some of the problems in the short term, but will not necessarily help her in the long term.

Please, please, please do not hget angry with posters on this thread who are genuinely trying to understand and help, it won't accomplish anything. Seeing someone truly knowledgeable and letting your wife tell her story in her own words to that person is the only way in which this situation will resove itself, whether or not she chooses to continue breastfeeding.

Dogmatic? I don't think I was - maybe a bit sexist, but that was based on my own DH. Sorry if I seemed a bit flippant, but I meant my response about routines to be helpful. I hope that you get the help you need, OP, and are prepared to listen, because you don't seem to be listening to the vast majority of posters on here who are trying to give you positive and helpful advice.

There are some fair points made and yes it is always worth seeking further advice.

I do not know what a LLL group is or an IBCLC, but as I mentioned, my wife has been to breastfeeding support groups, seen midwifes, the breastfeeding support group lady on a one to one basis and spoken to relevant people from NCT.

However, we have yet to receive advice that is either substantially different or seems to work. Overwhelmingly the advice is just to keep doing what you are doing and it will get better.

As I have mentioned, if women experience the same difficulties as my wife, and still choose to breastfeed, that is great. But if they don't then they should not feel guilty about seeking alternative approaches.

I am not sure why you think I am misinterpreting counter arguments.

If, in light of the fact that your baby' poos are so infrequent, your wife is still being told to 'just carry on doing what she is doing' she is not seeing the right people.

Once again, I urge you to get her to post on here herself.it would be much easier to tease out what is happening if we can hear exactly what is going on from her and ask her questions directly.

May I ask which area of the country you are in? We could perhaps help by directing her to a lactation consultant/bf counsellor or support group in your area.

QueenOfAllBiscuitsandMuffins nope, disagree with me, that is fine. But it is important to ask the question and be able to receive impartial advice that allows the mother to make an informed decision.

And therein lies the difficulty. With the emphasis, emotions and support structure as it is around breastfeeding, it is timely and useful support that is right for the individual mother is not always possible to achieve.

So where should we go?

TheRealMBJ eventually, after our prompting, the discussion surrounding formula has come up. This solves immediate health concerns for the baby and allows my wife to get some relief and rest.

We have spoken to the local NCT breastfeeding counsellor, but unfortunately, the advice in terms of adequately increasing supply is the same. And as I mentioned, we have had very little success with this.

We have even had lactation enhancing drugs mentioned. Interesting but not a route my wife wants to go down.

What do you think an expert would say that is substantially different to the other experts we have spoken to?

Adaddy; LLL is La Leche League www.laleche.org.uk/

there is also the ABM abm.me.uk/

And BFN www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/

as well as the NCT and various other organisations around the country.

An IBCLC is a lactation consultant, the highest qualification you can get for bfing advice.

The thing is you seem to want someone to tell you what to do, but only your wife can actually decide whether to give up bf or not. Advice from any of these groups will be geared towards how to improve bfing, as they are BFing groups - but where appropriate they will refer to hvs/mws/ other relevant hcps who may advise formula top ups if they feel it is required.

"As I have mentioned, if women experience the same difficulties as my wife, and still choose to breastfeed, that is great. But if they don't then they should not feel guilty about seeking alternative approaches"

Oh well, ADaddy has sorted out all our problems then! There is no further need for a breastfeeding discussion board on Mumsnet! Thanks you so much ADaddy for telling us all what we should do and what we should feel re. Feeding our babies.