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.

adaddy - the bias to promote bf is worth it, imo - surely getting a mum over the hurdles to carry on is better than encouraging her to give up. you can give up bf any time you want but theres no going back.

In addition, no one here has suggested that breastfeeding is the be-all and end-all.

Speaking generally, breastfeeding gives the best health outcomes and formula feeding has health drawbacks.

Speaking generally.

But as I have said a few times in one way or the other, health considerations may not be the only factor in individual's decision-making. Individual needs may require different responses from the 'general' - and people should make their own decisions.

Why is that not enough for you?

You really are not listening, ya know!

Read all the posts and Im confused about what you actually want op.

Im sure most women know breastfeeding is normal/'best', but if it doesnt work for you and your family theres a substitute available.

Im sorry you and your wife are unhappy. :(

I'm not going to read or contribute anymore- its sad really. People have given you countless and common reasons for why your baby is behaving as he is and how the signs of low supply like soft breasts are actually erroneous. But of course you are not here to look for advice- you are here just to generate debate. I'll just say it one last time then I'm going.

Babies like comfort and some need to be on the breast pretty much the majority of the day to get this. It is distressing for them to be without. Its not all about actually feeding for them. Its pain relieving (your baby could be sore from the birth), immensely comforting, helps regulate breathing and temperature, provides a constant source of food rather like he got in the womb and ensures survival not just on a food perspective but on a evolutionary one. If you are with your mummy you are safer from the big bad bears than alone in a basket.

I know I am writing this and you will probably choose to ignore it. I do hope your wife and baby progress well whichever feeding route is taken. Good luck....over and out.

Suntangirl I think there is a bit of a misconception that breast feeding groups are all about sitting round in jesus sandals with hairy legs demonstrating techniques and exposing bosoms.

Or was that just me?

IME it's basically an excuse to sit around and have a chat. Mostly about not very much at all. But it's absolutely fantastic if you do have a problem you want to talk about. And it's just nice to go somewhere that you can happily feed if you have to without embarrassment (not that you should be embarassed anyway but many are in the early days).

X posted, OP, and just caught up with your post apologising :) :)

You said "My original post suggest that if all those things that go along with adjusting to your capability to supply do not work with you in the bigger picture then perhaps it is just not for you."

Well, who would disagree - maybe it isn't for you? Posts in response have suggested that 3 weeks is very early, that some of what you are experiencing is newborn 'stuff' and that breastfeeding may not be at the root of it....and that switching to formula may bring other as yet unknown drawbacks, as well, rather than a 'solution'. So what feels like a hard struggle now may not last - and this too should be part of your decision-making.

"We trust our health professionals, our last discussion did include lactation enhancing medication." That's an option, for sure....when other things have not worked. I still can't tell from your posts if the problem is 'intake' or 'supply' and if truly ad lib feeding to boost intake has been tried or not.

"I suppose my concern is that there is such a strong bias to promote breastfeeding, it can leave the mother feeling a range of very negative emotions when it just doesn't work for her. This is so unnecessary."

I think this is true - breastfeeding promotion can mean that women who don't bf can sometimes feel personally responsible for things outside their control and they feel they are somehow letting their babies down. The answer is to make bf help and support easier to access and more effective, and to support women who don't bf, without judgement.

Parenting - it's tough and scary - sometimes it would be nice to hand over the responsibility and decision making to someone else wouldn't it? Particularly when you are exhausted - physically and emotionally. Just look at all the MNs boards. Everyone here wants to do what's best and everyone here wants to validate and, if need be, defend their choices.

Dealing with all these emotions when you've just gone through a life-changing experience is such a rollercoaster. Some problems don't have easy answers or solutions - and sometimes dealing with the sheer frustration that situations create is hard. Particularly if you have gone through life able to solve problems that crop up and deal with dilemmas easily.

I hope you and your wife are able to work out what is best for everyone in your family.

Hi ADaddy,

I've been reading this thread with interest, and my heart goes out to your wife. You've been given some great advice by tiktok, realbmj and others and i hope you get a chance to share it with your wife.

I don't have any expert advice, but I am happy to share my experience. Similarly to your wife, I absolutely hated breastfeeding at first - I found it difficult to latch my baby on, he lost 13% of his body weight in the first few days, I wanted my body back, and I was exhausted anyway after a traumatic birth. BUT, it did get better and now DS is 7 months and breastfeeding is easy, and I love cuddling up to him on the sofa and feeding.

Anyway, at first I desperately wanted to continue breastfeeding even though it was hard, and these are the things that helped me:

1. DH would cuddle and look after DS for a good 40 mins to let me shower, wash my hair every day. Although the mother's wellbeing has little effect on breastmilk (as tiktok has so eloquently explained above) it sure as hell made me feel better, and so I felt emotionally better to go back and tackle the bf'ing again.

2. DH would bring me my meals and drinks when I was pinned to the sofa - he even used to cut my meals up so I could eat one handed with a fork (actually, in the very early days when I was all fingers and thumbs and had to use both hands to hold both baby and boob he sometimes actually had to feed me !)

3. HV arranged for a bf trained community nursery nurse to pop round and see me regularly to help me with positioning, and just chatting about normal bf behaviour. To be honest, I knew nothing about bf'ing until I had my son and I had no idea that all the "problems" I was experiencing were normal bf behaviour (eg. the constant feeding, the needing to be held close not just to feed but to be comforted, very few dirty nappies etc). Just realising this made a huge difference to how I felt about bf'ing and made it easier for me to continue.

4. Friends sent me box-sets to watch. Although I probably sound like an awful mother, 5 hour mammoth newborn feeding sessions go a lot quicker if you have The Wire/Sex and the City/24 to watch....

5. keep laptop by your side - in all seriousness I had a lot of help and support from MN in the early days.

So for me what helped was the combination of the bf'ing support from the nurse and other practical support from DH that let me have time to shower/eat etc. And also realising that bf'ing is not always the beautiful peaceful mummy/baby bonding that you imagine it would be (but then again birth was nothing like the "peaceful, meditative, light touch massage, breathing my baby out" extravaganza that I thought it would be!). Just because it is hard at first does not mean you are failing, it just means you are learning. You wouldn't expect to jump in a car and race Lewis Hamilton the first time you got behind a wheel; similarly you have to learn the skill of breastfeeding. And once you do, it can be lovely

I hope your wife gets all the info and support she needs to decide what is best for her and your baby.

tiktok it is nice to read this post from you. It does demonstrate an intelligent approach.

Some of these posts remain questionable as to whether they provide support and encouragement for the mother, or compound a feeling of guilt if it doesn't work out.

I am listening and I hope that my post might make a mother going through the same difficulties to ask questions of a healthcare professional and themselves to allow them to make an informed decision that is best for everyone.

That is what we are trying to do.

lastly - sling sling sling! if you have a baby that likes to be held get a sling. they are new from as little as £25 and loads on ebay second hand.

my closeparent sling saved my sanity when dd was little. dh would tuck her in to it and stride off in to town for up to 4 hours - yeh she would catch up feed later on but i'd get a few hours of rest and dh got to show of the cute fast asleep baby just peeping out and got to have a coffee with a mate or two so did him the world of good too. most babies love sling - might be worth a try

As a fellow father, now with a 2 year old and a 7 month old (still being bfed), I do think that there are some positives to breast feeding which are less talked about.

It is a struggle at first. I remember my wife attending endless bf cafes and having people over to help with her latch etc. It did not help that our first born suffered badly with reflux and would actually scream at the breast. However, the investment over an uncomfortable first few weeks has definitely paid off over 2 babies.

1/ Our first born son (cannot stand the MN nomenclature) contracted really horrible gastro enteritis at about 9 months. The ONLY fluid he would take at all was breast milk. I am sure it saved him a hospital visit.

2/ We had to spend a rather scary couple of days in an intensive care unit with our second son when he was 5 weeks old. The most common ailment there was bronchiolitis. Every single baby in the PICU with bronchiolitis was formula fed. Breast feeding is known to be protective.

3/ More generally, once someone "gets" breast feeding, it is really easy. When my wife came home with our second son, he just lived on her boob but she could eat, chat and do all sorts of other things simultaneously. And, her sleep was actually better when he was a new born (now is another matter) because she could bf half asleep and turn over and go straight back to sleep.

Of course, people need a personal approach and what is better for one family may be worse for another. In addition, nutrition and hydration do come first. We ended up having to supplement our refluxy first son with high calorie formula as he was just struggling to get enough nutrition. However, if you can, you do need to see the first few weeks as an investment that will pay off over time, especially if you intend to have more than one child.

larry - brilliant post and perfectly articulates the 'bigger picture'

one of the best things about bf, as you say, if that you can co sleep - when i have dc2 i will be co sleeping from day one instead of waiting 3 months and being knackerd!

But one of the very best things about bottle feeding is that someone else can do it.

Angrygnome - if those box sets make you a bad mother I am terrible...167 episodes of ER in 16 weeks

But to be serious for a moment. OP, I have just stopped exclusively breastfeeding after 14 weeks, primarily because DD was getting more distressed at feeds for reasons noone would fathom (ruled out thrush, supply problems, fast letdown etc.). She is now bottle fed (which was a drama in itself as it took ages for her to accept a bottle) and is thriving. I express half of her feeds and feed formula for the others. Despite her gaining weight and sleeping better, I feel terrible about it at various times- normally when I see others feeding. I feel sad when I see comments made on here by a minority of posters who seem to want to upset formula feeders and even jump on their support thread to add their tuppence worth. I felt especially sad today when I saw my DD's first nappy rash, which could be because she is finally sleeping through the night, but could be the formula. And my heart breaks when my baby roots for my breast when I cuddle her.

My point is that although I know that giving up EBF was the right thing for my daughter, I do wonder whether had I sought decent help earlier, whether I would still be feeding her myself. I didn't ask for help soon enough, and then the HV just advised to wean early. I was embarrassed to ask having 'failed' to have a natural birth, I felt I was failing with this next physical challenge of motherhood even though I have an extremely happy child. If I could turn back time just a few weeks I would persevere, seek professional advice, and accept that with the exception of a very small minority (whose children could have all the BM in the BM in the world, but won't have a great start with parents who are so narrow minded and thoughtless IMO) nobody wants to judge, just offer support to those who need it during the toughest weeks.

Good luck.

Oops weird bracketed sentence at the end there- I was getting teary- sorry!!!

Similar to some of the other posters I was really struggling 3 weeks post birth. My DD had feeding difficulties to start, jaundice, lost 11% of birth weight (took nearly a month to regain birth weight, etc). My DH was confused about how to help me but I suspect he had my mother reassuring him that it would get easier.

During the first couple of weeks I had DH and my mother making food for me, bringing me water, doing the cleaning. I sat around with a baby glued to me. At the time I pretty much burst into tears every time she latched on because it hurt so much. I didn't master feeding lying down till she was 4 weeks old so I was sitting up in bed every time she needed a feed which did not help.

Believe me I thought about quitting a lot. Dreamed about it, fantasied about it, talked about it a lot. But I knew if I did, I'd be disappointed in myself. BFing was something I wanted to do and I wanted it to work. All I needed was my DH and others around me to tell me it was going to get better and that I was doing the right thing struggling on.

And mid way through my DD's 3rd week, it did. I had my first pain free feed, she started sleeping longer stretches at night (stopped sleeping much in the day but that's another story). She still cluster fed like a demon but she wound up packing on a pound a week for a while and turned into a big bouncing baby.

I recently weaned my daughter off the breast after 2 years. I never expected to feed her until she was 2, my original goal was 12 months. But I'm really glad it worked out for us. Our start was hellish but we made it through and it has been a key part of the glue in our relationship.

I hope you and your wife manage to figure out what's best for you. If she continues breastfeeding, she may be almost ready to come out the other side where things get easier for her. She may have a little longer to go before it gets better. It will be worth it in the end.

amothersplace - for me another great thing about bf was that no one else could feed dd.

The quote about getting her 'tits' back doesn't feel genuine to me. Not trying to troll hunt, it just doesn't seem like something a woman would say - maybe something is getting lost in translation.

OP, if breastfeeding isn't working for your wife and she wants to give up that's fine. If she's struggling but wants to keep going, that's fine too - support her. The baby being fed is the main thing, though there are clearly extra benefits to breastfeeding if it does work out.

Not sure there's a need to come to mumsnet when you don't seem to want help, but instead want to tell women that breastfeeding ain't all that anyway.

Hmph.

Hi CelebratedMonkey

Nope, she actually said that, this morning in-fact.

I haven't ever said that breastfeeding isn't all that, only that it isn't everything.

I thought Mumsnet was all about communication, I'm pleased that there is a forum for this.

larrygrylls, cocoachannel and TuttoRhino thank you for the posts, I do genuinely appreciate you sharing your experiences.

i'm off but lastly i think lots of bf mums owuld agree that the first 6ish weeks were the worst. 6 weeks is when lots of mums stop and i can understand why because it can be so hard. however at the 3 month point it definitely got easier and again after 6 months.

it wont always be like this

For the majority, what suntangirl says is true but for me it was okay to six weeks, when it got harder, and hit near impossible at three months

ADaddy, you are right. Breastfeeding isn't everything. It isn't 'best' for every baby and mother, particularly if it isn't working. I think 'best' is a bollocks word to use anyway but there we are. It can't be denied though that breastfeeding is very personal and can become very special to many women, particularly if you get past the problems and see it for what it can really be later on - I loved larrygrylls's post.

You have had some wonderful suggestions and posts on here and I urge you and your wife (if she wants to get back to exclusive breastfeeding) to have a look at the links regarding the IBCLCs as this is where your wife will find excellent support that is highly qualified for specialist situations (like yours may be) and shouldn't be conflicting or guilt-inducing.

Good Luck whatever you do.

For toktok I am sorry, for what I have last night, I would have apologised earlier, but i was at work all day, hope you will not hold at against me.

Meant to add - Meita's post I liked too