First time mums who do not try bf - why?

[Booboostoo]

This is a genuine question out of curiosity and NOT an attempt to label or evaluate anyone!!

I know 5 women who gave birth for the first time around the same time as me. One tried bf but it didn't work out which is fair enough. The other four never tried it. Why do people choose formula without giving bf a go? As far as I know neither had a medical reason preventing them from bf, it was a matter of choice, but why do people reject bf when they don't know if it will work for them? They all have months of maternity leave.

clit, 'body' issues, arising from sexual or emotional history, are not uncommon as a major factor in feelings about breastfeeding - please don't belittle these issues, it's horrible. They don't stop people getting pregnant or giving birth, and it's naive of you to think that if they don't they are somehow not genuine :( :(

This thread was going ok (relatively) until now.

I would be really really grateful if posters could keep the factual comments about the relative merits of bf vs ff and the evaluative assessments of people who chose or do not chose to bf or ff for other threads.

I was genuinely interested in this question and have found the answers extremely enlightening so many, many thanks to everyone who has taken the time to respond. My personal view on this matter is that motherhood is a 60 year plus project and it is not defined, doomed or validated by any one choice. Women make a personal choice on this issue, it's always good to have more information before making any choice, but beyond that I don't see any reason to make anyone feel guilty for making the bf/ff choice either way.

I have 2 children and chose to bottle feed and i do not regret my decision. I chose to become a mum and bf just never appealed to me. Both were very happy healthy content babies and in fact apart from the odd cold they have never had any infections or illnesses, unlike my two of my friends children both bf one who was bf for 6mnths and is extremly underweight and is poorly every month, the other was never satisfied so was feeding constantly the mum was constantly exhausted and developed pnd - it annoys me that so many people put emphasis on how important it is to bf. We are allowed to make our own choice why cant we all just respect each others personal decisions.

Traylo - of course individual decisions, and the right to make them, should be respected.

It would be good if you could do this - instead of linking the breastfeeding choice of your friends to underweight, illness, lack of satisfaction, exhaustion and PND.

Anecdotes like this are not evidence of anything significant related to infant feeding choices, and while you might be correct in your observations that these 'events' took place, listing them as a consequence of breastfeeding (unlike your own choice, which you link with happiness, health and contentment) does not show respect for the choice to breastfeed.

Hope you understand what I am getting at.

Firstly, in response to the OP, 2 ladies I know chose to ff from day 1. Seeing them recently made me remember this thread so I thought I would share.

One's reason to ff was that she thought bf would result in a clingy baby. She now partly regrets her decision as she realises her preconception was not true. She tells me were she to have another baby she would give bf a try.

My other friend's reasons for choosing ff are less specific. It seems ff was a more natural path for her and she's happy with her choice and I respect that. Her point of view reminds me a bit of the one shared by Traylo2girls in that she gets irked by the big emphasis placed on bf.

However, luckily for me what she does not do is try to draw parallels between bf and negative outcomes.

Traylo2girls - if someone was to come on here with a post along the lines of 'my friend ff her baby and it's always ill with some virus or another, is very overweight and is covered in dry skin' then they would be totally flamed. It's not ok to spread false misconceptions about bf. It happens too often.

Someone showed me an article recently about a woman who had drank a bottle of wine and then bf her baby lying down and rolled onto her baby in her sleep. Sadly the baby died. The article warned against the 'dangers of bf your baby in bed'. There was no warning about, you know, maybe avoiding drinking a bottle of wine...

I think Traylo's point (and Traylo please correct me if I'm wrong) was not that BF was linked to illness, but was actually an example of my earlier point that while it is generally agreed that breast is best on the whole, as booboostoo put it, motherhood.. "is not defined, doomed or validated by any one choice".

FF does not automatically lead to poorly babies anymore than BF'ing automatically leading to healthier babies. So let's not judge mothers on this single fact alone, as there are so many variables in what creates a happy, healthy and intelligent child.

MigGril I would be very interested to read those studies if you could kindly point me in the right direction.

I sort of didn't want to address the rather ridiculous and ignorant point clit made about sexual assault... it's clear that some people have absolutely zero empathy or ability to relate to others here on MN... but I guess if it had been me who had been sexually assaulted, having someone sucking/licking and generally playing my boob every 2 hours every single frickin' day would send me over the edge too. I don't have any such history, and even I feel violated on some days when baby is playing with her food and I can't get her to stop. I know it's my daughter and she doesn't mean it, but that doesn't make it any less unpleasant. Go ahead and judge me for feeling that way!!

clit or whatever your name is....if you'ere wondering how I managed to have sex....my breasts don't require penetration in order for me to concieve.

Sex and bad memories are entwined for me...certain words, touches, parts of my body can all make me respond violently....not all the time...but there's no way of knowing when it will strike.

I don't mind talking about it on here as I might educate the ignorant.

I don't feel even vaguely guilty for formula feeding either.

Of course not Rag doll. Why should you?

Hate the guilt factor.

The way to upping bf rates is NOT to make people feel guilty about feeding their babies ffs. Grr makes me mad.

Tiktok/yesmynameis -i think you've misunderstood my post maybe i cud have worded it better. i wasnt trying to link bf with unhealthy babies, i was simply showing a couple of examples of experiences close to me. I have friends who have bf with no trouble at all. It just p*es me off that bf is always pushed in ur face, when sometimes its not the always the best thing for mum and baby i think that if we decide to ff we should be given just as much help and support because it can still be difficult too
Transatlantic- that was my point, i was simply trying to say that i think its unfair when people say that bf is always best because in some circumstances it isnt.

Very few people would say breast is always best no matter what, though, Traylo, and this view can be ignored, just as you would ignore anyone who was dogmatic about things to the extent of ignoring individual circumstances.

Your examples - of women whose babies were ill, and who themselves were exhausted - are not respectful of their choice to breastfeed....yet you are certain (and I agree) that mothers need respect for their right to choose. You have no real knowledge of whether breastfeeding was making things worse for them or their babies, yet you used their experiences to make a general point :(

I chose not to breastfeed DS1. I was a young (ish) single parent, having only 4months maternity leave before returning to full time work. It didn't occur to me to breastfeed and nor did anyone around me suggest it. (My mum died years ago and I have no idea if I was breastfed or not).
DC2 & 3 however, I have gone to the other extreme. I BF exclusively for 6months, and am still BF my 14month old now.
Both choices made sense at the time and worked out for me. I have loved BF and will be sad when it ends but I certainly do not feel guilty that DC1 was FF. I did what suited me, my child and my life at the time.

Tiktok - you seem to have a real issue with what im saying and i cant understand why. Im not in anway suggesting that bf is why their babies were ill/unhappy i was just trying to compare my experience of ff with friends experience of bf. For you to say i have no knowledge of the link between bf and the baby who was never satisfied is unfair. I was with my friend everyday(it was before i had my girls) cooking, cleaning for her etc looking after baby while she had shower(her dh away in army no other close family). If she were on here she would tell you herself that the exhaustion was down to bf she literally didnt move out of bed and baby was constantly with her for approx 15wks. If i had no real respect for her decison i wud not have been there thru thick and thin for her holding her hand whilst at docs diagnosing pnd supporting her with what ever decision she had to make.

It sounds as if you were a good friend during a difficult time, Traylo.

My point was that you used the experiences of your friends, one of whom was exhausted, and the other who had a baby who was poorly all the time, to make a general point - and to me, it did not sound respectful of the choice to breastfeed.

Maybe I got it wrong, and it was the way you phrased it.

Strange, because as a breastfeeding mother, I in no way took Traylo's point as disrespect for my choice.

I asked my sister why she never BF either of her children and she said, "Because its creepy." I didn't know what to say to her after that. Seemed pointless to further the discussion.

Transatlantic, I didn't see Traylo's point as disrespecting me for deciding to bf either.

However, I think there is a danger that there are some misconceptions surrounding bf which are frequently bandied about. A few that spring to mind are that it's exhausting, not satisfying for babies, isn't it mostly water, baby will never sleep, baby will be clamped to you 24/7, no break, links to pnd etc etc etc, I could go on. I saw yesterday that someone had heard their bm would go 'icky' after 6 months. Luckily the posters on MN had been there to set their mind at rest.

I think it's dangerous if people bandy round these misconceptions about bf if they then go unchallenged.

When I read Traylo's initial post, I saw an element of this. However, I recognise that Traylo has since clarified that she was only sharing some specific experiences of her friends rather than trying to make a general point about bf. I now therefore understand her main point to be, that bf is not always going to be the best for every mum and every baby. Which I think we can all agree on actually.

I think there is almost as much mis-information about ff as there is about bf - like ff babies will feed as set intervals and sleep better. I have ff friends who are feeling a bit conned by this!

I am bf-ing, with whopping boobs (steadily dropped from 38L to "just" 34HH) and thanks to mners top tips to lift t-shirt, drop vest, even my bf-ing friends dont realise i'm doing it.

Anyway, back to the point, I think this has been a very interesting and fairly non-judgemental thread. I'm in the position of being the first bf-er on my dh's side since his great-grandmother and was initially treated as a bit of an oddity, then a curiosity, a bit of an awe (as my sil's started thinking it didn't look that hard actually) and now a wierdo because i "still" bf my 4 month old. I'm sure they'll get used to it though :)

I chose to ff from the word go as I wanted to be able to give the baby to my DH to feed and have some time off. The thought of having to be on demand 24/7 and the only source of food for my babies would have made me feel very very trapped.

Yesmynameis - BFing CAN be exhausting, and baby CAN be clamped to you 24/7. At least that's my experience of it. So I'm not sure how those two ideas are misconceptions?
(It can also make you grouchy. Which I am right now after 1.5hrs of trying to feed DD!)

I've got a velco baby. She is BF. 2months old. I do have days that she isn't utterly clingy, but for the most part the only break I get is in the car or out on a walk. I did find introducing a soother helped so she wasn't clamped to my boob all day, as there was a lot of loitering. A huge problem is that she will not let anyone hold her, not even DH. She instantly breaks into crying. DD1 was the exact same but no soother; she refused it, adamantly. DD2 better buck up though as I go back to work in September. I'll be expressing, but I hope she doesn't cry too much for DH.

BFing CAN be exhausting, and baby CAN be clamped to you 24/7 - but surly that can be the case with ANY newborn so saying it's caused by BF is a misconception.

Take an example both my two DC's are/have been BF. DD was stuck to me 24/7 no one but me could seatal her for months not even DH on the other hand DS could if I wanted fit very nicly into a 3hour routine, has only ever taken 5minutes to feed and will seatal for DH. Done nothing differently just two different personalities. As for the feeling tired bit surly that goes with the teratory of having a new/young baby anyway.

I always supprised that qoute being there babies only food soure making them feel traped as a reasion for total FF from the start, mixed feeding can be a great option but not many people seem to think about doing it. After all some BM is better then non at all, and if your not that bothed about BF and don't mind if baby ends up preffering the bottle at lest they have had the best bit to start with.

Just found the link for the US study so hear it is pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2010/04/05/peds.2009-1616.abstract

A quik highlight they reconed that if 90% of women BF for 6months they would save 911 deaths a year and $13billion a year in health care costs. That's just in the USA.

I didnt BF my first DD and only first feed with 2nd DD....I didnt have the information,the experience of other BFing mums,the confidence in my own body, a combination of alot of things really.

I had my first DD in Spain and i was never given any info on BFing..i was asked how i wanted to feed,it was okayed by the MW and the box was ticked.DD was born,whisked away for about 45 mins (to this day i still dont know why,i thought it was normal procedure.Maybe because i was being stitched up? but DP was there so a bit confused why she wasnt given to him.I was then hooked up to drips for fluids as they dont let you drink during or for 12 hours after the labour...again,thought this was normal so when baby was eventually handed to me i was flat on bed and got told off everytime i tried to move to look at her because of the drips.I waited for hours for a bottle,it just never occurred to me this was anything other than normal.makes me very now i know what "normal" actually is)

Fast forward to DD2,came back to the UK half way through preg...BFing never mentioned by MW which looking back i think maybe because she thought it wouldve already been discussed or because it was my second dd? Anyway,i had a HV round as a routine visit before birth and she just asked if i planned on BFing.I had decided i wanted to give it a go but was really unsure about it all.She told me that i needed to make my mind up before going to the hosp as i would get pressured if they could see i was unsure
I told my mum i was going to try..she BF 3 of us and FF one.She kindly gave me all the horror stories.MIL never tried and i get the feeling she thinks its digusting.

So when DD was born i said yes to try but when i got to the ward dP was sent home because it was late and i was sitting there trying and trying to get her to latch but as i had never seen anyone BF or learnt anything about it in hindsight i was doing it all wrong.We were getting distressed so i asked MW if i could give her a dummy and she said No if i was BFing.So i asked for a bottle and the MW went to get it...another MW came in (looking back now she mustve told the other MW not to just let me have one).She asked if i wanted help.I didnt,i had had enough,i have real issues with my body and always have so i only wanted to do it if i could manage it on my own if that makes sense.So that was it,bottle arrived.MW thrust the bottle at me and said i could do both if i wanted.They never asked again if i was trying though.

Now....I am 25 weeks pregnant with DS and i have found mumsnet and met alot of BFing mummies since i had DD2.I was shocked when i started going to groups and mums were BFing.Being in Spain i had never come across this.Everyone i had seen had bottle fed
I have booked into the local Bfing classes,bought books etc and i am going to try my best to make it work as strangely it is what i am looking forward to the most about having my baby and i feel very sad that i didnt BF my other kids...well,sad i didnt give it my best.

I dont judge anyone either way just to make that clear,this is just my feelings.I dont ever go into this much detail with anyone as i can see that some BFing mums would probably roll their eyes and say it is all excuses,that it is selfish but my experiences and feelings are true to me.

Oops sorry,v long

ps I will always be thankful to other mums that i have seen that BF in public..This has really normalised it for me