Lack of Support for Bottle Feeders?

[toomuchfrizz]

I knew bf-ing would be hard but WOW it was tough. I persevered and persevered but the combination of a baby who wasn't great at latching on, the toe curling, stomach wrenching pain when she did and Mike Tyson strength hormones which knocked me for six I really couldn't manage it.

What I've found desperately upsetting isn't how I've "failed" my baby - on the contrary all I felt was relief - but it was the lack of information and support out there for a bottle feeding Mother.

What I want to know is am I alone in experiencing the lactation consultant who wouldn't give up trying to convince me to bf like a boob Hitler and the formula pack which states "Experts Agree Breastfeeding is Best" on it - both ramming home the pro bf-ing world we live in?

Please don't think that I'm not for bf-ing but I'd like to hear if anyone else felt let down by the lack of help and info for those who NEED to give up for one reason or another.

meggsmam, plenty of people get support here for all types of feeding.

This is toomuchfrizz's thread which was about her specific topic - asking if others felt let down about lack of support. As any conversation does, it changed direction once or twice and brought in other topics.

The best thing to do is to start your own thread and you will find people respond just fine :)

Cheers tiktok! Might just give that a whirl! :)

Hope you do, meggysmam. Mumnsnet has 17 squiilion threads live at any one time, and 100 squillion threads have existed in the recent past - unfair to judge the whole flippin' website on the basis on one thread you did not like - don't you reckon ? :)

Fair point, just wasn't expecting the backlash from some! Just goes to show Mumsnet isn't just (and I quote a woman I overheard in the Drs) "a place for the tree hugging, whip your boobs out, lentil mafia"!! :)

I've found Mumsnet hugely supportive and would be lost without it. Also agree with an earlier poster who said that in general, support for new Mums is poor. I had an ECS and ended up in high dependency for about a day and had a baby with a tongue tie. They put me in a 4 bedded bay, where I was the only one trying to BF and the only one post-section. The other Mums were lovely and so understanding but I felt hugely stressed by the fact my DS was wailing day and night, while I constantly buzzed to summon help to try to latch him on. I wasn't up to visitors but my roomates had entire families descending, so I couldn't rest during the day and policy was that you had to go to the kitchen to collect your own meals, so I generally went without. DS failed to gain enough weight (no shock there!) and in the end I had discharge myself much to the annoyance of the MWs as I was close to breaking point. My milk didn't come in till day 6/7 and DS got TT snipped day 7. There was noooooo way I'd still have been BF today if I'd stayed in hospital and if I hadn't had the best peer support worker who answered my 2am (and 3am and 4am...) texts within minutes. Equally, the girl in the bed next to me was struggling to get her DD to take a bottle. The MW just informed her that if she didn't take x ounces (sorry - no clue how much!) then they wouldn't let her out. That was it! No help as to how to get her to take it - just "tank her up".