To ask where the self rightoueus bf/ff thread has gone

[pigletmania]

It was here this morning, but not now.

but hiss you just completely disregarded my experiences because they were not the same as you own, you have not seen ff bashing therefore it does not happen. people get defensive if the feel the are being judge as you are demonstrating quite well. the people you are talking about obviously have felt they have been judged and need to defend their choice by making your seem easier got to ask why you give two craps? do you want them to acknowledge that you have done this amazing thing and they just ff?
you may feel you are going against the grain in your area but not so in society. the whole of society (child rearing wise) is geared towards breast is best and if you dont do it you are not giving your child the best start in life and as you can see, many women feel that it a judgement on them.
my mum never bf and for some reason took my decision to bf as a judgement on her not to bf, people can be very odd.

all i can say is you do the best for yourself and your baby, whatever that may be, for whatever reason, and it is no ones buisness but your own.

i must be very lucky for i have never came across any of these vitriolic people in real life.

dd was born when i was 19, i live in a working class north east city, has low bf rates. i bf, it just sort of happened. never encounted a single negative comment from a stranger, if some one looked i would just smile and more often than not got a smile back. i never noticed anyone moving away with a look of disgust, but then i wasnt looking out for it. i knew not many people my age or even older bf, so it wasnt the norm, but i didnt see why anyone would care, because i didnt care what they were doing.

i didnt know mumsnet exsisted. i guess what im trying to say is although the internet can be a great form of support, it can also have the opposite effect. im 34 weeks now with dc2 and since reading threads like this, i dont know if i will notice a more negative attitude towards me, as since reading threads like this apparently it is very common?

its sad that such an emphasis is put on which way a baby is fed. so long as they are being fed then why does it matter?

i dont see the nappy threads for eg ending up in a massive bunfight. i would only use huggies, my friend swore by llidl. why would it matter to us which brand the other was using so long as they had a clean one on? exactly, it doesnt.

i really feel for those of you that have encounted these attitudes (either way, bf or ff) and that it gets in your head so much. it should not be like this.

Just because someone couldn't or wouldn't bf, i'm not going to apologise for giving my child the best start, and be expected not to be proud I'm doing the right thing just to stop them feeling guilty.

I think I am doing an amazing thing bf to be honest. It's hard work, I'm physicallly exhausted, I've been the one doing all the night feeds, no one else can have him for a few hours to give me a break. It limits the clothes I wear and where I can go, what I can eat. It was bloody painful in the begining, I've had three bouts of antibiotics for mastitis, that gave me thrush that was equally as painful. But in my eyes, my child is worth it. If people are going to comment on my feeding then part of that should be congratulating me because no matter now much ff mums keep going on about how their kids are happy adults with degrees (like me!) bf is still best. it's hard work and i should be bloody congratulated. Every single person that comments say they can't, except my mum who is honest and said she genuinely couldn't manage with 2 of us so close and my brother being such a bad sleeper. I'm sick of being told "I can't". If you don't want to talk about it then bloody don't keep mentioning it to me!

You're saying that just because i haven't witnessed 'ff bashing' then it doesn't happen. Well you're also ignoring what I'm saying, just because you haven't witnessed people being negative about bf it doesn't happen. And it's pretty obvious what some peoples reactions are to bf in public.

Nobody on this thread has said anything critical of breastfeeding but you have been quite snide about formula feeding. What is worse is that you know you're being snide but you think you're entitled to be because you found bf hard and stuck to it

All your snipey comments about how your child is worth it, how you're doing an amazing job, how you should be congratulated. I'm not surprised that you seem to encounter a disproportionate amount of defensive people in real life. As I said, congratulations. It's brilliant that you persevered. Well done you. I can't think of what you want out of this thread other than that.

Also, not sure if the last bit is addressed to me, but I havent said people arent negative about bf.

You seem to be arguing that you're entitled to be a bit of a twat about and to women who use formula, because you feel you've earned that right as you found bf hard. So I'm going to leave you to it.

bloody hell hiss have a medal. you are not the first woman to bf, your doing well with it, good for you. and if you read my post correctly you can see i did encounter the things you talked about i just didnt care about them, i am not saying you didnt have your experiences just that they are not symptomatic of everyone.
you obviously do i just dont understand why someone elses opinion on how you choose to feed your child bothers you so much. the thing i find the funniest about your posts is that you cant see the judgement in them towards ff.
you are obviously in a zone bout this and are not going to see any one elses point of view so i am bowing out.

Hiss, I'm sorry, I don't understand the attitude of 'it's hard work and I should be congratulated'

All newborns are hard work. I had to FF but -- having a baby who never sleeps, a husband working long shifts, and no money, it's not like that was all a picnic just because I used formula. It was really hard going and I guess at some level I am proud of myself for getting through it in one piece. But it would never occur to me that other people should congratulate me for it.

I think it's great that you BF and persevered through the difficulties. I'm sorry it hurts you that people aren't giving you more recognition for it, but it's probably because it doesn't occur to people that it's something to be congratulated about (especially if they have never done it themselves).

For years and years, you will be trying to do the best thing for your DC. It's very rare you will ever be congratulated for it, or your hard work acknowledged -- your own sense of pride and accomplishment will have to be enough.

Downbytheriverside, wow you should be so proud of yourself. My friend has the same problem as you and her nipple was so bad her health visitor said it was the worst spilt she had ever seen. She persevered too and she is damn proud of herself for doing so. Just because she is proud it doesn't mean she judges others who felt they could not do the same

Hiss - I think it's a great thing to be proud of, I am too!

Hiss, good for you. Bloody marvellous. You're doing the best for your child. But BF is best when everything else is equal, and sometimes in this life, things are not equal. So whilst yes, great job in overcoming difficulties, you also need to be sensitive to the position of others for whom the very best thing they were able to do, was FF. It's not simply a matter of one deciding that the obstacles they may face are "worth it" or not. Can you see why such a statement might be seen as judgemental/inflammatory?

Out of interest, can you conceive of a situation in which a mother might decide that BF WASN'T best for her child? That doing the best for them, giving them the best start might include FF? Just wondering.

Good for you hiss I'm glad you felt able to persevere with bf.

I've never encountered this debate in rl.

I really wanted to bf. I mean, really wanted to. It's so handy, isn't it?

But when DS was born, he wouldn't open his mouth wide enough. I kept asking the midwives to help me. But they gave up after a few attempts saying "he won't open his mouth wide enough"' and then LEFT US IN THE CUBICLE! That was it! No further help offered! They didn't seem concerned that DS hadn't fed at all! Now I was terrified. I was in tears, scared my already tiny 6lb baby was going to starve. No one was helping me. I left my cubicle and walked to the midwives station and asked them to help, again after a few attempts, they gave up. Telling me "he won't open his mouth wide enough". And that was it! After 24hrs of this (and a sleepy baby getting sleepier, and sleepier...) I taught myself how to hand express my colostrum into a paper cup. I then spooned it into his mouth using a teaspoon. I was on my own, NO ONE wanted to help me. I asked for a bf councillor, I was told that facility wasn't available. At no point was I offered a bottle of formula, or any way to feed my child. It still makes me well up now. I still don't know what I was supposed to have done.

As soon as my milk came in, I expressed with an electric pump. On day 5 I got a home visit, and the midwife asked me how I was feeding. I told her I was expressing and she said (and I quote) "oh, well that won't last". I crashed into depression after that. Shortly after, I switched to ff.

So for me, it is an emotive subject, because I didn't feel I got a fair shot tbh. I begged for help. No one would help me. It makes me feel like a failure sometimes, but I have to remind myself I couldn't have done anything else. I tried so much.

At no point on this thread nor any other have I asked anyone to apologise for or justify why they bf. TBH I don't think any other poster has. I also at no point said those who bf shouldn't be proud, in fact if you read my post you'll find I said those who bf have every right to be proud.

The posts on this thread that I have objected to are those implying those of us who have shared our stories as to how we ended up ff are lying. Not unreasonable to find being called a liar offensive. I tend to justify myself because I have become used to having to. I have come across lots of nasty comments in RL as well as on MN. I have also witnessed people making snide comments to bf mothers. In fact I have shouted down a man who made a comment to a bf woman.

IMHO anyone who makes a nasty comment to a mother for bf deserves just as much disdain as someone who makes a nasty comment to a mother for ff. With hindsight it says a lot mote about the person making the comment. However when you are feeling vulnerable as many new mothers do these comments are very damaging.

What I will say though is one narrow minded minded person making a nasty comment does not give the recipient of that comment the right to make an equally nasty comment to an innocent mother just because she feeds differently. Two wrongs can never and and will never make a right. Giving the person making the nasty comment a very strong retort at the time now that's another matter.

I honestly hope that people didn't see my post as callig people liars about their struggles. My SIL did lie and has later on said she just didn't want to do it. It didn't bother me that she lied as such but at a time in which I needed so much support I got none because "wasn't I lucky I had milk?"

I have never ever ever criticised someone for their feeding choices and I am opposed to the ones that have.

Certainly think Hiss is right about our age group and that something needs to be done.

Self righteous people like you Hiss give mothers who bf a bad name.

I've BF and I've FF (although the FF was after 'failed' attempts at BF) and never felt any negative comments aimed at me in either case.

Maybe some women do lie when they say they 'can't' BF, but fi they do, then surely that's a reflection on those that may judge tham as much as anything else?

Something that I do know is that I genuinely thought I couldn't BF my first 3 DC. When other women notice/realise/find out I BF now, quite often they tell their 'story' about how they tried to BF but couldn't and in a lot of the cases it's apprent that they probably could have BF. What strikes me about that more than anything is that they wanted to BF and because of lack of support or help ended up thinking they couldnt BF and so didn't.

If people don't want to try BF, that's up to them. If people try it, think it hurts too much/takes too much time/isn't for them and happily switch to FF, then that's up to them too. However, if someone wants to BF then they should be able to get the right help and support to make it happen.

" However, if someone wants to BF then they should be able to get the right help and support to make it happen."

As Cory and others have said further up the thread, it's not always just a matter of "you could have done it if you'd had the right support."

Stories like yours, itspeanutbutterjellytime make me so sad, and so angry on your behalf.

Stories like yours are why it's really useful to sometimes have the "why did you not BF?" discussion. I don't agree that the people who ask "why?" are always doing it in order to be congratulated about successfully BFing. Of course no one HAS to answer the question. Of course. But, as BFing supporters it's really useful to know what's gone wrong and where mothers are willing to share it can really help us to learn what's going on out there, and how we can help other women better.

Often we hear "I couldn't BF because XYZ" and we know that it's probably something that could have been resolved IF the mother had been given the right support (and assuming she'd wanted to BF). That's then a difficult dilemma - do we tell the mother what might have caused the problem - which she may desperately want to know, or do we not because she then feels angry for not knowing at the time and it interfers with her healing - or not because she'll take it as criticism or judgement (when it's not).

And if it's something that is a common misunderstanding about BFing, and the mother talks to other mums about it, perpetuating myths, that's another reason to have the discussion so that myths are stopped in their tracks.

None of this is about judging anyone. And generally peer supporters and breastfeeding counsellors are trained in helping FF mothers too in various ways. This is in practical stuff like safe formula feeding, and (for breastfeeding counsellors) the emotional side of moving to formula, for those who are struggling with the change.

We just want mums and babies to have the best support possible, and make the best decisions for themselves. None of us will get it right every time. We are with mums and dads who we've often not met before, in very emotional circumstances, and if something comes across wrongly it can be very distressing all round :(

Thanks organic

I really did want to bf.

BagofHolly you are absolutely right, it isn't always "just" about getting the right support. It really isn't, and I don't mean to imply that it is.

But the right support would resolve many, many BFing problems. Defining "the right support" is a toughie though.

Have to stick my beak in here, and just want to be completely clear.

I did not fail at BF. I did not give up BF. Based on medical advice, I chose to switch to FF to give my DD the best possible start in life.

There have been some comments on here that have made my chin hit the floor. I am so glad I didn't read the other thread :)

peanutbutterjellytime - what you went through was horrific, the lack of help and support, you poor lady having to go through that - you handled your situation amzingly well and you should NEVER feel bad! You were completely let down by people who should have been helping you. I hope you don't feel sad by it still x

Norfolk - that was your decision but I will always maintain that breastmilk gives a baby the best possible start in life (except for some medical reasons)

running I'm guessing that norfolk's point is exactly that - in her situation, medically FF was the healthiest option for her child.

Runningwilde, Norfolk made that decision in order to give her baby the best start, on medical advice. There's no "but" about it.

BF is a Good Thing. But only when everything else is equal. There may well be situations, medical or otherwise when it ISN'T the best thing. Can you, and Hiss, conceive of such a situation?

I did say 'medical reasons' in my post!

True, but I think that therefore made it not her decision, but just the way things are.