Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

This has just really really annoyed me

29 replies

emkana · 15/01/2006 12:35

Dd1 is in reception and has brought a book home called "babies". Every page goes like this "Babies need..." and then it says food/play/laughs/sleep etc.

And on one page it says "Babies need bottles". Not babies need milk, leaving it open where the milk could potentially come from, no, just "Babies need bottles". At the back of the book there's more text giving some more info, and there it says on the bottle bit "Babies need lots of milk, to give a bottle you must..."

NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF BREASTFEEDING!!! This is just so wrong, and I'm incensed. Am thinking of writing to the publisher.

Grrrr.

OP posts:
paolosgirl · 15/01/2006 12:40

No - this kind of thing annoys me too. I know it's a trivial point in the overall scheme of things, but it still infuriates me as young children reading these books can easily grow up thinking that milk only comes from a bottle. I'd write to the publishers too, but I'd also drop the school a line and just point it out. There are lots of books that could be used instead.

snafu · 15/01/2006 13:00

Who's it published by? Is it recent? I definitely think you should write to the publishers and mention it to the school.

I don't think it's a trivial point at all - it's exactly the kind of thing which contributes to our appallingly low breastfeeding rates. Bottles are the social norm and god forbid a child might learn any different, eh?

Pruni · 15/01/2006 13:02

Message withdrawn

NomDePlume · 15/01/2006 13:03

It doesn't bother me from a pro-breastfeeding point of view (I'm pro-informed choice on that score), but breastfeeding does seem to be a bizarre thing to omit from a feeding section of an educational book on babies !

snafu · 15/01/2006 13:06

Just re-read my last post and realised it sounds a bit frothing and ranty Apols. But it does wind me up and I would still be Having A Word.

paolosgirl · 15/01/2006 13:07

I was just about to post and defend what I meant by trivial in the overall scheme of things!

snafu · 15/01/2006 13:12

Sometimes I really need to parp myself...

paolosgirl · 15/01/2006 13:17

LOL!!!

milward · 15/01/2006 14:21

Whats the title & publishing details - will write to put the educational authorities to put them right on this.

Original poster
emkana · 15/01/2006 19:30

"Babies" by Susan Canizares and Pamela Chanko
1999/2001, published by scholastic ltd.
ISBN 0-439-01924-9

OP posts:
Original poster
emkana · 16/01/2006 19:26

Just thought I'd bump this in case anybody else would like to write.
Put a long comment about it in dd's reading diary today. Teacher will probably think I'm barking.

OP posts:
Original poster
emkana · 16/01/2006 20:27

Oh all right don't bother then

OP posts:
LeahE · 23/01/2006 12:16

Trouble is really need to have actually seen book before complaining but given what you say I'm certainly not buying a copy. Maybe I'll see if I can find it in the library...

threelittlebabies · 23/01/2006 12:20

lol at "barking" emkana! Let us know what, if anything, teacher says about it

Caligula · 23/01/2006 12:31

I don't think it's barking. It's a perfect example of how we are brainwashed right from the start about how abnormal breastfeeding is.

threelittlebabies · 23/01/2006 12:36

Thought of you actually when at Manchester Airport and realised no feeding room. The info available on Babies and Children- feeding said "All restaurent facilities will warm bottles and also sell baby food". What about the rest of us??!!

Spidermama · 23/01/2006 12:39

I would complain to the school for having it in their library and complain to the publisher.

It's wrong.

moondog · 23/01/2006 12:42

I would mention it too,in a humorous way to the teacher.

I wrote in to SW in the Afternoon a few weeks agp.They were discussing flying with babies and Janey mentioned getting them to suck on a bottle or boob to which SW said in a sneery way 'Too much information!' at which she laughed.

Ane her the patron of the ABM too.

These aren't small things-add 'em up to get an idea of the myriad ways in which b/feeding is undermined.

Gingerbear · 23/01/2006 12:55

I have indoctrinated DD to stop giving baby Annabel her bottle. She now breastfeeds her and has told all her peers at nursery that it is 'bestest and Annabel doesn't wear out her battery so fast.'

Cue 5 x 3.5 year olds with dollies stuffed up their jumpers.

mwahahaha!

Dinosaur · 23/01/2006 12:56

My DS2 has been expressing milk to feed to his imaginary babies

harpsichordcarrier · 23/01/2006 12:58

yes it's wrong
I would be incensed too
possibly frothing
these are not trivial things, they all add up to a cultural assumption
I would ask the school to remove the book

moondog · 23/01/2006 12:59

Hilarious dinosaur!
Hey,someone flagged up a barking website a while ago for men who wanted to (and had succeeded??) lactate.

threelittlebabies · 23/01/2006 13:02

pmsl gingerbear and dinosaur, my ds has also tried to breast feed his toys and, once, his grandma since the arrival of dd in September!

nanneh · 23/01/2006 14:30

I asked my niece (11 years old - I don't see her often as she lives in another town) when was the last time you saw a baby breastfeeding ? She said "at the hospital, where XXX (her half-brother) was born".

So 5 minutes later, I asked her to follow me upstairs to help me put DS down for his afternoon nap. She adores her little cousin. I said, now I am going to give him some milk and she said, "oh, but where is his bottle ?". So, I said "no need" and proceeded to bf my DS.

She smiled and said, "that's so sweet", and I said, "see, this is the best way to give him milk" !

That was my "indoctrination" of the day. My niece and her half brother have been formula fed from the first week of birth, no wonder breastfeeding doesn't seem normal to her.

emkana - you should complain (in the nicest way possible !!) to the school.

beansprout · 23/01/2006 14:32

Annoys me too. Bottles, bottles everywhere!! Grrr!!!