Why am I not glowing with happiness whilst breastfeeding?

[buterflies]

I feel conned! The NCT etc are always going on about how wonderful breastfeeding is but I am just not feeling the love. Lil one is 9 weeks and feeds well but I would much rather give him a bottle, as then I know how much he is having and am still not comfortable feeding in public.
I feel just as close to him when he has a bottle, more so as he maintains eye contact.
Is it possible to exclusively express as I want him to get the goodness of breast milk but am worried my milk will dry up.
Am I the only one who feels this way?

sometimes I hate it too!
I've never been tempted to give her a bottle - well, not of formula - but I did express some a while ago, just to see what it was like, and how it would be with DH feeding her instead.

DH couldn't work out how to feed her the bottle, and I couldn't help because I didn't know either.
I decided that it was a lot less faff just to do what we were doing.

I prefer Bfing for these reasons - it's free, i get to eat loads (because it makes me sooo hungry!) without guilt, I don't need to faff around making bottles etc to go out anywhere, I don't need to worry about sterilizing (especially useful because I'm here at the shop, and it's too much hassle to sort out a bottle/sterilizing/warming up when customers could be coming in the shop!, I can just pick up DD and undo my bra - latch her on and she's happy (if I were bottle-feeding, I'd have to sort it out first), I can co-sleep and feed DD as and when she wants it, and go back to sleep.

But yes, sometimes when she's fidgeting and when she's getting distracted, and when she refuses to latch on properly, when I can't just leave her with someone else for a couple of hours (but my PFBness doesn't want to anyway!), when I have to take her out with me in the evening just in case she's hungry (again PFBness doesn't want to leave her!), and when she needs feeding when people are in the shop, and they stand there staring at her going "ooh, what's wrong with you then" so I can't just get on and feed her because they're watching .

I have a poncho nickel - 90% of people get a shock when they've been talking to me and suddenly she squeaks and they realise I'm not hideously deformed, it's a baby under there! You could turn it into a game - hw many of your customers are switched on enough to realise?

I don't mind people seeing her feeding - it's the latching on that I find awkward.

There is no magic day it works, it gets easier. With DD2 total calm came only when she started on solids,started to properly put on weight and I could tell the HV to go away.

She then didn't stop, see times picture thread

I have had a really good day with lil one. I expressed early morning and that gave me enough for two feeds and have breast fed him once during the day. I expressed again as boobs were really full so am going to freeze that and breast feed when he is next hungry and BF exclusively at night. I think I just got overwhelmed with everything yesterday. I don't mind giving him the odd bottle of formula but I am now determined to keep going with the BF, so thank you everyone for the encouragement and support. x

Mmm, do I like breastfeeding? You know, I don't really know! I would say I enjoy the convenience of it but I've never found myself going gooey-eyed about it. For me it's just part of being a mother, something you do.

It took me 5 and a half months to love breast feeding

those first 5 and half months were hard, and i only continued because i am far to stubborn, but i am pleased i did

I can see myself BFing while BFing, tandem BFing and extended BFing now, where as for those first few months i was just aiming to make it to the 6 months that "i had promised myself / baby i would"

Lil one did really well last night and I did find it easier to snuggle up to him and BF in bed. I am expressing enough for two feeds in the morning, so he can have his gaviscon and I am keeping my milk supply up.

Fingers crossed he wont need it for long.
Hoping it gets a little easier, sounds like it should from all the positive comments on here.

Bfing in bed is definately the way forward :) Glad you had a good night. Can I poke my beak in about the gaviscon though. I only mention this as I had this very conversation with a friend this week. She had to go through the faff of expressing and using gaviscon for her baby when it turned out that the baby actually had a lactose intolerance. My baby seems to be having problems when I eat dairy so I've cut it out and the change in him is incredible, is that something you could try so you don't 'have' to express iyswim

Not lactose intolerance - cows milk protein intolerance maybe :)

Lactose is in breastmilk. Babies who are truly LI (very, very, very rare from birth) can't have breastmilk and are very ill if they do.

I never hated bf, but I didn't love it either. I always felt strongly that it was what I wanted to do, but I did wonder what had happened to that feeling of warm bliss that was apparently supposed to wash over me. We had a really difficult time at first, DD would have happily stayed latched on 24 hours a day, but would fall asleep almost immediately, so keeping her awake long enough to get a decent feed was a struggle. I, too, waited for this magical moment when it would suddenly stop being such hard work. For us, it was about 13 weeks. I read a post where someone said something about after 8 weeks when you can just shove them under your jumper and let them get on with it. I nearly wept because it wasn't like that for us, but we did get there in the end. I truly believe that the only thing that kept me bf was my own stubbornness.

My first DS was lactose intolerant so I know its definitely not that, thank god. I breast fed him for 8 weeks before realising what was wrong and putting him on soya formula.

The intolerance was so severe that one ounce of expressed breast milk in 7 ounce of soya formula would make him ill. Luckily he got better at 2 year old.

I am careful not to have too much dairy at the mo just to be on the safe side.

I went through hell with DS1 (other issues too) and think I have unrealistic expectations of how breast feeding should be with a "normal" baby. I am enjoying being a mum in every other way so am just going to stick with it, as I really want to give him the best start possible.

My DS1 is now a happy healthy 7yr old so I know it all works out in the end regardless of feeding method.

Meant to add, I was waiting for that six month mark when I felt I was "allowed" to stop, but when we got there, I realised we'd worked so hard to get to the point of it being easy, that I wanted to carry on. I stopped at about 9mo, because DD was far more interested in solids and was far too easily distracted during feeds, everything else was so much more interesting :)

donkeyteapot, did you find a time when you could just stick them on and let them get on with it?? I am finding it easier at night as can lie down and get him positioned well, but am finding it difficult in the day especially when out and about to get him in a good position. I really hate the way people stare. Surely once they realise you are feeding its only polite to look away. I did have a guy get up and walk away in what I am assuming was disgust last time I fed in public and it wasnt like he could see anything as I put a muslin cloth over babs anyway

I would love to get to 9 months, I felt so incredibly guilty with DS1 that I couldnt feed him myself. It didnt help that some of the midwives / health visitors kept insisting he couldnt be allergic to breast milk even though it was obvious he was!

I think thats why I am so determined this time.

Fuckity. How is your friends baby now? I hope little one grows out of it, many babies do.

I viewed it like nappy changing too. Did it or six months and stopped with relief. I always viewed it in a sort of 'every feed counts' way so I congratulated myself at the end of each day :)

That's it tiktok, cows milk. The improvement in ds has been remarkable :) My friends dd is 4 now and outgrew it completely by a year

Ah glad she outgrew it. Its a horrible thing to have. Mucus in the poo and violently sick the moment anything is eaten with even a tiny amount of lactose.

I once gave him a angel delight type pudding made up with soya formula but didnt check the packet doh!
It was full of milk protein and he was sick for days afterwards.

Buterflies Yes, we did get to that stage eventually - I even joked that she could catch a passing nipple at 50 paces! DP quite often used to get up and bring her in to me when he got up for work in the morning, and as soon as she saw my boobs she'd lunge for me and clamp herself on. There was one time when I was laid flat on my back and she was propped against me, kind of kneeling on the bed but resting her tummy and chest on me. She started to tip to one side, but noticed my nipple and helped herself to a cheeky feed! It really made me think how far we'd come. Everyone says it will get better, and you nod and smile and secretly think it won't, but guess what? It really does.

Oh, btw, at first we used the rugby ball position - it was the only way I could get her latched on at first. I used a big pillow folded over in half, that made it just the right height to support her well. We did that for about a month.

You're doing a great job and have absolutely nothing to feel guilty about.

Thank you DonkeyTeapot, glad to know it should get easier.

Am proud that I have managed to get so far, as at 6 weeks I had a major crisis and thought I was going to give up then so to last another 3 weeks is good.

I am setting myself a little target of a week at a time and see how it goes.
10 weeks this wednesday

Any time :) Hope you are doing ok. I had a complete melt down when DD was 17 days old, she was feeding (or suckling, anyway) for five hours at a time, I really didn't think I could carry on. The crazy hormones didn't help either. I suspect you are over the worst, if you've had a crisis like that and are still bf. Keep posting, and PM if you need to. :)

I agree with so many - it was cheap, convenient (usually) and easy (mostly) but I never had that 'glow' that some mothers talk about. Found it quite boring really till I worked out how to read a book at the same time . I used to mix feed, my DS would have a bottle of (carton) formula every day, found that made it easier to leave him or get DH to share the feeding and I didn't always want to BF in public.

Right, can anyone explain to me how cow's milk protein gets into human milk? Because as far as I understand digestion and milk production, when you eat dairy (or anything), you will break it down into different things to make fuel your own body can use, and then use that fuel you made to produce your own your milk production. It's not like it goes into your stomach, gets bashed up really small and then the little particles get delivered to your boobies.

I can't find anyone to explain to me how the cow proteins get into the milk. I can see how flavours and taints would get in, but not actual milk components.

I never enjoyed it. It was free, easy and 'green' but it was just another chore. Shame really as physically I struck gold bf, never got sore, DC's piled on the weight and had gallons of milk. I just didn't like the randomness of feeds and having to sit down. I made it to 4 months and by that point I'd had enough.

In retrospect I should have double pumped (instead of single) so the majority of feeds could be bottle and my control freakery would know how much was going in, and I could have bf when we were out or at night.

The one thing I did like about bf was being able to read the papers or watch the news all the time.