the 'great debate'?

[Darcii]

this may be a naive question but what is all the anger and judgement about around breast or bottle feeding?! i am a first time 36 year old parent who is trying to breastfeed but struggling with the total lack of freedom that comes with it as i have had a very active and busy life before having my baby. i have looked around for support on the issue but can only seem to find arguments everywhere with either entrenched views or defensiveness.

as women we have fought for decades for freedom and choice yet seem to be continually judging each other on the choices made. what's it all about? why is there so much judgement on the issue? i am literally flabbergasted that what i feed my child is such a big thing. after all, if you looked at 20 people in a room you would be hard pressed to be able to tell who had been breast or bottle fed!

Ach, give the girl a chance. I know that when I felt that I had to haul the baby out of her cot again, get out a nork, connect nork to baby, ache and leak and spurt into a cloth from the other nork, I have been know to say, exhaustedly, 'right, the whole loathesome process again, let's go through it'.

I think, myself, that it is worth pressing on at this point, because frankly life wouldn't be much easier if you chose bottle feeding. The thing is that two weeks on, you're also physically and emotionally clobbered in all sorts of other ways. I did think, very vividly, 'I have made the wrong decision'.

I don't think that now, though.

i don't expect it to be easy. not what i was saying. the fact that it is so hard and everyone recognises that is why i am so surprised at the level of judgement around. you just don't realise it until you're in it how passionate people are - very difficult to find an unbiased sounding board as it is all so personal.

Darci,MI is spot on.

As she says 2 weeks post birth is unspeakably grim (well,was for me).I don't think one realises quite what a shock it is until much much later.

Yes,b/milk is best for your baby. That's a fact.
Having a baby does strip you of a great deal of freedom and independence,but that is the price we pay for being so privileged in the first place.
A very small price imho.
My oldest child is now 5 and I take her absolutely anywhere with me.

Re freedom though,once b/feeding is estBLISHED (WHICH FOR ME TOOK A GOOD 6 WEEKS ON BOTH OCCASIONS) IT FREES YOU UP INCREDIBLY. (Oops)

I travelled and travel a great deal and b/feeding for me has meant amongst other things,that I haven't had to give that up,even temporarily. We have been able to backpack around SEAsia,visit Sri Lanka,whizz back and forth between UK and France at the drop of a hat,and explore Turkey's border with Armenia and Iran at length when my youngest was less than 3 months old (lots of other things and places too).

Feeding was invariably the one aspect of looking after a tiny baby that I didn't find a hassle!

Good Luck!

Darcii, it is personal - personal in the most literal, physical sense. Connecting my breast with a newborn baby's hot damp face - I remember that sensation as I write - is the most personal thing I've ever done (and I've, ahem, put myself about a fair bit in my time). It triggers all sorts of responses and behaviours, not all of them entirely rational.

that is exactly the feeling mi! have a big baby boy who eats all day long. a trip to sainsbury's sounds like heaven - don't expect to be out clubbing every night! i won't mention my desire to put him on ebay sometimes then.... ;)

I think the best thing you can do at the moment is just be with him, feed, sleep if and when he sleeps, and look forward to that wonderful point in about four weeks where he starts to smile and life starts to feel slightly more life-shaped again.

I have two little girls, aged two and a half and five, and they were worth it.

Darcii,they have to do that initially to get the supply going.
Much method in their madness.
Although hugely in favour of b/feeding,I am the first to admit that it can be fucking hard work in the beginning.

You have to learn how to give yourself over temporarily (terribly difficult for me-have never surrendered yself to anything or anyone)
Big comfy chair,feet up,tv remote,books,mGAZINES,NICE SNACKS AND DRINKS,SOMEONE TO LOOK AFTER YOU. (Bugger this computer.)

I promise you,in a few months,when your child will not stay still for a second,you will look back quite mournfully at those times when it was possible to sit for longer than 3 minutes.A

Sorry I do sound harsh. The thing is already, a year on from finishing BF it seems such a distant memory.

I can remember those first weeks and yes it is pretty horrid.

DS had tongue tie (we found out later) and I found BF incredibly painful. I couldn't talk and BF at the same time and had to tap my foot in time to sucks to try and give me something to take my mind off the pain. And yes that time did last a good six weeks.

But after that, it so very much is definately worth it. It definately is worth perserving with. Your baby is tiny, you are still trying to recover from the birth. Just take things slowly, try and enjoy your tiny baby and think that in just a few short weeks you will be more up to going out and about. To be rushing around now wouldn't be fair to you or your newborn. Just take some time.

With two children,I know sometimes feel sad that i wanted to rush out of that newborn stage.
I'm sure many people feel the same.

Wish I'd listened a bit more when people told me to live for the moment. One day i turned around and it had gone.
Made myself feel quite sad last night,looking at pictures of mine at this stage.

It is personal and the reason that it is such a contentious issue is that mothers are forever being made to feel guilty about it. Everyone knows that breast is undoubtedly best for your baby, but if perhaps you choose not to go down that road, or you are unable to, you feel guilty. It's hard listening to everyone bleating on about the benefits of breast-feeding when you either didn't or couldn't. It makes you feel defensive and uncomfortable.

I was bottle-fed as a child, my mother bottle-fed all her kids. It was the done thing in those days, I don't think she even gave bf a second thought. We've all grown up healthy enough, no excema, no serious allergies (although myself, my sister and my elder brother have hayfever, I got mine 5 years ago!).

My sister and me chose to break the mould and breastfeed our babies. Again they are all healthy (dd has slight excema).

I struggled with breastfeeding. I found it very tying too. Until I got it right, I was stuck with the baby those first few months. I couldn't even go shopping on my own in case they needed feeding. I had to watch what I ate, what I drank, I found latching difficult and I couldn't feed in public because of the difficulties that I had, and the fact that I could squirt up to 4 metres! I gave up after 4 months with dd because I wanted my freedom back. I perserved until 8 months with ds.

It's a personal choice. But whatever you do, you mustn't regret it. Don't feel as though you have to defend your choice. If you feel that way then you probably haven't made the right choice for you.

I like that last bit Rhubarb about not having made the right choice if you feel you have to defend it.
Spot on.

Darcii

I know exactly how you feel. I found bf very limiting to my life and was shocked at how my life changed after my first. I had a massive row with dh when dd was 2 weeks old about who's stupid idea it was to have her .

I since went on to feed dd for 8 months and ds for 15 months. And this is a woman who wanted to give bottles....

My tips:
Keep at it as it does get easier....
Once they are a couple of months old introduce a bottle for afternoon feed as I found this gave me the freedom to get out of the house!!! For more than a quick dash between bfeeding. [ducks for cover] Never really got into the feeding in public thing

thanks all. guess i am trying to intellectualise the issue when it's not so much about thinking but feeling. am used to thinking about things too much! adore this little guy but still feel a bit detached from it all sometimes. will take your advice and just try to 'be' with him rather than thinking about all the stuff i am not getting done because of having to feed him. i am usually a very organised person so the huge disruption is wreaking havoc on my control freak nature!

thanks for your support and advice.

and thanks cecee and rhubarb for the commiserations. i do want to feel i have a choice and be able to see a future where my needs count too.

oh Darcii that is the sort of thing I said when I had dd - loss of control was a major problem for me. You have to adjust your expectations and go with it a bit. Believe me it seems like it is going on forever at hte moment. But it will seem like a blink of the eye in a few months...

Having you first when you are a bit older and got used to a certain lifetsyle - it is hard adjust...

I'm a complete contro lfreak too Darcii
The kind wh has her knickers colour coded and the day mapped out.

Expressing suited me-I had 'freedom' to be on my own occasionally from quite an early age 9the baby's not mine!)

I gave the odd bottle too, more for ds than dd. I was more relaxed with my second! It got him used to the bottle so giving up bf was easier when I did it, and it gave me a little freedom too so I could escape for a while.

You could try expressing. But I used formula in my bottles! Sometimes if I'd expressed enough I would mix. You can get an expressing kit fairly cheaply from Boots, they are the ones I used, worked ok for me.

Darcii - just wanted to back up other peoples opinions that bf does not mean a lack of freedom - once it is established. By about weeks both of my bf babies were on a more settled routine of bf's, and the ability to whip out a boob anywhere made outings so easy.

I also started expressing so that dh could give bottles of expressed milk occasionally (mainly at the so that I could pm feed), which gave me the freedom to go out, or, more often, just go to bed early!

I agree taht the argument is often polarised, mainly because our society seems to make mothers feel guilty about every decision they do make, and uilt leads to defensiveness. But whilst there have been some rants on mumsnet on this subject in the past there are alos lots of reasoned arguments in the arhives from all viewpoints - most of us usually refrain from too much judgemnet

Oh, and from a fellow control freak (and I do hesitate to bring this up because it is another extrmely contentios subject) have you read Gina Ford? She doesn't suit everyone, but IME anal retentives like her routines

Whatever decision you make, hard as it seems now, a few years down the line when your ds is happy, bright and thriving you'll wonder what all the fuss was about

I agree with everyone else who said bf is certainly not limiting on freedom of movement once established. Yes, it can be frustrating to have to feed again, and many's the time I've done so with a weary sigh, but a feed can also be used as an opportunity to sit down and have a rest (and it's a very welcome one now ds is 10 months and crawling all over the place).

Those early weeks and later on are two different worlds, believe me.

On your other question, as well as feeding being an incredibly powerful issue (as others have said), I think the current moment in time plays a role - as a society we have developed a bottle feeding culture over the past decades, but now there is a general recognition that breast is best and health agencies and professionals are trying to develop awareness of this. This means that mothers are exposed to a lot of 'breast is best' messages, but at the same time bf support is not adequately available and a lot of hps are still quick to suggest formula when things aren't going right, leading to a lot of women who feel they have 'failed' at bf and understandably feel very defensive and emotional about this.

has this thing kicked off yet?

Darcii - very good question

The reason it is a "big issue" for me is because I am making decisions for a baby - by definition babies have no choice in how they are fed - if they could communicate I am sure they would tell us what they want - we have to make those crucial life choices for them and those choices have consequences

For me as a mother there was never any doubt - it was either bf or nothing - there is no alternative for me in terms of how I feed my own child

I have a lot of admiration for women who bf and enjoy supporting and encouraging them

However, that does not give me the right to be openly rude and judgemental re. formula feeders - that is bad manners and to be discouraged

It does however give me the right to be rude and obstructive to the companies who campaign to promote formula - often by dirty means - so this is where I focus my attention

Bf is extremely political and as such I think a mother who choses to bf, esp. over a longer period of time, will find it extremely liberating

I know I have, but then I generally like to go against the grain

Oh No, not this old chestnut...

I formula fed, dont know why. I kept an open mind about how to feed and was undecided up until birth day.
I had an extrememly traumatic delivery and had emergency C section. Too long a story to go into, but basically couldnt feed ds myself on first night and a Midwife fed him for me with Formula (she asked me first).
After that, I didnt feel (or even know) that I could breast feed. Was given no information or advice.
Maybe if I had my time over I would probably have liked to have given it a try.

As for the lifestyle issues, I have no experience of this on the bf side, but bottlefeeding can be just as tiring and there is heating up the milk, keeping bottles in 'cool' bags etc when going out, making the feeds, and then wishing you had packed an extra bottle!

Darcii, hope you are getting on ok.

When DS was 2 weeks old, I couln't even string a simple sentance together, let alone rationalise a "breast v bottle" argument!!!! 15 months down the line, and pg with no 2, it all seems a hazt and distant memory!

I would say stick at it, in that you have come this far, which is fantastic. It does get much easier, and being a rather slovenly woman, I would never have been organised enough to do the whole sterilising/boiling kettles malarkey. I can understand your point about your lack of freedom, as a 2 week old baby just wants boob boob boob. Have you thought of getting one of thoese sling thingumijigs where you can feed them on the go? I never used one, but my friend swore by hers, she used to prepare the dinner while feeding her dd!

If you decide bfing isn't for you (and I almost gave up after 3 weeks, but I did continue until DS was 14 months) then please don't beat yourself up about it. Yes, breast is best for your baby, but if you feel that it's making you unhappy, then you should reassess.

My advice (probably crap, but I'll give it anyway) is to give it another couple of weeks. Newborns don't equal freedom, I'm afraid to say, but it does get better. Your baby's feeding pattern will settle after a little while and you won't feel so much like a dairy cow.

Hope I haven't spoken a lot of shite