Bonding - breastfeeding v bottle feeding

[Overcooked]

Not a bun fight, genuinely interested.

There are a lot of people (health professionals included) who state that breastfed babies have a closer bond with their mother.

AIBU to think that actually it could be similar to the intelligence thing (i.e. intelligent women are more like to breastfeed and also more likely to have intelligent children so the breastfeeding is in fact a bit of a red herring).

So in the same vein are women who choose to breastfeed more likely to have a good bond with their babies in any event, and also trying to measure 'bond' must be nigh on impossible and very subjective in any event so how can one compare the two.

Would be very interested to hear from anyone who breastfed one child and bottle fed another to see whether they feel they had/have a stronger bond with one over the other.

I ff DD1 (3) and am bf DD2 (4months).

Physically DD2 is more "attached", she needed to be held constantly and still has massive sleep issues. But that's attachment due to being the physical milk source, not bonding.

I now feel equally bonded to both but actually miss the bottle feeding, as pp said with bottle feeding I sat cuddled, eye contact and sang. If I try to do that while bf I get a cricked neck, a distracted and annoyed DD or lots of milky smiles but not much feeding!

I kind of wish I could drop the bf for ff to get that back but there is something stopping me, something not wanting to detach her from the breast, I suppose I am still waiting for these fabled milky cuddles to kick in!

So no bonding wise it's total bollocks.

Intelligence wise (this isn't a stealth boast) but DD1 is very forward, she's hitting milestones a year ahead and has insane vocab/reasoning/imagination skills. This has been backed up by her preschool carers, HV etc so not a pfb boast, it will probably even out as she gets older but if ff makes her less intelligent than bf DD2 then I'm in for a wild old ride

I think contentment in babies can be assessed actually, otherwise how would we have come to know that the 'cry it out' method was so harming?

So point me then to this bonding research and study and I will read it forthwith.

^Something that you dont get with bf babies is the gazing into their eyes while they feed, as bf babies close their eyes while feeding. At least they do at first. (I can't remember how long for.)

Err, yes you do get that.^

But bf babies do close their eyes while they feed, at least at first. I bf my second until she was 3.5 by the way, but i do remember that as a small baby she bf with her eyes closed, whereas my ff baby had eyes open from younger. I can't remember how long the eyes closed stage lasted now as the bf child is now 5. But I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it!

Well ds bfed with his eyes open most of the time from day one, so I guess each baby is different.

Hi all,

We have moved this thread to the Breast and Bottle feeding topic.

best wishes
MNHQ

Bonds & babies are all different. How can anyone tell another person they bonded with their baby more/less than another.

We can't even describe our bonds in words really.

Quadrangle I don't think a sample size of two is much to go on, do you?!

I do not think that bonding is necessarily about how you feed your baby. For me it was a mixture if things, with DD1 bonding took an age. I had a difficult birth, could not latch her on, was shocked by the loss of my old life and at my sheer inability to take care and calm my child. DH on the other hand calmed her well from the start, and without meaning too made me feel inadequate. Bonding was very difficult. I bf Dd2 and bonded well, but DH was much more hands off as I was much more confident.

Feeding method was pretty inconsequential for me. Bonded with DD1 much better when I stopped EBF and started to ff.

Sorry terrible typos thanks iPad

Well midori to be fair the OP said she "Would be very interested to hear from anyone who breastfed one child and bottle fed another to see whether they feel they had/have a stronger bond with one over the other." I did that and am sharing my experience as many others have done!

It's behind a pay-wall and I am not bothered enough to go through the hassle of actually paying.

Human behaviour can be studied and we use these studies to understand ourselves as a species. Of course these types of study can never be absolute in their outcomes, but I think the majority of people accept that certain things can be studied in order to improve our parenting abilities.

Most MN's would agree that the CIO method was a bad idea for any child because research has shown that it can cause a child distress and even depression. If we can understand that a child can become depressed from CIO methods, why would it not be possible to research what contributes to the forming of a mother and her baby's bond?

There is research being done into this field and results are emerging all the time. I don't understand why I need source it for you to read in order to reinforce my point. Most modern mothers have styled their form of parenting around what modern research has outlined as an improved way of parenting.

Midori I was told the exact opposite. That Warfarin is safe to breast feed on, but clexane isn't.

I was on a dose of 80mg bd which is a lot higher than they give must women post delivery. My haematolgist told me to express and discard my breast milk for the 6 weeks that I was on clexane, and to then try to breast feed when I was back on warfarin.

I think it just goes to show that different people have different opinions about what drugs are safe to breast feed on or not.

Ldn you told me this could be assessed, I asked you where. Seems simple enough.

I wouldn't be interested in paying to read it, there will be way too many variables in my opinion than trying to assess the degree of bonding in a mother & Bach purely on the method of feeding.

Baby that is. Not bach, haven't bonded with him at all.

Biologically you release oxytocin when your milk lets down. This is the 'love' hormone and is IIRC the basis of the hypothesis that bonding is 'better' if you BF.

You don't get the same hit of hormones whilst bottlefeeding.

That doesn't mean that if you bottle feed you're not having lovely, warm and fuzzy cuddles with your child. Nor that if you are having problems with breastfeeding that the pain is outweighed by the upside. Just that if bottlefeeding, you won't get a biologically induced hormonal boost to your relationship at the same time.

as I understand it the good/love hormones come from the skin to skin aspect of BFing, and can be replicated by any skin to skin time

Well the message would appear to be that breastfeeding can promote bonding.

Still what the op was asking was if its possible or fair to say this means a better/deeper/different bond exists with not breastfeeding.

I had 'the love rush' when my ds was placed in my arms, well before any feeding was involved. I could have been feeding him pork pies for all he cared from his side of the equation.

Imho bonding is down to personalities involved and circumstances at critical times

There are lots if things you can do to promote bonding. Pork pies included!

I suppose it's better to be more precise, to say that successful breastfeeding promotes quicker bonding. Unsuccessful breastfeeding, trying but failing or just hating it, must be seriously stressful & (I imagine) could even delay bonding.

From my point of view pork pies will always promote bonding but perhaps that's just me.

Goblin, yes, re the oxytocin thing I wonder if the release of oxytocin has somehow now become a kind of evidence that there will be a stronger bond.

A friend was asking whether it might be not whether you actually do breastfeed but whether (if there were no problems at all) you would have chosen to breastfeed as you would want to give the best start to the baby's life - but I feel I may be wandering into can of worms territory.

It's really tough becuase on one hand I can see why HPs would want so say that BF gives a stronger bond but actually what happens is that it is used as a stick to beat non-BF'ing mothers by suggesting that their bond won't be as strong.

I think perhaps a better starting point would be to try and make it 'cool' for younger mothers as they are statistically less likely to even try to BF.

There are plenty of ways of assessing attachment and bonding.

The thing is, bfing when it is going well, does promote attachment and bonding. We know things like a bf cosleeping mother is more responsive to her baby than a ff cosleeping mother. The bfing/cosleeping mother will get more sleep, more oxytocin released from feeding etc. It's all in general terms though. It doesn't mean there aren't other ways of promoting attachment or exceptions to every rule. BF babies who aren't securely attached and FF babies who are, you can point to as many examples as you like. So lots of posters saying 'this isn't true for me' or 'this is true for me' makes no difference. Because anecdote isn't data and we aren't actually very good at assessing our own relationships for research purposes. My good friend for example has a boy and a girl. She is very proud of the fact that she 'treats them exactly the same and their gender is irrelevant'. Except it isn't. She loves them both the same but from her language to her actions, she has a definite boy and a definite girl.

BF babies have fewer hospitalisations from gastroenteritis too. But you start a thread on that and I bet you'll find many ff mothers whose babies have iron constitutions or with the intelligence thing (it's a small difference across large groups again), people will say 'well my ff ds is g&t but bf dd isn't'. None of it proves anything.

It would be really nice if as much effort could be ploughed into supporting parents either way, concentrating on families where appropriate attachment and bonding are a genuine concern and encouraging bonding in every form instead of arguing over small statistical differences, or the terms in which they're couched I suppose.

'Bfing promotes bonding' is much more pragmatic than 'bfed babies have better bonds with their mothers'.

Fanjo I think you are being a bit defensive because my point wasn't even about the ability to assess bonding in connection to feeding.

My point was that I do think a baby's contentment can be assessed to a certain extent. Claiming it is unlikely is a bit off IMO, as modern parenting is founded around this type of research and assessment technique and MN is a place where the subsequent and supposed better parenting techniques, that result from such research and assessment, are openly suggested as an improvement on the old methods of parenting. I was using the CIO method as an example.

OK fair enough, I apologise. Saw a thread on a similar subject a while back and I was too ready for action I suppose.

Nim exactly this:

'Bfing promotes bonding' is much more pragmatic than 'bfed babies have better bonds with their mothers'.

I know it can be tricky, and no one on here has done anything but the amount of times I DO hear people say they've a better bond, I do find it irksome.