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Infant feeding

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

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Original poster

"It was my baby's choice to bottlefeed"

36 replies

emkana · 05/05/2006 20:31

... is what it said in a letter in the Daily Mail (I know, I know) today.

Anyone care to comment on that?

OP posts:

starlover · 05/05/2006 20:32

well, i don't necessarily agree with it being the baby's CHOICE.. but.. my ds refused to breastfeed when he was born. screamed when placed anywhere near a naked booby!

so... i had to bottlefeed for first 10 days!

SoupDragon · 05/05/2006 20:38

In what way did they believe it was their baby's choice?

starlover · 05/05/2006 20:39

i suppose if a baby has been mixed fed and then refuses breast they have chosen the bottle in a way... but it's tenuous at best!

Psychobabble · 05/05/2006 20:40

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

emkana · 05/05/2006 20:41

it wasn't explained further, the letter was mainly about pushchairs - the woman just started it off by "apologizing" for having a baby at 39, by c/section, for bottlefeeding and for having a big pushchair.

OP posts:

pupuce · 05/05/2006 20:42

I have seen babies who TOTALLY refuse the breast.... more often than not it's following a bad birth but not always.
Shivs' baby refused the breast and she had an easy birth and no trauma... but HO HEY would she NOT take the blooming breast LOL. She was cup fed for a week (we even syringed milk into her...)... but to NO avail!
She was successsfully bottlefed EBM fo a year though!

pupuce · 05/05/2006 20:42

I'd be apologising for the pushchair too LOL

lua · 05/05/2006 20:50

My mum told me that I weanedmyself at 3months!
Like yeah, right.!!! It was probaly me at 2.5months making my own bottle instead that gave her the clue....

Piffle · 05/05/2006 20:51

I'd not comment without knowing more but saying that...
Anyone who writes into the DM for a letter...
If she read it while pregnant, then what did she expect

shazronnie · 05/05/2006 21:13

Sometimes you have to struggle to establish the bf but I am always sceptical when such claims are made.

pupuce · 05/05/2006 21:15

Shaz - I think the sentence is crap but as a BF counsellor I can sadly report that some babies NEVER latch on!

shazronnie · 05/05/2006 21:20

fair enough pupuce, I know everything is not black or white.
But I do think some women expect bf to be easy from day one, and forget that mum and baby need to learn together.

throckenholt · 05/05/2006 21:25

hmm - well my DS1 would not breast feed for the first month and my twins would not breast feed at all (I did con one of them to do it on two occasions but that was all). I think given time and space I could have got the twins feeding but not with an 18 month old running around at the same time. I ended up expressing for them for 9 months.

sweetkitty · 05/05/2006 21:37

Sometimes I do wonder about breastfeeding in days gone by i.e. when there wasn't an alternative to breastfeeding. What did a mother do then when a baby didn't latch? Did they persevere or did the baby starve? Surely then by natural selection only the best breastfeeders would have survived and past the ability on to their offspring?

Was also thinking the other night (am so sleep deprived right now so forgive my ramblings) about breastfeeding in the "olden" days. How hard was it with loads of other children running around? I've got one toddler and it's hard but I have a dishwasher, washing machine, central heating, enough to eat, safety gates etc how did women manage it? Handwashing nappies for a few toddlers for instance?

picnikel · 05/05/2006 21:40

"The weaker vessel" by Antonia Fraser talks about breast-feeding in the 16th century (fascinating book, btw) and apparently it was DEEPLY unfashionable to breast feed then, well to do women used wet nurses!

Cappucino · 05/05/2006 21:46

dd1 couldn't feed at all - found out a year later she had cerebral palsy - made me want to go out and sock all those people who chirruped 'every baby can feed' at me in the early days in the jaw

mind you, Daily Mail... she was probably a nutter

starlover · 05/05/2006 21:51

sweetkitty.. in the olden days a baby would have been wetnursed, or possibly a mother would have expressed, or it may have been given cows milk, or it may have died :(

i don't think that natural selection comes into it... breastfeeding isn't something that's inherited.
i think most women can breastfeed... but we don't alwways have babies that want to!

Harpsichordcarrier · 05/05/2006 22:17

I have been reading a lot about this - mostly about other cultures and it seems that there is a very significant cultural aspect. i.e. in cultures where bf is the norm, then there are few bf problems of any kind.
at the risk of stating the obvious... if you grow up seeing other women bf, if all your friends and family and neighbours bf etc etc...
and in other cultures (and the Olden Days) we wouldn't be stuck in houses by ourselves with children and babies. The older children would be looking after the younger ones. Other relatives would be around.

starlover · 05/05/2006 22:18

but what would happen if you had a baby like mine that just refused point blank to go anywhere near me?

Harpsichordcarrier · 05/05/2006 22:25

well it depends on the culture of course
in lots of cultures someone else would feed the baby starlover

bramblina · 05/05/2006 22:43

Sorry to but in but can I jus say the title of this thread reminded me of a woman telling me her dog chose to be a vegan too how shocking is that? Or how shocking that these people say these things out loud, and believe them?

Jimjamskeepingoffvaxthreads · 05/05/2006 23:14

ds1 breastfed on the right hand side for 13 months. Was not happy with left side ever, so gave up on that one after about 4months

ds2 breastfed for 2 years happily.

ds3 - absolute bloody nightmare, was never interested, we had huge battles. Struggled on for a while with mixed feeding and EBM, but gave up at 5 months or something. Would have liked to have expressed for a year, but milk supply dwindled quickly (was never great with him, had buckets with ds1).

fastasleep · 05/05/2006 23:21

Mine both refused the breast completely and utterly, I tried for 6-8 weeks, syringe feeding them without even putting the syringe in their mouth but just dribbling ebm in...

So erm, how can you say it wasn't my babies choice not to BF?

I saw BFing counsellors etc etc and expressed (express!) exclusively for them..

fastasleep · 05/05/2006 23:22

My children never latched on properly, I had advice from a whole host of people on positions...

I must be on of the 'rare' few with a real problem then?

fastasleep · 05/05/2006 23:24

Just read thread, thank god pupuce :) I am one of those people with a no latching babies!! (I think it must be my breasts)

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