Anyone tried scheduled as opposed to demand breastfeeding?

[jasper]

It seems most current experts on breastfeeding support demand feeding.
I consider myself to have been something of a failure on the breastfeeding front with my first two. The details are unimportant, but briefly, they would both suck for hours on end, I never once had the sensation of fullness in the breasts, never felt my milk " come in", never leaked...And this was with the most wonderful support from midwives and breastfeeding counsellors...Anyway I lasted about six weeks with number one, less with number two.This has made me wonder if perhaps demand feeding might work out where demand feeding had failed for certain mothers, eg. me.
I recently read Gina Ford's book with interest. She suggests scheduled feeding ( I think three hourly at first). I really do not want to open up the whole breastfeeding debate as I am sure demand feeding is best in some way, but having failed twice I really would like to hear from anyone who has succeded with scheduled breastfeeds where demand feeding failed.
Please don't suggest ways of making demand feeding work!

I am not uncomfortable with statistics wendym, I just have no flair for it ? but maybe that is what you mean. I certainly recognise their value, accompanied by some ?meat? of background information of course. Far too often stats are bandied about by the likes of the Government designed to either impress/confuse people. Alternatively people can give vague figures. For instance my husband HATES the phrase ?up to?, as in the context ?up to 50 people were injured in a rail accident? ? this it totally useless. It means not more than 50 people were injured but it could be as little as only 1 person.

Anyway I digress ...

I think tiktok has mirrored my potential answers and answered them better as she obviously has more experience in working with b/feeding mothers. Indeed as you say tiktok I don?t know why it is seen as a problem that babies feed so much, particularly if the baby is happy. A friend of mine who is breastfeeding ? unusually her 2nd baby (didn?t even try with No1) said to me today ?it is great ? if he is grizzly at all I just put him on the breast ? I?ve got 2 dummies just to hand ?? I think we have to remember that it is natural for a baby to be pacified at the breast, food or not. After all how did people manage in the days before dummies? It doesn?t make sense for something artificial and manmade to solve the ?problem? of sucking frequently.

As tiktok says the two issues of supply and feeding are synonymous ? you can?t separate them so ?testing? by expressing is unreliable. Also a poor supply is only a temporary state and it shouldn?t be viewed as being the death of breastfeeding. Some women have even been able to re-lactate after stopping. I had a poor supply in the early weeks. I knew this without expressing as my baby wasn?t sucking hard enough and was always hungry despite having him on the breast for ages. I tried expressing but could get very little out in the first few weeks. However I leaked a lot of milk, particularly at night and I used breast shells to collect some of this milk. I knew the only way I could get my supply going was to keep feeding as much as possible. If I had been able to express then this indeed may have helped but it wouldn?t have informed me reliably about the status of my supply. I got more cues from the baby. I also kind of did what you suggestion about expressing but kind of in reverse ? I added up the amount of expressed milk + formula he was getting in 24 hours and took this amount away from a rough guess of what he needed and this figure was then what he was taking from me. As the bottled milk figure decreased I knew my breast milk production was increasing. Very soon I used no bottles at all ? but he still liked to feed often! However by 3 months he was spacing the feeds by 3 hours and sleeping 7 hours at night. Frequent feeding really doesn?t last long and I feel it is better to not view it as a problem, just get on with it and try not to change the world.

Yes I also don?t understand how a dummy will make a baby more willing to feed ? how can this work any better than a nipple? Indeed the nipple would work better because baby knows that food comes out of that!

Thanks for the info on diabetics. I also agree regarding MMR ? I delayed my son?s MMR till he was 20 months but after careful consideration and reading many articles/debates on the Internet I came to the conclusion that it was safe. He is fine.

These are excerpts from an article on the topic (not a research article, but the author does publish)

Non-Nutritive Sucking, by Katherine Dettwyler, PhD
Department of Anthropology, Texas A and M University

I don't like this term because it juxtaposes itself to "nutritive sucking" with the implication that "nutritive" sucking is REAL sucking, and the other is not. It also carries with it the implication that the main/only real purpose of breastfeeding is the transfer of nutrients. ?I don't think breastfeeding is "just" about feeding the baby, any more than sex is "just" about creating babies. Breastfeeding the baby does provide food, and water. It also provides immunological factors, which may be what the baby is after (and why they nurse so often when sick, not just for comfort). The process of breastfeeding itself also regulates the baby's temperature and heart rate and lowers its blood pressure, and puts it to sleep. And then of course there are all those important social and emotional factors going on during the exchange.

As long as breastfeeding is seen as only or even primarily a way to feed the baby, then bottle-feeding will be seen as equivalent or good enough (IMHO). We need to really try to get away from this idea that if the sucking is "non-nutritive" then it is optional, or can be replaced by a pacifier. A good point was made that mothers need to be able to realize if milk transfer is not taking place, and they need to pay attention to output, and they need to listen to their babies, and they may need someone to check their latch-on, and keep track of the baby's weight, etc. I've criticized fellow anthropologists who do "stop watch" research of time baby spends at breast without considering a) how much, if any, milk transfer is taking place, and b) whether or not the mother is lactating.

At the same time, we really need to start teaching people that breastfeeding is a multi-factorial, complex interaction between two people that has ramifications for the child's nutritional status, to be sure, but also its ability to deal with disease, its physiology, its emotional and cognitive development. I guess to me the phrase "non-nutritive" just smacks of "non-important" or "non-real" or "non-significant" even if it isn't meant that way.

Eulalia - I know I'm only one person not a study of thousands but I thought I had to explain my view.
You say that 'I don?t know why it is seen as a problem that babies feed so much' and that 'Frequent feeding really doesn?t last long '.
My baby wanted 'feeding' very frequently for the first 5 months, day and night. Whether he wanted a boob for nutrition, comfort or to satisfy his 'sucking' requirements it made no difference to me, I still had to be awake with baby plugged on. It may have been the best thing in his interest to suck all the time but it was pretty disasterous for me.
I was exhausted physically and mentally, often getting only 3 hours sleep a night and none during the day (ds didn't nap during the day and I had no one here to take care of him whilst I did), I was/am depressed, couldn't face going out and couldn't walk straight if I did. I hated breastfeeding, I did it because it was the best start I could give him, then continued partly because he refused to drink from a bottle and partly because he caught a series of colds/viruses and I love him too much to deny him such comfort when he was ill.
Finally, when I got to the point that I was a gibbering wreck my GP wanted to put me on anti-depressants which I couldn't take whilst breastfeeding so I had no choice - I offered bottles to my screaming baby until he gave in and drank and have now (after 6 months) given up breastfeeding. Suddenly he is sleeping for hours and only needs 4 or 5 bottles a day, and with 6 hours sleep I don't need the medication. I feel as if the last 6 months have been some sort of hell.
That is the problem with frequent feeding, and yes it can go on for what seems like an awful long time.
You were lucky that your baby accepted ebm/formula top-up bottles.

BTW this thread is brill, it's great to see such informed intelligent debate (no I'm not being sarcastic).

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dm2 your experience is very like mine .

I think it's entirely understandable that women feel worn down by babies who feed for hours and hours and hours day and night with hardly any sleeping - I agree it's inadequate to say (more or less) get on with it! Here's my take:

• a baby feeding hours and hours day and night with very little sleep may not be feeding normally - someone who knows what they are talking about needs to listen to the mother and watch what is happening. This person needs to rule out tonge tie, less than optimal positioning, over-supply in the mother...a few things, anyway.

• sometimes, this sort of frequency is normal, but it is likely to be temporary. Many babies become more predictable after the first weeks.

we need to support mothers and allow* them to do very little else except care for the baby and themselves when things are demanding...without expecting the mother to shut herself away without adult, social contact. Babies - even babies who feed a lot - are portable, but they should be 'ported' to other people's houses, social events and so on, without the mother feeling she should be shopping, cleaning whatever, with the baby along. This is an issue for society - in previous generations, communities and families would help out, and no one expected a new mother to be 'back to normal'. She would be cherished, and cared for, and someone else would help out with other children, and household jobs

• it's physiological fact that babies need feeding a lot...get mad at Nature, or evolution, if you like : ) It's also a physiological fact that young babies need to be, and enjoy being, close to their mothers for comfort, food and relaxation. They have not the faintest idea they are born into a 21st century western post-industrial society where because of all sorts of reasons, the cultural preference is for routines, long sleep times and predictable meal times. They are the same little beings who were born into hunter-gatherer societies, or to cave mummies, or nomadic tribes...or whatever. They come into the world 'programmed' to feed on cue, to be close to the breast, to sleep next to a maternal body. This makes sense in evolutionary terms - for most of human existence, this was the only safe way to care for babies. Over millenia, babies and breasts evolved to expect, and provide, that safety and nutrition.

In time, we socialise our babies to fit into the society they're in; that can't happen straight away, because while we might, as adults, know very well what our cultural norms are, and be comfortable with them, the baby has to learn. He is helpless, he can't communicate, he can't remember in the way we do. So I think it is kinder to accept his needs for frequent contact and frequent feeds - the fact that frequent feeding (as long as it is effective) ensures a good milk supply just shows how well mother's bodies have evolved to match the needs of their babies.

Think of a later analogy: we accept that a crawling baby sees a tablecloth and he 'needs' to grab it to see what happens - he needs to hold, and explore, and pull! We might decide to adapt our house for the moment - we remove the tablecloth where he can't see the end dangling down. As he gets older, we teach him not to pull on tablecloths, saying 'no' and explaining why. We know babies are driven by impulses (in this case to pull the tablecloth, in the other case to feed/suck/be close to the breast) which we accept and adapt to at first, and which we then teach him to curb, in the interests of the wider group (who don't like picking up broken crockery or mopping spilt tea!).

Bloss - being worn down by the relentless demands of a baby is a horrible feeling, and mothers who experience this need a lot of practical help and support, and not exhortations to accept it cheerfully...nor do they need exhortations to switch to bottle feeding, which does not always help either.

I don't knw what the answer is for every individual mother and baby and family...they have to work it out for themselves, to a certain extent. Practicl help and support, for a start, may be in short supply.

While I accept that there MAY be problems in giving a dummy before b/f is well established, I think that some of the experiences here show that giving one can often provide the relief that gives the mum the energy/motivation to CONTINUE b/f.

My own ds was an extremely slow feeder - to the extent that I was getting a sore bum from all the sitting! Once I knew he was getting enough (and I've described below how I used EBM, before deciding that that was just him), I decided that if I could take him off my boob without having to "break the seal", ie just pull him away, then he wasn't really sucking and was just sucking as a reflex. I would then give him the dummy so that he would be disturbed as little as possible. It would usually drop out after a wee while anyway as he went to sleep.
For me that worked. It meant that I could get up and stretch my legs, massage my sore bum, go the loo etc! He never had the dummy for long periods - almost always only at the end of a feed. I didn't give to him when I put him down at night, so he didn't learn to need it to go to sleep. I deliberately stopped using it when he was 6 months old, so that I had no problems weaning him off it.

If/when we have another one, I would use a dummy again.

Dm2 - I am sorry you are/have been depressed and it certainly is unusual for a baby to feed/comfort feed as much as you state (although I wasn?t clear how much he actually was feeding). How do you actually know that it was breastfeeding that was the cause of all your problems? If I may with respect suggest that it is often all too easy for one to blame all their problems on breastfeeding. The thing about b/feeding is that it works too well ? not only feeding the baby but comforting them if they are tired/not feeling well/insecure and so looking at it from that perspective things completely change. If your baby is already suffering from sleeping difficulties then the breast is at least helping him to get to sleep. Imagine how much worse they may have been if you hadn?t had that to resort to. It could just be that at 6 months he is sleeping well anyway. Many mothers cite around 6 months as a time when the baby sleeps through. Some don?t till they are a year or older and we all know from these topics that many have sleep problems (whether b/feeding or not).

I do know how you feel as my baby was a frequent feeder ? all the top-up bottles did was to get him fed. He still wanted to comfort feed frequently and has actually continued frequent feeding for over 2 years! He still now (at 2.5) takes a ?feed? last thing at night and the experience hasn?t always been enjoyable and indeed at times downright irritating. At 18 months he would feed as much as he did at 6 months. It was exhausting at times but I felt I had no alternative as he didn?t take a dummy and it wasn?t for food. Again it depends on how you look at it ? all babies/toddlers are unpredictable, moody, suffer minor illnesses and need lots of comfort. They have to be dealt with one way or the other. Yes there are other ways of dealing with these problems other than b/feeding but sometimes they don?t work and can be time consuming or bad for the child (eg giving sweeties). I have NEVER known my child to refuse my boob ? he can be screaming his head off for some reason and it is like magic ? suddenly it is quiet and he only needs 2 mins and his suddenly restored. I?ve seen non b/feeding friends spend ages cuddling/stuffing dummies in etc and it takes much longer to soothe the child. I know it is difficult because all the onus is on you as the main ?provider? for the child but this is totally natural. Yes at times it can drive you mad when baby is pulling at your top to get at your boobs but all kids drive you mad one way or the other. B/feeding could be viewed as a solution, not a problem in itself. I could also quote the story about how my 18 month didn?t eat for a week and relied totally on b/milk. How it helped after his hernia operation (he only cried for 5 mins) and so on. In retrospect there were many episodes when it was downright annoying but also many when it saved my sanity. Yes my boobs were constantly sought but at least the house was always quiet! I certainly know my husband was glad of it.

I think the issue of b/feeding is extremely complex and the fact that it is a strong emotional relationship for both mother and baby is very often ignored. In our modern society it is not seen as good for a mother to be almost literally tied to their babies. We now expect freedom relatively soon after birth and want our babies to be independent early on. It can seem intrusive to your body to have another human demanding constant access. I think we are all influenced by others and have expectations of how our babies should behave. If this was 100 years ago no-one would think twice of a baby suckling till he was 2 years old, whereas now it is seen as a problem. If you decide beforehand that something is wrong then you are bound to get annoyed/depressed about it. So Dm2 ? I?d say that you should congratulate yourself for having done so well. Indeed it can be hard for you to ?give yourself? totally to a young baby and 6 months does seem like a long time but unfortunately it is expected (that is why we have 6 months maternity leave). At least you?ll know that what you?ve done for your baby will stand him in good stead for the rest of his life. Hopefully if you do decide to have another baby he won?t have the same sleeping problems.

I am not assuming that frequent sucking (not feeding) is pathological tiktok but I am questioning whether it is always necessary. As other women have pointed out here frequent feeding is exhausting for the mother. It is one of the main reasons for ceasing to breastfeed.

There are a number of studies that look at non-nutritive sucking in the preterm infant. One of these (Pikler R et al The effect of non nutritive sucking on bottle feeding stress in preterm infants) involves an improvement in feeding performance when babies were given pacifiers before feeding. It involved pre-term infants and bottles but I don't believe there have been any studies of term breastfed infants. There is a recent Cochrane Review (Non-nutritive sucking for promoting physiologic stability and nutrition in per term infants Pirelli J) that finds no negative results and inconsistent benefits from giving preterm babies pacifiers.

The suggestion that if you can remove a baby easily they are not feeding and can be given a dumy makes sense to me. It also seems quite possible that giving a term infant a dummy before feeding might help them feed better.

I had a baby like Dm2's that wanted to be almost permanently attached to the breast - and for months. I also fell asleep feeding and woke to worry that I might have crushed my baby while sleeping. Obviously many women do not have that problem (I've heard feeding every 3 hours described as frequent - what bliss when we finally reached that stage) and find it hard to understand just how bad it can be. Comments about attachment etc can be immensely irritating when they prove to offer no help at all. My frequent feeder didn't actually have a dummy for some time so having a dummy wasn't the cause of the problem. When I finally tried formula that didn't make much difference either.

I've found other research suggesting that certain hormones may influence milk production in the mother/ hunger in the infant but I need to study this carefully.

Dm2 Studies on diabetics suggest vitamin D supplementation (for the baby) may reduce the possibility of your child becoming diabetic. If you don't want to supplement make sure you get outdoors with them - vitamin D can be made in the body if you get enough sunlight. I hope the breast feeders counsellors here are aware of the research?

Eulalia - with your beliefs how could you give your baby a bottle of formula?

All this talk of what to do regarding feeding, makes me think there must be many mothers out there, so wound up by time constraints around feeding that they lose out on the enjoyment.

Letting go of social pressures can leave both you and your baby having lots of fun. I know people are going to think I am a real hippy for saying this but sometimes I pick my baby up and feed him because I want to.
All my kids have enjoyed play feeding and still choose tactile contact with my boobs if the situation presents itself!

Why does womens libido reduce during feeding? Shock Horror!Could it possibly be because in itself breastfeeding is enough stimlus, after all we know of the scientific link between breasts and uterus. Now theres something to provoke a response!!

Eulalia - My mother and sisters have breastfed their children until they were at least 2 years old, most of these children were still waking at least once between midnight and 6am until they were 3. I had every expectation of being in similar circumstances, ie. I expected to be available to my child at all time, I did not expect him to become independent of me. However, I needed more sleep than 3 hours in each 24.

Sleep deprivation (aggravating my clinical depression) is the route of my troubles but a baby who demanded to have a boob (for whatever reason) at 6am,7,8,9,10,11,12,1pm,2,3,4,5,6,7,10 (ooh the 3 hour gap, it was heaven)12,2,4am was the cause of my sleep deprivation.
Offering him bottles (he never drank more than 2 ounces from them) at night (at 5 months) meant that within 3 nights he was only waking twice between 10pm and 7am.
I agree he had a sleep problem but the only way to solve this problem was to take away his 'natural' dummy.

Bloss - I see what you mean!

Tiktok - I believe in every word of your last post which is probably why I continued to bf as long as I did. Support is so vital, and in some cases
necessary for quite some time.

Dm2 ? waking every hour is really very unusual (not what you want to hear eh?).
Did you try sleeping with him latched on? I didn?t try this till my boy was about 4/5 months as I was worried about him suffocating but experience and reading on the subject shows that many co-sleep right from birth. Actually it was extremely easy at 5 months as he was still light enough to lie in my arms comfortably. I was barely aware of him latching on and off. It was only later than it got more difficult as he got heavier. As he got older there were many nights when I found it extremely irritating to get him latched on properly and to try to maintain a comfortable posture but generally speaking I was only awake for maybe 10 mins at a time, even if this was several times a night. I considered co-sleeping carefully and thought that the alternative meant getting out of a warm bed and standing next to a cot for perhaps ½ an hour perhaps also several times a night and I decided on balance that if he was going to wake at all then I?d rather not have to get out of bed. I certainly didn?t view the breastfeeding as ?making? him wake up ? I saw it as something that many babies do and actually stuffing my boob in got him off to sleep quicker than maybe singing, rocking etc would have done. But I wonder if your baby was hungry - if he was only taking 2 oz in a bottle at that late age it seems like he may have had problems with taking in enough food. Perhaps tiktok may have more suggestions. I guess you stopped before you really got him onto solid food so you wouldn?t have know if solids would have kept him sleeping for longer.

Wendym ? an interesting study but as you say it involves bottle fed babies ? they are more likely to take to dummies because it is so similar to a bottle teat.

?It also seems quite possible that giving a term infant a dummy before feeding might help them feed better? How?

You say - ?When I finally tried formula that didn't make much difference either.? Exactly, sometimes there is no solution (wait for the baby to grow older!)

Your comment - ?Eulalia - with your beliefs how could you give your baby a bottle of formula?? What beliefs exactly? I don?t think that one bottle (actually it was never a whole bottle, no more than a few oz at a time) of formula is terrible just that it can get out of control when you start introducing more and more formula. Why did I do it? Basically because I was totally ignorant . Back then I knew none of the stuff I spout so arduously on these boards. This is one reason why I am so outspoken ? I find the amount of knowledge and support I received was dreadful and I know exactly how others feel. Of course I have taken it upon myself to educate myself but not everyone has the time or resources to do this. There are an awful lot of myths and scare stories around too which don?t help.

Bloss ? I didn?t answer you (this is getting time consuming!) You talk about ?the relentless demands it makes? Don?t all babies made demands? My non-breastfeeding friend?s baby made no less demands than mine did even though he had a dummy ? often he would just cry ?through? this and needed to be picked up and generally fussed over.

I?ve never mentioned the ?beauty of bfing? (I know all too well how hard it can be).
However we tend to think that breastfeeding shouldn?t be difficult. To quote you again,?All my personal friends have found such a situation totally demoralising and intolerable? What preconceived notion or benchmark of breastfeeding do they have? What is deemed acceptable or tolerable? Doesn?t this vary from person to person, baby to baby, from x month to x month? Why do we get so annoyed about breastfeeding in particular when so much of childcare is difficult - look at all the topics here on sleep problems, food, toilet training etc ? we don?t stand up in moral outrage about them and say ?it shouldn?t be like this? ? we tend to assume that we aren?t doing something right and look for different ways of doing it. However for breastfeeding we don?t even bother ? many just give it up because the baby ?doesn?t need it?. And yet it can actually help with the many complex and inter-related problems of childhood.

So it depends on your point of view and often changing this requires a complete paradigm shift. Do you view breastfeeding as a necessary evil that is exhausting, time-consuming and prime purpose is only to feed the child, get some immunity into him and should be ended as soon as possible. Or do you view it as (to quote Dettwyler) ? a multi-factorial, complex interaction between two people? and has the benefit of always having ?comfort on tap?, provides continued immunological protection the longer you do it and therefore less doctors visits (and yes less interrupted nights), and indeed of course free food. And indeed like lill many women do enjoy it. These are two extreme views and it is not always lovey-dovey, but it does seem that far too many tend towards the first (necessary evil) view. If someone can give me examples of how all these substitutes work so well then perhaps I may change my view. However all that seems to be happening is people going on about how awful breastfeeding is without providing an adequate alternative. Perhaps there just isn?t one?

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Bloss, I always feel so sad when I read your posts about the early months with your son. Your love for him is so clear and the difficulties you experienced and the way these made you feel so honest and well expressed. I hope things are easier for you this time round- I guess at least you know what to expect and have your family- who sound rather ace from things you've said before- close at hand.

One of my Mum's closest friends came to visit me when my boys were very small and was obviously rather taken with them. I was surprised, then, to see her barely suppress a shudder when I gave them a (breast)feed while she was there. She apologised and confessed that she had found breast feeding her 1st child utterly horrendous and had continued only because all the bumpf agreed that it was the best food for babies. She was post-natally depressed and had a very hard time of things. She went on to feed her 2nd child with Coronation Evaporated Milk from very early on and the contrast couldn't have been greater- happy Mum and thriving "easy" baby. I'm not suggesting that it was the feeding methods that had the main bearing on her well-being but she was very clear on the liberating benefits of Coronation!

Not too sure what I'm trying to say with this story- I suppose I don't like the idea of you feeling that you are morally bound to breast feed for a year or so even if it is hellish and makes you feel utterly miserable. I really hope it isn't hellish but if it is then for heaven's sake consider taking your own message that formula isn't poison on board! It strikes me that all the expert advice we're given fails to take account of the fact that happy healthy mums and babes are the desireable outcome and that this isn't achieved by trying to push square pegs into round holes. (Some (most?)of my anti-Gina ranting is fuelled by the knowledge that I am very, very disorganised and could never hope to implement her routines in a million years. I would be very unhappy if people expected me to do so or if I felt it was my duty to do so.) I don't think anyone should feel guilty about using what works for them, (be that 24 hr breast, bottle, Gina, Penelope, their own common sense, dummies, co-sleeping etc.) and, importantly, rejecting what doesn't work for them.

Best of luck, Bloss.

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Bloss - Keep positive... your second baby will be a different experience all onto itself... you may have such an easy time, you'll be amazed !
BF for me was different the 2nd time around. It was not painful - except the first 2 or 3 days (the first time it was hell... have you looked at the "sore nipple" thread?) and DD is feeding from 1 side for 7 minutes tops - she doesn't want any more! DS was always 20 minutes each side (you knnow where that comes from don't you ? )

Robinw ? I think the majority of women who do give up don?t wait till they get the totally exhausted stage. There are only a few like yourself and the others on this board who really seem to persevere against all odds. I think this is one of the misconceptions that many have (not you of course) that it is difficult. Only 42% of UK women are b/feeding at 6 weeks. (Infant feeding 1995, Foster K, Lader D, Cheesbrough S. , The Stationery Office, London 1997). Of course some never try (at birth the figure is 66% b/feeding) but it can be seen that there is a big drop in the first 6 weeks which means a lot give up then. From my experience and knowledge gained it actually takes about 6 weeks to get b/feeding established. That is the pity of it that they give up at the time when it could get better. Also many have been giving formula and by then their supply has gone to pot so they feel they may as well give up.

Who knows of the ones who never try what kind of difficulties they would encounter. Tiktok will know better of the proportions of women who breastfeed how many have difficulties, how severe they are and how many do b/feed successfully. However I?d guess that she?d say that many problems are preventable and often the mother is struggling when it is already too late. For example the first few days are critical and yet the support and advice given in hospitals is dreadful ? probably due to lack of resources, time and so on and so some mothers leave with a problem ?waiting to happen?.

Bloss ? maybe lill didn?t have ?constant? demands?. Not all breastfeeding babies demand constant access to the breast! Remember that cases like yours and dm2 are in the minority. I am sorry if I?ve appeared unsympathetic in any way. Your 2nd post was more ?useful? to me as you stated you had oversupply problems and that you were seeking advice about what to do in the future. Often the severe problems that you and others here have had can be tracked back to something early on which wasn?t addressed properly and so the whole thing can get out of hand.

My questions about how tolerable feeding should be were in relation to more than just you as you mentioned your friends. Hence why I felt there was some sort of agreement about what is deemed tolerable. I am not saying it is wrong to think that ? after all we are all influenced by others experiences. And we have to remember that because the majority of women are bottle-feeding by 6 weeks that we are living in a bottle feeding culture and so see babies sleeping longer, taking more at a feed and spacing feeds. It is understandable that we feel that this is the ?norm? and what detracts from this is intolerable.

If you feel that bottle feeding is an alternative then why didn?t you opt for it yourself? I?d taken it for granted that those who persevere don?t think of bottle-feeding as a viable alternative. They WANT to breastfeed ? and why not? I?d guess that was your feelings on the matter. You and others have told me in detail about the many problems of breastfeeding. Now to turn to a more proactive stance - how would you go about addressing them? It is not much use to just say ?breastfeeding is bad for some people?. How much of it do you think is the baby?s ?fault? and how much of it was lack of knowledge, support, advice and problems which could have been foreseen and thus prevented? I think it would be interesting to find this out and it could help a great deal to those like you if as much as could be done beforehand was done and thus hopefully prevent you and others from a bad experience.

You say ?For many bfing mothers I know, cutting down on the frequency of feeds would increase the likelihood of continuing bfing.? ? OK, but how do you do this?!

I agree ? we don?t live in a tribal culture with a large support structure, but those are societal problems not breastfeeding problems. Of course they impinge upon the breastfeeding process and may in turn lead to problems. I do recognise this but doing something like giving a baby a dummy for example isn?t solving either the b/feeding problem or the larger issue of society?s attitude towards b/feeding. Indeed the general lack of value given to b/feeding makes me realise just how much of a hard job it can be for some.

So I?d just finish by saying that we have to be clear in our minds about what can be done i.e. what is preventable, and what are ?real? breastfeeding problems. My fear was that too much onus was being put upon breastfeeding being a difficult process (and putting people off) and not enough talked about preventative measures, education and support. I agree the ?lovey-dovey? image is portrayed on posters in health clinics and it is reported as being something that everyone can do. Yes indeed they can but they have to be told and shown HOW to do it!

As Pupuce says - don't suffer - if it does hurt then something is wrong (again a danger in thinking that it is a painful process) and remedies can be sought. And yes each baby is different so it can be enjoyable!

Interesting post Eulalia....you are right, I do know about the proportion of women who have bf problems and which ones are preventable : ) In fact a lot of the info is in the survey you quote. The vast majority (98 per cent if they stop in the first 6 weeks) stop bf because of problems - only 2 per cent say they stopped because they 'had bf as long as intended'. The most common reason for stopping bf at every stage up to 4 months was 'insufficient milk/baby seemd hungry' and 'breastfeeding took too long/was tiring' is a very common reason, too, up to 6 months.

So making bf a better experience would certainly help mothers continue...this might mean lowering expectations on the one hand, and improving technique on the other...with a bit of help and support and encouragement.

But - and this is hardly ever discussed - bottle feeding mothers have problems too.

Mothers were asked if they had feeding problems in hospital - 17 per cent of formula feeding mothers said yes, which is about half of the mothers who bf who said they had probs in hospital (35 per cent).

17 per cent of the ff mothers (maybe not the same 17 per cent, who knows?) had problems after leaving hospital . The same percentage of bf mothers (35 per cent) had probs in the early weeks at home.

But the gap closes as time goes on. Mothers of babies at the age of four-five months were asked if they had a feeding problem. 19 per cent of the bf mothers said yes, and 16 per cent of the formula feeding mothers said yes - not a huge difference.

In fact, what these figures show is that a large minority of all mothers have feeding problems with their babies in the early weeks and months. The bf problems are, mostly, resolvable one way or the other...but for some mothers, resolving (or trying to resolve) the problem can come at a high price. I think we've seen examples of this here in this board. Often, the problems go back to crap support and info at the beginning - as a bfc, I see this all the time.

They can also be down to a poor understanding among health professionals about how to help mothers who are truly worn down by it. For example, a mother who may be bothered by over-supply and a baby who feeds all the time can be helped by a simple thing - feed the baby the same side for several feeds on the trot, and then swap. This cuts down on the overwhelming supply and let down, and gets a greater quantity of creamier milk into the baby. If this is tried for a few days, the change can be very noticeable. Baby feeds less, and is more settled.

Yes tiktok ? I think it is the general lack of confidence amongst mums, particularly about the amount the baby is getting. I hear a lot of mums saying they ?I can?t see how much milk he is taking?. Also as you say the time seems to be ?too long?. This is interesting and shows how ?scientific? we have become about feeding, needing to know the precise amounts which are given in a precise time. Indeed bottle feeding is seen as advantage because it is so quick and the baby can be fed, changed and back to sleep in no time. Mum (and Dad) feel ?safe? to do other things or go out. I am not unsympathetic with this view; I used to be scared of going out myself because I thought my baby was going to wake, crying and hungry. It is silly though that we expect babies to be quiet and already fed when in public and we also expect women to go out of the house relatively quickly after the birth. A period spent at home perhaps establishing breastfeeding would be seen as being ?a tie?. As bloss? said earlier modern living is not synonymous with early b/feeding. Everyone needs education about how important support is to the new mum rather than being encouraged for her to share the load by getting her man to feed the baby with a bottle. I even overheard some mums in my antenatal class planning their first night out after the birth (these were ones who planned to bottlefeed).

So indeed more support is needed and even just information so that women can be ?fore-armed?. I count myself as being well educated and motivated but I wouldn?t even know how to find a b/feeding counsellor for instance (and that is now, never mind when I had a newborn) the phone book?)). In retrospect I would want more detailed leaflets provided by the midwife with perhaps a reading list of books which could be got from the library (and of course the library to be better stocked!). I would expect to be warned of the difficulties and told to ?read up? on the issues involved. I would like breastfeeding support groups to be offered to women before the birth. At least one antenatal class should be devoted entirely to breastfeeding (OK we did have this but it consisted of the HV passing round a selection of feeding bras and little else). The class should have a counsellor preferably who raises issues and answers questions. My problem (and I am sure is the case for many) is that I didn?t even know what questions to ask. More support in hospital for the first few days (this is the time when I felt I needed someone the most and I got off to a bad start) and more detailed advice from the midwife when I got home. As I say I am a fairly proactive person but really just didn?t know that there would be problems because no-one told me that there may be. Many first time mums think too much about the pregnancy and just focus on the birth - 'afterwards' is just a vague concept. Also most are busy with work beforehand.

I think of the women who give up many never really understand why they gave up. The issue isn?t investigated properly because the mum isn?t interested? she just moves onto bottles. The breastfeeding is then ?blamed? and the bottle feeding is viewed as ?much easier? (perhaps because of the time/amount issue already discussed). Problems like oversupply aren?t pinpointed and a remedy applied so the cycle of ignorance continues. B/feeding is seen as ?difficult? and the mum doesn?t even bother to try with the second baby. In retrospect I see b/feeding is an art to some extent and it takes time and proper attention to learn.

Interesting stats on feeding tiktok. Indeed from my limited experience of giving bottles I didn?t find them any easier. They just seemed to give my baby wind. Also I know that babies can swallow a lot of air waiting for the bottle to be heated and I noticed in hospital a lot of the mums overfeeding and the baby would sick up the whole feed. Then the nappies are much dirtier and smelly?. As you say all babies have problems with feeding. If mum does decide to give up b/feeding then fair enough but it should at least be an informed decision.

I am sitting here nodding in agreement at your first paragraph Eulalia.
When my baby was a newborn,if we had visitors I used to dread my baby waking and needing to be fed in the early days of breastfeeding when I was finding it really difficult.( I think visitors should stay well away for the first few days but that's another story)
I remember a very good friend visiting when my first baby was a few days old. He was asleep for an unusually long daytime nap, and my friend and her two children showed no sign of leaving when he woke needing fed. I had already been discussing how hard I was finding the feeding, and said "excuse me while I take him upstairs for a feed" hoping they might take the hint and leave, but the three of them began to follow me up the stairs! I was mortified and said I really prefered to feed him alone. I know lots of mothers can feed in front of others quite happily but I certainly couldn't in the very early days. I also remember feeding him in the hospital praying no visitors would arrive! The staff would put a sign on the door which said " mother feeding baby, please come back later" or something but that was no deterrant to the proud grandparents!
I notice there have been a few points made about bottle feeding being tricky and fiddly. I think this may be a sign of your success at breastfeeding because I found it to be so much LESS difficult/ fiddly or whatever then breastfeedng.In fact it was a whopping relief all round, simplicity itself compared to bf. and I did not find that business about smelly nappies to be the case either.Also both my babies accepted bottles with great gusto, which of course not all do.

Message withdrawn

Bloss ? I was of course generalsing when I said most problems are unresolved issues. Your story is of course interesting and extremely valuable to the increased understanding of b/feeding. My point was that most problems aren?t properly detected and this I think represents the poor rates of breastfeeding in this country. At the risk of repeating myself ? yes it can be difficult for some women but a lot of those issues are preventable and many women and counsellors are dealing with the issues when they have already become out of hand. Hence b/feeding becomes associated with many problems. It is a bit like pre-eclampsia in pregnancy. This can be very dangerous but signs of it are monitored throughout with regular urine/protein checks and it can be controlled and rarely turns to full blown eclampsia. If women were given more from health professionals at the pre-natal and birth stages then I?d bet that a lot of those problems wouldn?t come to light ? b/feeding rates would be higher and it wouldn?t ?have a bad name? for itself, more women would do it and be able to educate each other.

Anyway to return to you bloss ? I do agree that each individual baby is different and this point is not stressed. I also assumed I was doing something wrong. Seems obvious in some ways as it is a two-way process. You said your baby had an ?unbelievably powerful sucking action? - lucky you! Sorry I didn?t mean it like that ? just my baby was the opposite. Knowing that now then it seems likely that it would hurt even if you are latched on properly. A women?s nipples vary too. My son still feeds at night at 2 ½ and at this age he has a powerful suck but luckily for me my boobs don?t seem to find it sore, I find it more irritating than anything. I?d say in your case that there was nothing you could do to change your baby and that it certainly wasn?t your fault and all you could do was look for remedies to sooth your nipples in between feeds. So yes you are right it does hurt for some women but for the majority they are doing something wrong. Advice should be tailored to the majority but that doesn?t mean that individual cases are just as important and that health professionals shouldn?t listen to you. I guess that is what I meant by the ?cycle of ignorance? ? it works both ways as they should learn from you too and it not just be a one-way process.

I also never had problems with nipple confusion ? but I always gave the breast first and then a bottle afterwards so he didn?t associate the bottle with food. As with most things it is just how sensible you are about it ? again health visitors tend to stress don?t do x, y or z because some women go-overboard and end up over-using the bottle or dummy too much. Another case of generalising advice. As for ?making a CLEAR distinction between "demand feeding" ? and shoving the boob in every time baby cries would also help? ? well it seems that this is not easy to do ? but if you know your own baby and you are able to find other ways of comforting him without disrupting his food then good luck. However nature has unfortunately intended for us to stick our boobs in frequently and it doesn?t seem as if there is an easy way out of this.
Congrats on your pregnancy BTW ? I didn?t know (probably due to neglecting the other boards) ? when is your due date?

Jasper ? yes I was the same ? I had a friend who came round in the early days who said ?it used to only take me 5 mins to feed my baby? ? grrr!!!! ? of course she actually meant when the baby was 3 months old, not a newborn. It would have been so useful to me to have known this and would have given me hope (as indeed I did reach that scenario myself) instead I ended up feeling like a total failure. Just as well I carried on but that would have been enough to put some women off. Another case of mis-information and undermining confidence.

The smellier nappies are due to the components of cow?s milk that can?t be processed by the baby and is excreted as waste (most of b/milk is used, hence why many babies can go for days without even producing any waste at all) and of course it just not being a ?natural? food for babies. Of course the odour is variable according to how often your baby is fed and how often he/she poos but I am afraid in general I found the smell of sick and poos in formula fed babies to be rather smelly (sorry!) I think titok meant that giving up b/feeding doesn?t necessarily mean an alternative will be much easier.

I also agree more respect and privacy should be given to new mothers ? even from close family.