Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Infant feeding

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

researching/wanting to breastfeed- MIL driving me bonkers

37 replies

mummytobejuly2014 · 15/02/2014 09:39

Im due in july and determined to try breastfeeding for as long as poss. Yesterday I got a great deal in boots, an avent natural manual pump half price & 1/3 off with a voucher so it only cost me £12. I know not to use it until we're established after 2/4wks. MIL is seriously pissing me off. Keeps telling me I shouldnt be and how sore it will be amd anything more than a few days is too long blah blah blah and baby will be massive etc. I believe she is behaving this way because she thinks if I do breastfeed then she cant take baby. Shes planning on decking out a full nursery in her house "for when the baby stays", this massively freaked me out & I have no intention of handing baby over to her for any length of time. I feel like she is using my pregnancy to fill her life as she was made a widow nearly 3 years ago. We all support her etc but my partner is her only child that is a 5min drive away, the rest live an hours plane ride away. One of them is also pregnant but she is focusing all her attention on my baby. I cannot cope with this and the baby isnt even here yet. I think she's desperately trying to put me off BF because she has this idea she will get more baby sitting etc if its bottle fed. I had planned on expressing once established to have a small stock for going out or for OH to help out sometimes. I'll prob be going back to work at 9months when the smp runs out. Any advice help welcomed. I dont want to give her any excuse or chance to say she was right if I experie experience pain/difficulty. Should I stock up now on nipple cream/shields, is there any prep to "toughen" up the nipples or anything. Sorry for the long winded post

OP posts:
Batmam · 15/02/2014 22:07

Yes, some fab advice here so I won't repeat. All I would say is that I don't agree with what's been said about nipple shields. I hadn't got any before hand (my midwives/hv wouldn't hear of them due to the nipple confusion argument) but DD didn't latch on properly on one side and two weeks in I had a small but painful cut on the nipple. I was so engorged it was agony to latch her on comfortably and I was in tears as the cut kept reopening. I sent DH to get medela nipple shields and it honestly stopped me from giving up bf'ing. I'd put one on at the beginning of a feed just until the engorgement went down a little so when I took the shield off she was able to take the whole nipple area into her mouth and not just the tip (which led to the cut in the 1st place) and gave the cut a chance to heal. Only needed them for a week. After that it was a breeze and breastfed for 10 months, best thing I ever did!

Good luck, as long as you keep your determination (and get a good latch!) you'll be absolutely fine. Just don't listen to people and their scare stories about how much it hurts (including mine above, oops!) and how it will be difficult ti know how much the baby is getting - it's all bollocks in the end.

My MIL was also resentful of me breastfeeding DD, I think it was because of her guilt for not BFing her own children and wanting to feed my baby herself through a bottle. I also had to put up with months of "when are you going to stop?" and "are you STILL bf'ing?!?" from FIL...(what the fuck was it to him?!) They would say it when DH wasn't around as they knew he'd back me up. I really wanted to tell them to back off but didn't know how to get the words out as they always get really easily offended. PG with dc2 now and want to be ready to nip their selfish comments in the bud!

Paintyfingers · 15/02/2014 22:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

tequilacream · 15/02/2014 22:15

The best thing you can do is find your local La Leche League www.laleche.org.uk/ meeting and go to a few before you give birth and keep going after you have given birth. They were a life saver when things were going massively wrong for me and I did express from the word go (as LO was 6 weeks prem and due to misinformation) - still going on at 8 mo. Your MiL sounds like right pain - can you OH not tame her a bit?

tequilacream · 15/02/2014 22:16

La Leche League (LLL) also lend books including the Womanly art of breastfeeding (which has loads of advice not only on breastfeeding).

crashbangboom · 15/02/2014 22:16

Google breastfeeding and grandparents leaflet.

Then print a couple off for her.

Also make it clear regardless of method of feeding overnight stays won't be necessary for a long time so no nursery equipment needed,

crashbangboom · 15/02/2014 22:17

I also agree get yourself the womanly art of breastfeeding

zipzap · 15/02/2014 23:58

If you want to counteract the potential criticism aspect then ask her why she chose to ff - hopefully she will say that it's because it's what was best practice at the time.

And that's exactly the same as you're doing - just following the best advice available at the time. If you're feeling charitable you can even throw out a joke about how you reckon it will have changed again by the time you become a grandparent...

Hopefully she will agree - however if she doesn't, you (or even better, your dh) can go on the offensive and ask her to clarify that she doesn't want you to do the best you can for your baby - difficult one to argue against!

But should she persist, find out how much of what she did was what the doctors/advisers/baby guru of the day recommended and how much was what her mum or MIL did. If she says the former - why is she not extending that courtesy to you if she did it. If it's the latter - then what she is telling you to do is based on advice that is 50/60/70 (insert actual figure here!) years old and is that really what she wants for her new gc? And then remind her of some up to date research that has had big impacts - babies sleeping on their back and the reduction in cot death rate is a difficult one to argue with. (especially as the advice went from front to side before recommending back - fall in cot deaths seen both times - just because we have discovered a better way to do things doesn't mean that we won't discover something even better next day/week/year or that going with the best advice you had at the time but where the advice has been superseded meant you did something bad).

I desperately wanted to bf ds1 - after 4 days of no managing anything I called the la leche helpline and the lovely lady just said the important thing is that he feeds, not how. I gave him a formula carton that night, but he was able to drink it so that was great as he'd got very scrawny. Next day I started to express and did so for 3 months before (reluctantly) giving up.

Ds2 had maybe 4 or 5 formula feeds ever and just a handful of expressed feeds, we had a great midwife who really helped (unlike the first time who had put 10 minutes on the parking meter and was determined not to stay for a moment longer despite me giving her the details of my free parking space) and ds2 was finally reluctantly weaned off bf when he was about 3 years old.

I started with exactly the same intentions each time, but different outcomes. Having a pump is great. I also found that having one of mothercare's microwave sterilising bottles was great - a single bottle, you could assemble it in a certain way and then it just needed 90 seconds to zap in the microwave to sterilise. Saved on all the fuss and expense of a steriliser, but along with a couple of cartons of formula, it gave reassurance that if you did need a bottle for whatever reason that you had one and wouldn't be rushing to the supermarket at 5 minutes to closing and ending up with whatever they had regardless of cost or suitability. Also could be used to sterilise dummies if you ended up using them and it took loads of different teats.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm promoting ff - I'm not. But if you have a pump then it's great to have a bottle to use with it. And to know before the tiredness/hormones/stress etc set in that you have flexibility of choice should you need it.

Just remember not to show the bottle and cartons to MIL so she doesn't start getting her hopes up Grin

Good luck - and remember to get dh to fight these battles so mil can't blame you!

(and sorry for any cross posts, I'm on my phone but been interrupted so taken a long time to hit post).

creativevoid · 16/02/2014 07:37

There is lots of great advice here about bf so I won't add more. I just wanted to add a little to the advice on being kind to your MIL. I get that she is being really annoying and you do need to set boundaries. But if she backs off then perhaps you could rethink you stance on childcare after you go back to work. Look at it from her perspective. She would like to help care for the baby but is being told that's not necessary, because your parents can do it four days per week. Can you see why that might be hurtful to her and why she might be going OTT to show you she wants to be involved? A loving GM who wants to be involved is a great thing (with boundaries in place) - don't take it for granted because you feel you already have something better in the form of your own parents. It does seem as though a lot of times the paternal grandparents are not given the same privileges as the maternal.

iamusuallybeingunreasonable · 16/02/2014 07:44

Look, Ditch the expressing early days idea, go with the flow. I had the same, lots of cats bum sulky faces, I went back to work full time at 6 months pumped at work each day and baby wasn't interested in my milk out if a bottle... Regardless I carried on feeding til baby was over 2 years old, something I never thought I would go and peed the rellies off no end... My MIL fed for a handful of days and gave up but wanted, like yours to feed my baby with a bottle, however my baby had other ideas!! Good luck and ignore x

Rootvegetables · 16/02/2014 07:59

I had this but kind of from another angle and it seemed to go from one way or another at every step of breastfeeding, most people accepted the early days with the odd comment about me not getting enough sleep and he can't still be hungry. I once fed for 7 hours, I called the breastfeeding help line they just said sit on the sofa, eat drink and cuddle, and feed it's fine, once I let go of it was wrong and I was starving my baby ( I'd been told but also had self doubts) it was actually a nice thing to do. Then you hit six months and people expect you to stop then a year and people roll their eyes and I dread to image ine what they would say if they knew I still fed my 3 year old! I think I tried to use the negative comments as an extra reason to carry on, but I'm contrary like that! You will be fine, relax, enjoy it and go with the flow, landisoh nipple cream is brilliant for those early days but it will very quickly get to a point you don't even notice you're doing it.

Hubb · 16/02/2014 22:12

I just want to add from my own experience,don't give upif your baby doesn't latch on straight away. I dont mean latching comfortably but latching at all. My baby was rooting but didn't know what to do when he got the boob, and then latching but not sucking at all, then taking a few sucks then falling asleep! After 4/5 days he was feeding well but it was a tough start.

If I was alone I would have felt lost but got lots of help from midwives/bf counsellors etc. An anti bfer would have no doubt swooped in on me and said I told you so!

Melonbreath · 18/02/2014 17:16

Don't burn bridges with your mil, there will be days when you are so sleep deprived you are shivering and hallucinating. On those days mil being invited over to coo over her grandchild so you can go upstairs for a sleep for a couple of hours will be heaven.

Tell her baby won't be staying anywhere away from you as you believe bonding is too important.

You do have my sympathies though. My in laws are from hell itself when it comes to 'their way' and 'their opinions' etc etc.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page