Breast feeding is so not cheaper

[Bodicea]

So breastfeeding my little one. Love it and wouldn't change for the world first of all.

Just pondering the costs of all the breastfeeding parephenalia I have had to fork out for and starting to think that the argument that is is significantly cheaper unless you plan to do it for a seriously significant amount of time is rubbish.

So I am three and a half months in and so far have bought a breast pump, four nursing bras, two ridiculously overpriced nursing tops, other clothes that make breastfeeding easier as most of my wardrobe was not suitable, three packs reusable breast pads, three boxes of disposable pads, all the bottle and storage parephenalia for my expressed milk, nipple shields, breast shells, nipple cream, expensive breast feeding supplements, a breast feeding scarf and now some formula too for mixed feeding.

Granted that not everyone is going to buy everything on that list but even so, That is a fair amount of money to spend on formula.

Hoping to make it to 6 months. And like I say wouldn't change it for the world but still think it is a bit of a false argument that it is cheaper.

At least you played the wine disclaimer card, Fad!

The worst piece of clothing I have ever bought was a bf top for my ds' s christening. It cost a fortune, looks like a cheap top I could have got off a market stall for a fiver and made me look about 2 sizes larger than I was because it was double fronted. Have you got one of those breastfeeding modesty apron type things? As others have said, pashminas look less conspicuous and are a quarter of the price.

Most of it I genuinely needed. Bras - were expensive as I am v large so needed something decent. And in newborn haze i needed a few as could not be bothered washing them every day.
I tried none nursing tops first (vest down top up method) but found feeding in public difficult and felt self conscious about flashing so had to invest In scarf and nursing tops if i was going to leave house. And seriously few of my clothes worked. I needed tops I could pull down or button fronts. And yes I could have got really cheap stuff but that isn't me and if I was ff I wouldn't be in really cheap stuff so have to make fair comparison ( I did borrow a bunch of stuff from my mum)
I got nipple blisters due to bad latch which is why I bought shells and shields, without them I would have prob quit. Same goes for expressing to give nipples a break, I actually borrowed an electric pump for a month for free then moved on to a £40 manual pump.
Nipple butter was £10 a pop as allergic to lanolin. I have been through 4 pots so far.
I suppose if it is all plain sailing you don't need a lot of this stuff but it isn't all plain sailing for most. A lot of stuff you buy as first timer is trial and error but still have to try it.
I work out I have spent close to £500.

Those are still mostly things you're choosing to buy, rather than necessary.

I think for most women, all the gibbons does still come to lots less than the £400-£500 for ff.

I bought:
3 nursing bras (but in all honesty I would have bought a couple of regular bras in the same time if I hadn't been feeding, so I'm only counting two)
£25
6 boxes of pads (I'm a leaky person)
£30
3 bottles + teats (used with a borrowed pump)
£10
Milk freezer bags
£10
Sterilised in a pan
3 tubes Lansinoh
£30
4 primark vests
£10

So, a total of £115, even being quite heavy on the purchasing. And some of that wasn't compulsory, like the bits for expressing. Cushions etc came from the spare bed!

So while I agree it isn't free, it's much much cheaper.

I think that like with all baby things, we tend to over buy, and if we asked a mum of three what we need, the list would be considerably shorter!

A study was done a couple of years ago that showed breastfeeding was one third cheaper than ff. So not miles cheaper, but a bit cheaper.

Breast feeding is cheaper, wish I could have persevered with it due to that as well as many other reasons.
Most of the expense will be people playing into the hands of gimicks and things not really needed just nice to have.

Formula is just under £10 and my baby goes through a tin a week, so that's just over £40 a month, and then the initial cost of a steriliser, bottles, teats etc that goes along with that, so definitely more expensive imho. Which it will be as to put mothers off choosing ff over bf

No need for breastfeeding tops. Horrible looking things for a start but any t-shirt is easier. You just lift it up. If the baby is lying across you and you are sitting down nobody can see anything.

No need for supplements - are there such things?

No need for scarves either. Muslins do the job of hiding your modesty if you are just wearing the t-shirt and they are useful whether you ff or bf so not a cost of bf per se.

You can't add the cost of formula into the cost of bfing - that is cheating and you would presumably use the same bottle for both formula and expressing so the cost of those needs to be split.

Nipple shields and cream you only buy once - £10 or £15 max. Breast pads are an expense but often you don't need them for very long and you can offset their cost against savings in sanpro as your periods return later if you bf on average.

I think your argument is hugely flawed - I breast fed for a total of 2.5 yrs and it was nowhere near the expense of formula.

Percephone I did say my maths was completely out for ff. I was trying to account for those ready made cartons, which I believe are quite dear. I know if I'd have ff I would use them at night time (friends do this) which can easily add on an extra £7 a week. But i was guessing at how many tubs; I don't even know how many tubs you go through each week - is it about 1 and 1/3 tubs? Or am I making that up ?

fetchez good old wine disclaimer card...I need to go to bed now, head feels woozy!

It is a lot cheaper ..... If you don't buy the unnecessary stuff!!

There is just no need for all those nursing tops, a vest underneath a normal top or crop top underneath a low cut top works just as well.
The only difficult clothes to wear would have been dresses (if not low cut)

Don't need all the fancy pillows, what's wrong with normal ones?

Why breastfeeding scarfs? If you want it for covering up get a cheap pashmina

Pumps and bottles yes but that's not a necessity, only if you will need to express and bottle feed.

Buying milk every week and bottles and teats and sterilisers etc costs way more than breastfeeding

Sure if you breast feed for over 6 months it works out cheaper. That Wasn't my argument :-)

Also not buying 'cheap stuff' because "it isn't you" is nothing to do with breastfeeding.....

But what is your argument? As someone said upthread this is a straw argument as people don't choose to breastfeed because it's cheaper! I chose to as I personally believed it was better for my family's health and lifestyle. Never bothered considering which cost more.

The stuff you've bought is either unnecessary or would need to be bought if you were formula feeding. (you still produce milk even if you don't breastfeed so would need the pads and the bras at least for the first couple of weeks)

What a pointless thread.

Your argument seems to be that you can spend a lot of money breastfeeding - which is true, you can buy loads of expensive stuff.

You could also buy loads of expensive stuff to formula feed too - ready made formula, those "perfect prep" machines, electric sterilisers, bottle warmers, flasks, thermal bags...

I am a massive fab of breastfeeding, and do think for most it's cheaper. But saying that some of this stuff is optional is not true for some of us. I needed to hire a hospital grade pump for frequent pumping to up my supply and mix feed - £45 a month. Then I had to buy bottles and steriliser. I took fenugreek (£10 for about three weeks' supply) and goat's rue (£35 for a month's supply) for several months, without which I would not have been able to carry on. Also I spent £150 on a lactation consultant. So all in all, not a budget option!

Of course, to add insult, I still had to mix feed, so got to buy formula too.

You can use normal bras (with underwire) provided they fit well. All you need to do is hoik the breast out of the cup and there you go. Cheap primark vest + normal top an off you go. No need for flaps or any of that crap. I fed DC1 for 18 months and dc2 for 2 and a half.
Bfeeding can be super cheap and an excellent way of losing all the baby weight.

I spent a fortune on bf.
A nursing chair £300
4 nursing bras for each baby 4 x £20 x 3 = 240
At least 4 nursing tops for each baby roughly 4 x 20 x 3 = 240
Bf cushion 35
Bf scarf 20
Cream - about 10 x 10 = 100
Bf vitamins for a year for each baby 8 x 12 x 3 = 288
So roughly £1223 across 3 babies
Also things like breastpads & compresses & a lot of extra food.

The only things I probably needed were the nursing bras, nursing tops, nursing cushion, vitamins & cream which still brings it to more than 900 across the 3 babies.
Ff would have cost more but bf is not free. I needed these things to breastfeed.

I didn't buy nursing bras. I used cheap sports bras and hoiked them up under a vest.

The only things I bought from your list were disposable and non disposable breast pads and, err, that's all. I BF each of my 4 DCs for about a year. I expressed by 'milking' my boobs directly into bottles.

Obviously, I would have bought a breast pump, nipple guards and cream if I had needed to though. I think its a good idea to wait and see how things go before buying loads of crap. I bought a sling I never used amongst other things

I would love to know what a BF scarf is? Is it different to a normal scarf

I can't remember but I would have taken vitamins too, although I would have taken those anyway.

I agree for most people a lot of the things OP mentions are optional. But not always.

Nipple shields - essential for DS1, as he refused to even try to breastfeed without them.
Breast pump - also essential for DS1 - the nipple shields affected DS1's ability to get enough milk out of my breasts, so that my milk supply dropped off rapidly unless I expressed after every BF.
And milk storage bags to go with the breast pump.

We did get our moneys worth out of the breast pump though, as we ended up switching to bottle feeding DS1 mostly expressed breastmilk after about 3 months (plus the ready made formula cartons when out and about). We got bottles & steriliser & bottle warmer along with the breast pump, but we'd have needed those if FF anyway, so can't really count them as a BF expense.

Nursing bra x 2 but I would have needed new bras anyway.
Bought some nursing tops, but bought these when pregnant and they doubled as maternity tops, which would have been needed if FF.

BF cushion - I love this, but I knew even when I bought it that it wasn't really necessary and that I could just use a pillow / cushions instead.

No BF scarf. Used a muslin cloth instead.

No nipple cream - my sister gave me a tube she had left over, but I've not needed it.

I bought Vit D supplements, but generic supermarket own brand so relatively inexpensive.

I reckon my outlay on breastpads is balanced out by not needing to spend anything on sanitory protection.

And BF DS2 is definitely cheaper than giving him formula, as we've only needed the breastpads & Vit D supplements this time round.

Bf scarf - kind of like sling thing to put baby in. So boobs are covered but you can still see baby. It is just a piece of material really - cost £16- but then most scarves cost that much so figured worth the spend. Don't much now but needed in early days when I couldn't get hang if latch.
So you can do bf on cheap - ok ok.
Still think it can get more expensive than people realise ;-)

You do have a point in your own case, but it's not something you can realistically generalise about, because everyone's needs for breastfeeding will be different depending on how hard/easy they find it.

I was very lucky to have been given an Avent breast pump system with spare bottles, so never had to spend out on that - didn't need it very often but it was a necessary thing to own (especially when I bleeding cracked nipples that needed respite from the baby!)
Lansinoh - one tube.
(Disposable) pads, yes necessary in the first 6months - 1year, because of leakage.
I did buy 4 nursing bras, but mostly in a desperate attempt to get one that fit comfortably! And then mostly didn't wear one at all except on "going out" occasions, just a shelf vest, which was much easier for feeding anyway.

Never bought a breastfeeding top ever; just had loose tops over the shelf vests.
Mind you I tend to refuse to buy anything specifically maternity/nursing, because it's like wedding stuff, hideously overpriced for what it is! The only exception was the nursing bras, although I had an old comfy bra that I could slip out of the cup quite easily that I used for DS1 (because everything was smaller then).

Whereas anyone who is formula feeding can pretty much guarantee that they will have a certain outlay in bottles, teats, formula - and then there's the sterilising kit if you want, the special measuring containers for powder when out and about and so on.