Breast or bottle? Why do we fight so much???????

[damewashalot]

It's odd, I can see both sides of the feeding debates as I loved feeding ds1, was an annoying breast is best, it's wonderful, everyone should do it type person for a while started NCT training as bfeeding counsellor but realised that wasn't for me as I couldn't be as evangelical and blinkered about it as the women on the course were. Not saying all NCT counsellors are like that but they were.
Then I had ds2, had a horrible time, ended up mixed feeding, bfed because I thought I should, felt guilty about the bottles and guilty about wanting to stop but resented doing it (felt guilty about that too) generally had a horrible time.
This time it's wonderful again, struggled with thrush for about 6 wks early on but got through it, I love the closeness and the convenience, as am far too lazy for making bottles etc. I can't think of anything more special than this (I'm sat feeding writing this)
So why is it such a big deal? Why do we take so much interest in how others feed their babies? For my part, with ds1, I was so enjoying feeding him and feeling that I was doing the absolute best I could for my baby that I wanted everyone else to feel the same way and couldn't understand why everyone else didn't share my enthusiasm. I think that sometimes those that have or are bfeeding can get so caught up in the benefits and positives of it that they forget that not everyone's the same.
With ds2 I expected to bfeed, he had probs and I was bullied into formula in hospital I then kept getting mastitis and the one time I did phone a councellor and she did was tell me that all my baby needed was my milk for 6mths and tell me off for giving bottles. Since having ds3 I have realised that my probs were probably caused by his tongue tie which I had been told couldn't possibly be the problem, strange that when trying to convince people that I had thrush this time they all thought it must be a problem with his latch due to his tongue tie ! [rolls eyes] even though I knew this time his latch was good and I did have thrush.
The one thing I have to admit is I don't get people that don't even try to bfeed, even if the benefits for baby don't make them want to try, the hassle of sterilising etc and cost of formula, having to carry bottles and warm them, I just don't get it, boobs are portable and fairly instant, if you are like me and will whip one out and feed anywhere But not everyone does and I for one can live with that, not everyone's dh/p is as supportive of it as mine, if I'd listened to my mil I wouldn't have lasted past the first few days with ds1 and wouldn't have even tried with ds2 or 3.
I'm sorry this was such a long waffle and not the best english in the world typing with squirmy 5mthold on boob is not my strong point but I was thinking about it whilst considering sitting in the corner and crying because he has got his first tooth and keeps nipping me with it and it hurts but I really don't want to give up for a long time yet. I generally keep out of feeding debates and I might of upset all sorts of people but I've written it now so here it is
BTW I buy organic meat and veg all the time, take my children to Mcdonalds oncw or twice a year and........ they like sausage rolls
(goes and hides in corner and wonders what she was thinking)

What a lovely honest, warm post. I can't imagine that you could upset anybody with it. .

I think it may be because when you have a lo you become obsessed by what you think is best - and can't believe it if someone thinks differently!

I have learnt that motherhood has been a humbling experience in that some things like bf were way more difficult/contentious than I first thought.

I had a nightmare with dd1 but have been more successful with dd2 - I therefore would never give anyone a hard time because of their feeding choices - I know what it is like to feel crap.

I'd like to think that all mother's (and father's) want to do what they think is best for their lo's - it may be different but not necessarily wrong - (unless it's giving bleach!)

Breast is best BUT I personally found it difficult and was relieved when I made the decision to bottlefeed. My son is now a happy and healthy three year old who eats for England and is a joy to feed as he loves fruit and veg - lucky me.

I agree hotmma, surely we all just want the best for our LO so it's sad that we fight about who's doing it best.

As a FFer The issue for me ahs been the people who think they have the right to comment/take me to task.

I know you meant well but in your post you said:
"The one thing I have to admit is I don't get people that don't even try to bfeed"

You DON'T KNOW what is going on in that family, you don't know if mum has had issues about abuse which make her uncomfortbale about her breasts, you don't know if mum has had a masectomy, you don't know if mum is HIV positive and can't BF, you don't know if that women you are frowning at for Bottle feeding a 1 week old is actually adoptive auntie, you don't know that mum spent the first 3 days in floods of tears and couldn't bear to have baby next to her because of the pain, you don't know that mum bled into babies mouth when she tried to BF.

I got sick and tired of being asked to justify my decision to bottlefeed, frankly my reasons are my own business. My baby was healthy and gaining weight so as far as I was concerned no-one had the right to tell me that what I was doing was wrong.

tbh if i'd knwon before about the vicousness I would get attacked with because I chose to bottlefeed and go back to work I would have lied my head off whenever asked, thats if I'd had the courage to get invovled in this whole 'mothering' thing!

Riab - but isn't it crappy that you feel that you would have to lie? What has it got to do with anyone anyway? Is your lo happy? Are you happy? Hopefully 'Yes' - this is the main thing.

I didn't say that there was anything wrong with it, just that I don't get it. My cousin has just had her first baby and put her straight on bottles, didn't consider breast at all, I don't get that, it's not something I understand. She and most people where I live, think I am weird and don't get why I bfeed, one friend said to me when ds3 was a few wks old " Stop being such an earth mother and stick him on a bottle" I understand that many people have many reasons for not as riab said but a lot of people have no reason other than the fact they don't want to, fair enough, my point was kind of even if we don't understand each others choices why do we feel we have the right to question them?
I wasn't trying to start a fight, more saying lets not fight and support each other whatever.

I think it depends on how people around you have fed there babies. I desparately wanted to breast feed almost "Earth Mother Evangalist" about the whole thing. I breast fed exclusively for 6 days then add formula at night (gots lots of support on here). DD wasn't producing enough wet nappies or poohing enough so it was suggested as my Milk had come in that I bottle feed. DD and DH were happier and more content, I felt like a failure and guilty. I tried to restart BF with NCT counsellor and MW but milk never came in no matter how much I tried feeding DD and expressing. DH summed it up DD was happy and healthy and that was what was important not how she was fed and it was noone else's business how we were feeding DD and I had no control over my milk production (or lack of it!!!)

I BF and have never ever in my life so much as asked someone FF why they do it, not even asked in a polite way, I mean, let alone interrogated them or challenged them or accused them of being lazy or anything like that. I'd describe myself as quite political about BF though - I have very strong opinions about the politics of it, resources, how mums are so often let down by poor support and so on, but all really on a statistical scale if that makes sense. At an individual level, meeting an individual mum who is FF (or BF) I'd always assume they could have all sorts of individual reasons for their decisions, just like the ones quoted, medication, HIV, family issues etc. I think you have to know someone really well to be sure that you know all their circumstances and starting knowledge, and to say confidently that in the same situation you'd have made a different decision.

I have to believe in these BF mums who are apparently out there slagging off FF mums and accusing them to their faces of being lazy, or interrogating them as to their reasons, in the same way that I believe there are people out there who'd e.g. shout out racist remarks when I wouldn't do that myself. But despite knowing dozens and dozens of BF mums, having been to years of get togethers with mixed groups of mums feeding different ways etc., I've yet to actually witness anyone being interrogated like that, ever. I have seen defensiveness and volunteered justifications just when the topic comes up so I do think that must happen sometimes too.

I think what makes these things so difficult in part is coping with the possibility that people we know are secretly thinking we've made a bad decision. It's hard with any parenting decision to be really thick skinned and not care what people are thinking even if we know 100% our decision is right for us. For instance I once spent 20 minutes waffling away to a friend I know to be very anti-BF about why I was still BF my two-year old - she didn't actually interrogate me at all, or say anything negative, but I was so sure she was thinking bad things about me she might as well have done, as I still came out with all the defensiveness and explanations. Knowing her views, on BF in general, I really wanted her to see where I was coming from and not go out and immediately roll her eyes to her dh about what I was doing. Ironically, despite the fact that I was entirely defensively motivated I probably came across as someone being arbitrary evangelical about BF. I just didn't want her to think badly of me.

Anyway, if I met someone and I knew (somehow by magic, as there's no way you can really know this) that we shared 100% a particular opinion of the health value of breastfeeding or the risks of formula, i.e. we basically started off identical, then I would probably also be puzzled if she didn't even try to BF. But I'd probably conclude there was some reason I didn't know about that she couldn't talk about. When I meet strangers who say they didn't/won't try to BF I tend to assume that another very likely reason they don't could be because they don't share my opinion as to the relative risks and benefits of different methods of feeding - so therefore circumstances that wouldn't be enough to push me into formula feeding (because I'm resisting harder) do lead them to make that choice. I tend to think that different starting opinions of the relative values of the different feeding methods account for an awful lot of different decisions (whereas the support and information issue accounts for most of the forced choices).

After all, the message pushed most strongly to us by the NHS etc., is "breast is best but it's your choice and you may choose to formula feed blah blah" - not plain "breast is best" at all - and if you paraphrase that message it's basically saying there's not that much to choose between BF and FF. In that context, reasons that may seem trivial to someone who's convinced breastfeeding is much better or formula is dangerous actually make perfect sense. Most people's decisions make sense in their particular context.

Oops forgot the main point in the OP about why do people fight. I think it comes down a lot to that issue of what people think deep down about how healthy/risky BF/FF are relative to each other. If you start off thinking there's not that much difference, then it's easy to see insane evangelism and over-the-topness in a lot of what some people say about BF, how it should be supported, what people should be told about it, and so on. It's also easy to see almost any encouragement to BF as excessive pressure. In contrast, if you start off thinking there's a huge difference between them, then not only does all of that encouragement etc. make much more sense, but other people's decisions not to BF seem to make less sense. I think lots of fights happen when people have different views about the basic health benefits/risks of the different feeding methods, but that difference never actually gets established in the discussion, so two 'sides' end up baffled by each other's opinions (and personal decisions) even though in their individual contexts those different opinions and decisions make a similar amount of sense.

fireflighty, your post makes so much sense to me & has helped me understand what is going on with me ... I feel massively guilty all the time that I gave up bf at four weeks & my dp has no patience with that - can't see why I should be upset when ds is thriving - but it's because I keep reading all the benefits of bf & I feel I'm not doing the best for my baby. But there are lots of people out there, dp among them, that aren't convinced there is that much difference between ff and bf. It's all about context.

I think there is truth in the statement that people can come out defending their own choice before anyone has even said anything - I know I do. I feel the need to explain myself and tell everyone why bf was too difficult for me to carry on. Yet I never wonder, and would never ask, why others are ff from the birth.

Isn't it sad that we put so much pressure on ourselves? Katerina75 you shouldn't feel guilty, you did what was right for you. In all honesty I should prob have given up with ds2 much sooner, it would have saved me several lots of mastitis not to mention the huge emotional stress I put myself under by trying to "do it right" as I saw it. I'd of been happier and baby would have been happier. This time I planned to see how it went, it worked and I'm glad, I would be upset if I had to stop now because I am finding it easy and it's working for me but if I had found it too hard in the early days I would have used formula.

I would have loved to breast feed DD but no one told me not to wear underwired bra and not sure if that caused it bt my milk did;nt come in for two weeks after she was born. In which time I had endured long sessions of my DH and MW holding various bits of me or DD and trying to get her to latch on. And had to have her re-admitted to hospital - Special care when after 4 days of trying her sodium levels were up because she was so dehydrated. Yes I had starved my precious baby.
Bump no. os due in December. Formula will be purchased before his or her arrival along with a new steriliser and bottles. Baby2 will be offered the breast, but I refuse to beat myself up over it, if s/he is not interested or things dont work, straight to the bottle we go! My motto is not "breast is best" but "baby needs to be fed"

Fireflighty - that was a great post!

I'm one of those people who isn't convicned that there is that much difference between breast and formula (all other things beign equal)

therefore as I had other reasons for not wanting ot BF (did try and hated it as well) I was very happy to switch over and concentrate on thigns that I DO think are important.

I think we all do what we think is best, I honestly believe that a depressed mum and a strong gender divide (ie mum does baby care dad works) is more damaging for my child and so I've made decisions about how I parent DS based upon that.

why indeed do we fight about it? As busy mums we must have better ways to spend our time!!

I have a six month old daughter who has been breastfeed up until a couple of weeks ago when my husband and i made the decision to switch to bottle feeding. I am really happy with this decision for various reasons and feel its the right thing and the right time to do this so why do I feel like crying all the time? Im still feding her once or twice a day but I can feel my milk supply dwindling rapidly. I'm wavering between massive feelings of guilt and that Im just lazy and Im letting her down to feelings of freedom and almost elation. Did anyone else feel so confused at this time? DD seems quite happy, its just me, I feel so upset.

sorry! please ignore previous message - meant to start a new discussion!

people argue and are blinkered in their opinions as they want to be seen as the best mum in the world
even though we all are not perfect

i really don't know why we fight about it, why do we fight about a lot of things, macdonalds being the food of satan, not cooking from scratch???

i probably was evagelical about bf because bf with ds1 and 2 went so well. ds1 bf for over a year and ds2 was 9 months when he weaned himself, he just refused the breast but would take water or milk from a beaker. so i always was puzzled by people who didn't even want to give it a go, especially as in my job as a midwife trained to know and pronmote the benefits, but when dd was born 5 months ago, i gained a cracked rib during delivery thanks to some fundal pressure to get her out as she was wedged under my ribs (section due to breech), then i had a pph, so was stuck obn labour ward having a transfusion, and wasn't 'allowed' dd with me so she was ff, back to postnatal suite and my kidneys failed!, home with dd b/f and one ff top up, back to hospital unable to breath suspected pe, luckily all fine but had to have a scan which was radioactive to check for clots on my lungs, couldn't bf for 24 hours until radiation had left my body. carriecd on b/f with top ups, but gradually needed more and more top ups, even bf before top up, so finally after 3 months of torment we stopped bf and are now ff.

shes happy and healthy and now i can see it really doesn't make any difference how you feed as long asbaby is fed, i still feel its my duty to inform mums to be of the benefits of bf, but to be more ubderstanding and resp[ectful of peoples choices.

i'm sorry this may cause a lot of disagreement, but i think a lot of arguments are down to peoples lack of respect for each other.

p's sorry for typos but trying to type with wiggly 5 month old on my lap[

I think BF evangelism is like a lot of other 'evangelisms', whether it's a religion, new diet or finding a great new hobby - we want to encourage other people to do it because it works so well for us and makes us happy and ultimately our intentions are to help eachother. I think though that it can backfire and that's when the fighting happens. We're not content to tell people of our experience but feel instead that our goal should be to change their behaviour or point of view and that's not a particularly respectful thing to do.

Personally I FF and only once had the 'why aren't you BF?' thing happen. I actually told the woman the truth - that I had to take some medication that would have got into my breastmilk and wouldn't have been good for baby. I don't know why I did this, there was no need for me to tell a stranger about myself but I think maybe I did it because deep down I felt I should be BF. A lot of women who FF if MN is anything to go by have these deep feelings of guilt and failure and these are the sort of emotions that make us go on the defense, againa reason for the fighting.

So how to stop the fighting in my opinion? BF women, accept that BF is best for you and that you're wonderfully lucky to be able to do it, FF women, accept that BF was not best for you and that you don't need to feel guilty about it, AND everyone just be happy that there's an alternative that still provides our babies with the liklihood of a full, happy healthy life.

Love this thread, made me go all calm and fuzzy

What a wonderful thread on breast feeding!

I got so het up with DD and bf. And the hospital mw was awful as she said not bf would make my child obese, more suceptable to disease etc... She has never been ill other than the odd cough and hardly at all like some children we know. And she certainly isn't obese!

This time with baby number two I really want to bf- I did last time but had no milk until day four and gave up on day three as I was so tired. If only my mw who visited on day 8 had been there from day one she said in 'her day' she was an older lady they used to ff first until breast milk came in (obviously still offering the breast to stimulate milk production) and they soley offer the breast until feedin was established. This time that is what I am aiming for no matter what anyone else's opinions maybe! BF is great for you and your baby and free but then I think FF has lots of advantages too!!!

Good luck ladies with whatever YOU decide to do!

wow, I have no more to add to this right now as my brain is not in gear and I'm about to go cook dinner , but this is the first properly intelligent debate I have come across on here.

I think it's because mothers of little babies feel emotional, or at least I did and also because we want to do what is right for our children. Although who says there's one right way to everything? In some cases it's because people have nothing better to think or talk about and they'd be better off back in the office with something more substantive to debate and waste their energy on that.

I dont know why people dont just accept that it is a personal and sometimes private decision
(to bf or not)
I think alot of bad feeling stems from when someone sees you with a bottle and gives you that "oh your not bf"look
some people actually feel its their right to ask you outright! Countless times Ive been lectured/advised/im just saying/hope you dont mindetc etc this all,of course preceeds the speach/advice youll get about why you should bf,breast is best blahblah
It never seems to occur to the people that seem bothered by someone that is not bf, that it is simply none of their business and i think thats where the fight bit comes in..there may be a miriade of reasons why someone does not bf,but it would require a even more personal disscusion with sometimes a total stranger,but lots of the bf`s are compelled to ask and often with a ever soslightly air of superiority (oh yes you do ) and bingo there you have it!!

Sighs @ "often with a ever soslightly air of superiority (oh yes you do )" How ridiculous.

Personally I couldn't give a stuff how you feed your baby. Why should I? I do often look at a mother bottlefeeding a young infant and wonder to myself what her decision was based on but that's just curiosity on my part. I wouldn't ask - it's not my business - but that doesn't mean I can't wonder.

OTOH, I don't like being made to feel I have to play down my pride in having bf 3 babies or feel I'm not allowed to say that breast is best/promote the benefits in case a "failed" breastfeeder feels guilty and that has happened both on Mumsnet and in real life.