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Infant feeding

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

Original poster

Serious question: why ^are^ many of the pro-b/f amongst you so rabid?

393 replies

Pruni · 26/08/2006 17:12

Message withdrawn

OP posts:
nearlythree · 26/08/2006 23:19

You have to be joking, Lucy. I have been on the recieving end of the 'ffeeders are poisoning their babies' line and I felt like I wanted to die. Don't think any bfeeding mums feel like that?

Moondog, formula may not be as great as bmilk. Doesn't make it junk though.

Aitch, give yourself time. It took me 13 mo before I could even look at someone bf without crying.

sancerre · 26/08/2006 23:21

JJ, I dunno about that 'no right to an opinion' thing, I see what you mean but something so individualistic makes me uneasy. It's like saying communication between people isn't really possible as we're all so locked into our own individual perspective, which sounds pretty depressing to me if it's true...

Aitch, sorry you feel raw about this. But I think MD's right - it's what you believe that matters, not what a virtual identity on MN says (even if there's someone behind that id). Do you maybe agree with MD more than you'd like to - which I can see would be rough.

Olihan · 26/08/2006 23:22

Moondog, does that mean that formula isn't junk if it's the only choice between that or the baby starving?

Or is it only junk for those mothers who choose NOT to b/f for their own, less justifiable reasons?

Jimjams2 · 26/08/2006 23:23

I don't know lucy -I think a lot of mixed feeders (like myself - bfed ds1 for 13 months ds2 for over 2 years ds3 for ??/ can't remember but he was mainly bottle fed) find some of the breastfeeding crew just slightly rabid- or perhaps misguided in approach in the way scummy described earlier. Someone like notanotter gives a realistic view of bfeeding....... The junk stuff is just sensationalist and unecessary for people who had no choice.

NotAnOtter · 26/08/2006 23:25

Doesn't anyone think formula is lovley!!

I do!!! All freshly mixed in lovely bottle and shake it up then little mouth latches on and you watch it all go down down down and are all certain of whats been drunk and thats the end of it. You can do it - wherever whenever.
There is something so homely and lovely about those lovely tins and scoops....ahhhhh cant wait to start it again. I am sure there must be more like me out there who are not brazen enough to admit their love!!

NotAnOtter · 26/08/2006 23:25

Especially 'Nanny' with that darling goat gamboling on the tin....

MoreTeaAnyone · 26/08/2006 23:26

I just couldn't be arsed with sterilising and heating milk. BF was sooooooooooo easy. Pop it out, off we go. Fucking sore, but easy.

Marina · 26/08/2006 23:27

I am definitely a member of the Too Idle to Bottlefeed Club jimjams. I also used to panic about sterilisation and once fried a Medela pump by steam sterilising it three times on the trot Lady Macbeth style.
Also checking in as one of the quiet pro-b/f Mners. Like dino I was fed on formula in the 60s and quite possibly also neat orange juice concentrate and pulverised rusks from 8 weeks and I'm still here to tell the tale.
I do think there is a majority view in many parts of the UK that b/f, especially beyond the commencement of weaning, is unnecessary and a bit weird. And in that climate of antagonism women who b/f successfully and do extended b/f can develop the zeal of the persecuted minority, I guess.

aitch71 · 26/08/2006 23:27

ffing for me was not a parenting choice, please do not continue to think it was...

i assure you i was more hurt by your thread title by anything in the thread itself. i would never ask you to pretend that you don't think formula is junk in fact i didn't.

i asked you whether in the light of the terrible upset you caused with the tone and the wording of a thread title, you still thought that it was okay.

i think formula saved my daughter's life, in all probability, which isn't incompatible with it being junk food. i doubt that people starving in Darfur would turn up their noses at a mcdonalds.

but i do think that it's a little disingenuous of you to pull out the old 'why would you care what a stranger thinks' argument. why does anyone read magazine articles or message boards, if not to find out the opinions of others? why would anyone post a magazine article on a message board if they didn't think it was worth caring about?

as someone who by your own telling struggled to BF, you simply must understand that there are huge emotional burdens that go with 'failing' to bf, so all i would have asked for is that you would have respected the feelings of those people who are still struggling or who might have lost that struggle and not made them feel any worse than they have to.

so to return to my question, are you still happy with your thread title given the hurt it caused myself and others? not the OP, not the thread, not the magazine article. the thread title.

i'm just trying to find my feet on mumsnet and i don't want to get into an argument, which is why i am hopefully writing in a calm and mannerly way, but i really would like to know the answer to my question.

flutterbee · 26/08/2006 23:27

I know lets just give them all fresh cows milk from birth, its full of puss don't you know that must build up the immune system

nearlythree · 26/08/2006 23:27

I hated ffeeding dd1. But when I decided I had to ffeed ds (tongue tie, cracked nips, infective mastisis plus two very sick little dds) I got all kinds of positive memories come back from ffeeding dd1 that I didn't even know I had. It was so healing for me, even though I thought I'd already got over it by bfeeding dd2.

Jimjams2 · 26/08/2006 23:28

sancerre- the book was about autism and autistiic behaviour so the original was actually that "someone who doesn''t have an autistic kid has no right to an opinion about autistic behaviour" which I think is true- or at least to the extent that someone without experience of autism has no right to an opion (for example neither scummy nor christie nor goosegg have autistic children, but they have lots of experience and I would value their opinion).

i thought it was a relevant idea for aitch as it appears she has a whole host of different factors that mean that none of us know what its like to be in her shoes and having to weigh up her factors. Chances are we would have done the same as her, but in the meantime she has to deal with sweeping generalisations, An easy way to deal with those is think "you have no knowledeg of me or my situation so your opinion is worthless to me". It's very easy to take everything on a site like mumsnet personally when people are writing without any knowledge of individual situations.

And for some reason people always get upset over the bfeeding threads.

nearlythree · 26/08/2006 23:32

Last week a relative came with his girlfriend - they are old enough to be my parents - and she was asking me if I felt there was any truth in the idea that bfed babies bond better than ffed ones. Having done both, I could answer he rhonestly that I didn't. FFS, her boys are grown men and she was still worried she'd let them down by ffeeding. No wonder we get touchy about it.

Jimjams2 · 26/08/2006 23:33

I'm pissed off that nanny is on its way out. grrr grrr double grrr. I WANT bloody nanny ds3.

Marina but I fed past the accepted norm (my mother every week with ds2 "isn't that child rather too big to be breastfed, hurumph well you'll have to stop now now ds3 is on the way". and I'm not rabid , well not on this topic anyway). My mothr was overjopyed I bottlefed ds3 I think she thought I'd do ds3 until he went to school or something

aitch honey don't get upset by it.....

One of my best freinds was fed carnation. PMSL.

moondog · 26/08/2006 23:35

This is quite quite mad!!

Yes,Aitch, I am perfectly happy with my thread title.

It got people reading the article and talking about it {which they hadn't been when I posted it before under a slightly more anodyne title.}

Please don't ask me to take responsibility for your issues re infant feeding.

And on this note I shall retire to mete out some comfort to my poor dh wholying in bed in agony with a fractured spine and try to work out how we can get him home to the UK from Turkey in one piece.

Good night!

moondog · 26/08/2006 23:35

This is quite quite mad!!

Yes,Aitch, I am perfectly happy with my thread title.

It got people reading the article and talking about it {which they hadn't been when I posted it before under a slightly more anodyne title.}

Please don't ask me to take responsibility for your issues re infant feeding.

And on this note I shall retire to mete out some comfort to my poor dh wholying in bed in agony with a fractured spine and try to work out how we can get him home to the UK from Turkey in one piece.

Good night!

Joolstoo · 26/08/2006 23:35

I'd look again then LucyJu

most probably (or certainly) there are posters reading these threads but too afraid(?) to make a comment but taking it all in and being affected by what they read one way or the other.

FYI I am not 'passionate' about how babies are fed as long as they are being fed but I like to stick my 2penceworth in now and again, like it or lump it!

sancerre · 26/08/2006 23:35

I take your point JJ....can (sort of) imagine but obv have no real idea what it's like to care for a SN child!
Aitch, does that work for you though, to say to an anon online persona - you have no idea about me or my situation, so your opinion is meaningless to me?? I get the feeling it doesn't?
I can never decide how 'real' MN is..!

sancerre · 26/08/2006 23:37

JJ carnation

nearlythree · 26/08/2006 23:38

Aitch, I only wish I hadn't wasted so much time beating myself up about not bfeeding dd1. It made no difference at all, except in my head.

sancerre · 26/08/2006 23:38

MD hope you get DH sorted, sounds grim!

VeniVidiVickiQV · 26/08/2006 23:41

Realistic from her point of view, JJ. Everyone's experiences are realistic, and just as valid, arent they? Crikey, why do people have to say they struggled, just to make their opinion valid?

Agree with Lucyju. its okay to call b/feeders "rabid" "mafia" "gestapo" "nazis" etc as a general term during "normal" discussion. How is this ever acceptable? Even over and above everthing else?

LucyJu · 26/08/2006 23:41

Maybe I expressed myself badly.

What I meant was that any critism of formula is always jumped upon by people saying how it upsets them b/c they couldn't bf for some reason or other. (Maybe they genuinely coudn't, maybe they could have done with support and persistence - who knows?) So people (usually) try to tread carefully, b/c actually, they don't want to upset or hurt anyone. (Which is not to say that they agree that formula is an all-round good thing)

Usually these defences of formula are followed by numerous anecdotes long the lines of "formula never did me/my baby/my friend's baby any harm - oh and look at so-and-so - he's sickly and he was bf".

This typically irritates the hell out of the pro-bfers who will retaliate by :

  1. attempting to explain, yet again, the concept of relative risk 2 throwing a few statistics and/or pro-bf articles into the arena, possibly backed up by
  2. addition of further anecdotal evidence, this time weighted towards bf.

At this point, the pro-formula lobby will weigh in, yet again, with their own supply of anecdotes/questioning of statistics/calls for no further criticism of formula because it is upsetting. The bf lobby is accused of being "holier than thou" etc and so it goes on.

A very emotive subject yet, really, what is there to debate? Bf is better for baby in almost all circumstances. When a baby cannot or should not be bf for some reason, then of course, any sane person would give the baby formula rather than allow it to starve. Has anyone ever suggested otherwise?

Jimjams2 · 26/08/2006 23:42

oh moondog it got people terribly upset as well........

No I don;t think it is meanignless toaitch but I think it should be as she obviously had good reasons for not breastfeeding, so someone trying to suggest she was feeding her child devil spawn should be meaningless.

Tortington · 26/08/2006 23:42

i fed my children junk as babies.

they are as thick as shit - ugly to boot. will never make anything of their lives are completely unhealthy an unintelligent.

i wish i had brestfed so i could add to the PND resentment and general hardship i encountered around that time.

it was the best choice for both me and my children

i think it ultimatley hurtful to suggest we as mothers deliberatley did anything to harm our children.

i rather wonder ow the fuck you get off on this shit.

you will not find a bottlefeeder in the whole world who will argue that bottle feeding is better

your argument is well and truly won. we each have our reasons for not doing so. and for this sanctimonious tripe to be trawled out again and again.

for other women in the sisterhood of motherhood to make other mothers deliberatley feel inadequade, second best, poor parent, ill educated, disgusting, deliberatley harming etc etc is in my opinion disgusting. utterly fucking disgusting.

why do you do this?