Not being controversial honestly but I'm interested.....

[Manictigger]

...in the different reasons why people use formula whether it's by choice or due to circumstances. I've been bf for 7 months now and I do it a) for peace of mind (there's a history of allergies on DH's side and I would feel so guilty if later down the line lo developed an allergy and I know that I chose not to do something that might have prevented it from happening) Also, lo was born underweight so I felt she needed all the help she could get in life (but those are reasons personal to me). Anyway, b) I'm a lazy cow and would find all that bottle malarkay a faff (even at my lowest, most exhausted point with thrush the idea of dragging my carcass downstairs to make up a bottle sounded like an even worse horrendous nightmare) In fact in a way, I think bottle feeders should be given credit for putting in the effort which a lazy cow like me is unwilling to do.

So like I say, I'm interested in whether people always intended to use formula or whether they had to because bfing went wrong (and whether those people felt they were given the support they needed)and whether formula feeders (whatever their circumstances) think it's right that bf is actively promoted in the NHS. FWIW, I think it's right that bf is promoted by the NHS because according to one survey, a sizeable number of women believe that formula is just as good as bm which as mature MNers we know it isn't but equally I think the NHS is wrong to push that message without also acknowledging that most women will initially have problems and without providing good support for such women.

Anyway, like I say, I'm genuinely interested in seeing the other side of the ff/bf debate because usually it all descends into a playground fight which helps no-one and creates more divisions and prejudice.

So PLAY NICELY

(actually feel a bit guilty because I'm off to plant potatoes now but I will return at some stage)

And which bit do you think is causing the problems then JJ?

oh, I guess i'm causing it by feeding my baby poison out of a dangerous weapon called a bottle. that's what you want to hear.

the problem of you being judgemental and uniformed? that I can't help you with.

Yawn
I'm off to do my essay.I'll leave ya to jab at thin air with yer boxing gloves.
You're spoiling for a fight and I sure as hell won't oblige.
See ya!

You don't want a fight MD? Bloody hell, what's wrong with ya?

guess you shouldn't have bothered starting something that you can't finish. and if you think that posting "blimey, how hard can it be to put a bottle in a babies mouth" on this thread isn't spoiling for a fight, you're just a tad bit naive.

No bums, buns or hardhats yet ManicTigger.....

Just been reading through with real interest, as I gave up bf DS at 6 weeks and am now pg with No.2 and weighing up the whole debate myself. With DS I was a single parent who'd had a really long labour that ended in a C-section with undiagnosed PND to boot. Ds would latch on and then spit out repeatedly and every feed was agony. He wouldn't latch on at all on the left and I was sore, crakced bleeding and very very miserable indeed. I had been expressing off the left for over a week and feeing him with a bottle for a couple of days and he seemed to like it....he would lie and gurgle at me whilst feeding with the bottle. After a particulary distressing night where I'd been awake for 5 hours trying to get him to feed, I nearly shook him and was so horrified with myself that i called Parentline. Only they suggested that this might be a good time to switch....it wasn't even on my HV's radar to put him onto formula.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I expressed for another week or so until my supply started to dwindle and gradually sitched to formula and the two of us didn't look back. He went from being a grumpy little sod to a perfect angel almost overnight (no doubt because he wasn't hungry anymore and wasn't feeling my frustration) and my emotional wellbeing improved slightly. However, I was made to feel like a very bad mother indeed by my HV, who actually told me that she was 'disappointed' that I hadn't persisted for longer and that she thought an educated older mother like me would have more sense. (should have reported her, but too much else going on at the time). I think the negative response I got from her further contributed to my depression as I felt like a very poor mum indeed...couldn't give birth, couldn't even feed my baby...

This time around, I will give it a fair go, but if it isn't working I will make the switch before I work myself into the same sort of emotional state as before and won't be beating myself up about it.

BTW...DS is a happy healthy individual who rarely gets colds and infections, although he does have mild asthma which only affects him when he does have a bad cold (but his Dad has asthma anyway and I had childhood asthma but grew out of it).

As an aside, I had understood that the baby's immune system is up and running for itself after two-three months so the immunological benfits are only valid up till that point, but I could be wrong on that score

So, I'm neither pro FF or pro BF, but rather pro choice and feel very strongly that castigating women for their choice (whichever that choice is) should be discouraged.

JJ, ffeeders get support from HV's for any problems they have with bottle feeding. Although no one can make any kind of informed judgment on which formula is better than another because the formula companies don't release the sort of information that would enable you to make a proper choice.

While you could say that hv's also give support for bf, there isn't so much specialist knowledge needed on ff problems. The vast majority of hv's in this country do NOT have anywhere near enough training to support bf, hence the appalling bf rates. We need voluteer bfc's like the NCT, ABM, BN and LLL provide because the bf rates would be even more abysmal without them.

FWIW, I formula fed my first 2 dcs because of the crap support from my hv (who could answer any questions I had about teats, volume of milk, etc, once I'd moved on toformula) but am bfing my 3rd because people like moondog and tiktok (among lots of others) on here have given me the knowledge, support and motivation to make it work.

Oops I take that back....whilst I've been reading and then compiling my post, it seems like it has all kicked off....
retiring to a distance incase I get hurt...

actually, I remember being really clumsy and not knowing how to feed ds with a bottle when I first did it as dh always did it ( and we have one of those weird tommy tippee bottles)

I expressed a lot for dh to feed and when I forst had to feed him myself ( after I went back to work) I felt really nervous and scared I was drowning him by holding the bottle incorrectly.

By contrast, breastfeeding came very naturally to me so of course ALL feeders need support.

The breastfeeding organisations are volunteers. Instead of moaning about not having a similar organisation for formula feeders why don't you do the same as those women and volunteer yourself. Why be annoyed that someone else hasn't given up their time freely to help you?

The breastfeeding organisations are volunteers. Instead of moaning about not having a similar organisation for formula feeders why don't you do the same as those women and volunteer yourself. Why be annoyed that someone else hasn't given up their time freely to help you?

'So, I'm neither pro FF or pro BF, but rather pro choice and feel very strongly that castigating women for their choice (whichever that choice is) should be discouraged'.

Daisy, I couldn't agee more. Now I've managed to bf I love it and would love other women to experience, epecially if they were unwilling ffeeders because of rubbish bf support. So from that pov I am quite passionate about trying to tell women what bf support is available if they really want to carry on.

I do find it sad that women are judged so much on the way they feed their babies as it's so often not just a black and white case of not wanting to bf. I have a friend who is going to have a preventative double mastectomy next month as 8 of her immediate female relatives have developed breast cancer before the age of 30, most of them after pregnancy. My friend still wants children so will have no choice but to ff if she also wants to see her children grow up. To me, there's no choice there. But I feel sad that she will face the kind of judgments we see on here when she is in hospital giving her newborn formula, or in a cafe, giving a bottle. I think sometimes we need to remind ourselves that women do have valid reasons for ff and it's none of our business really.

Olihan -

jj - please don't be chippy with me. Anyone on mumsnet will tell you I am never judgemental towards people on the grounds of their feeding 'methods', and I only judge the system that lets women down - formula feeders and breastfeeders - in so many ways, over something so fundamental as infant feeding. I do find the way health visitors talk to mothers and the information they have to be astonishingly bad, at times, though.

There are no benefits to formula - you ask me to distinguish this from 'pros of formula feeding'.This is easy.

A 'pro of formula feeding' could be an individually-found advantage, for example, an individual might say 'a pro of formula feeding is that the baby can be fed by someone else'. Another individual might find this a drawback - maybe she doesn't want the baby to be fed by someone else and likes being the only person who feeds her baby, maybe she has a mother or MIL who can't wait to get her hands on the baby and the mother wants to keep her at a distance.

It is certainly not a general 'benefit of formula' that it can be given by someone else.

Another example? You might say a 'pro of formula feeding' is that you can tell how much the baby is getting. But this is irrelevant to happy feeding - no one needs to know this (with a healthy baby). It could be seen as a 'pro' to an individual mother who is otherwise nervous about her baby's intake, but it is certainly not a general 'benefit' of formula.

I could go on - but do you see the difference?

ds1 - fully bf for the first 3 weeks, but I never really had much milk and ended up feeding him for 18 hours a day. Add total exhaustion and the sore nipples which resulted from so much feeding to a helath vistior who was adamant that "it doesn't hurt" when I was literally crying with pain as I fed him and it wasn't a happy experience. Eventually dh gave him formula (without my knowledge) when I was asleep and just that one bottle was enough to break the cycle and let us both sleep long enough for there to be enough milk for the next feed to keep him going longer. Not before I'd gone ballistic at DH because at the time I believed what the HV was saying that once he'd had a bottle he'd never breastfeed again. (Totally incorrect in case anyone is wondering). Managed then to 90% bf until I had to go back to work when he was 16 weeks old, and carried on with mixed feeding - bottles daytime and the occasional evening out, bf the rest of the time - for several months after that.

ds2 - so far going well, although am having to feed from one side all night, and the other mornings/evenings as at 9 days old he can't seem to latch onto one of them when he's half asleep. First time around, with the you must alternate breasts at each feed advice I was given, I'd have been pretty stressed about that and we'd have spent ages trying to get him to latch on in the middle of the night. This time I'm a lot more relaxed about it (probably thanks to 5 years of mumsnetting!).

Moral of the story I think is that so much "advice" is given as gospel, whereas in reality sometimes there is a grey area, or a variation on the standard approach which can actually work for you.

I think there is a lot of generational pressure too - with ds1 I had MIL turn up on the doorstep the morning after we'd got home from hospital telling me that she'd come to give him his 10 o'clock bottle, despite her having been told that he was going to be bf.

And also still a surprising amount of ignorance - in the hospital last week there was a young girl who was saying she didn't want to bf. Ok, her decision. But when the midwives were talking to her, obviously trying to establish that she was going to be able to care for her baby when she left, they asked about feeding, and she said she'd buy organic milk!

Giving a bottle is not a matter of sticking the teat in - I think it does everyone a disservice to think it is dead easy and that there is no technique, and it belittles the distress of mothers and babies where it has not gone right.

There are ways of bottle feeding that enhance closeness and comfort - there is a technique called 'paced bottle feeding' that mirrors the way a baby breastfeeds, and which is sometimes used in babies who find it hard to bottle feed.

I think there is a lot to be said for encouraging bottle feeding skin to skin; for ensuring the mother is the main person to give the bottle. I think the way some bottle fed babies are passed round adults like a parcel with whoever happens to be around giving the feed is not good, and does not foster what we know about early attachment - obviously, once in a while there's no harm in this!

So yes, bottle feeding/formula feeding mothers need input as well, and I would think this should be part of any hcp's remit.

I always feed with my DS face up close to mine so are skin touches, makes for a stiff and uncomfortable position for me, but nothing beats our closeness and touching his skin!

Oli - my heart goes out to your friend who has had her choice taken away from her.

I hope that when she does have children, someone will give her space to express any feelings of loss or grief about this, if she has them. I am not saying she will definitely have these feelings, but she may do - and she may be surprised with how strong they are. I have been in contact with women who have had very strong feelings as much as 30 years later, and I have spoken to grandmothers who see their own daughters breastfeeding, and who have been choked with surprise at their own reaction to this - regret, guilt, loss, bitterness, that they have never been able to voice before.

actually i agree with anyone who says that there isn't proper info. re. formula or the proper use of formula.

i am an advocate of bf, never ff, don't know how to do it, but i DO agree that parents are not given timely and accurate info. re. the INGREDIENTS AND CONTENTS of formula milks. i think if this info. were made readily available it would do a great deal to help parents choose between bf/ff

the formula companies like to keep the contents of formula milks very close to their chests. it is not good enough just printing labels, there needs to be a COMPARISON between the contents of bm and formula on the packaging of formula, in fact i would like to see legislation passed to make this compulsory

this

Here is one from Dr Sears, I saw a more detailed one once, will try to find and post it !

That wouldnt be possible. I believe there are hundreds of ingredients in breastmilk and they are discovering more all the time. SOmeone with more kowledge is welcome to correct me on this.

yes i know helcules, there are many many more things in bm that formulas do not contain, but the ones that are known should be listed, it might help people when they are making a choice

yellow - I agree. When people say 'more information needed on formula' they may not want to hear about the health impact of its use, or the reasons why there are drawbacks, and I have some sympathy with this. If someone has decided for whatever reason, their baby is to have formula, then the bad news about it can seem like a criticism of this choice.

Babies who are not breastfed have to have formula, after all, and once breastfeeding is out of the picture, it's not very welcome to hear.

I don't think this is a reason not to say anything though!

the contents of formulas are KNOWN, the people who make them know what is in them, but listing them on packaging isn't good enough, imo, to me it would be like reading the list of what is in medication, a whole list of stuff in medical/latin terms - how is that useful ?