theres so much pressure to breast feed exclusively!!its making me feel really crap!!

[wannabump2006]

Hi there,have a 4 week old dd who i initally started breastfeeding from day one.Its taken us 3 years to get the baby we want as i had a stillborn in may 2005 and a miscarriage in the september of the same year.
Shes an incredibly laid back little girl,wakes twice in the night for feeds,once around 3/4 and then again at about 6/7am,we give her a good feed at 10/11pm then she just goes down,so feel really lucky about that.
The issue now though is that because she is such a hungry baby,i introduced topping up with formula after a bf if she wanted it(suggested by midwife)which i felt really relieved about as i was feeling like she wasn't geeting enough from me,and the formula would really settle her down.ergo it would make me feel better because she was satisfied.Now though at 4 weeks i'm alternating between bf and bottle feeding,eg bf one feed then bottle next,which is suiting us really well,but i just feel theres so much pressure to just bf that it really gets to me!!
Its such a blessing to have this little girl and shes so good to take to both breast and bottle so well but just feel like health visitor and others are thinking i should have just bf and not introduced the bottle!!
I really need some support from others who have had a similar experience and just to be reasured really that the bottle isn't the enemy!!Which is how i'm feeling at the mo!!,please any one else had a similar experience?many thanks.x

I love you flying saucer

As a midwife I will encourage women to exclusively breastfeed so that their baby receives the total benefit that entails.

Formula milk disrupts the bowel flora which negates the protection that breastmilk alone gives. This can predispose babies to allergies etc.

Also, when a mother is establishing breastfeeding, formula feeds will disrupt the amount of milk the mother makes unless she expresses to compensate for the missed feed. As formula milk is harder to digest, the baby make not demand the next feed for a longer time hence mothers milk production can be inhibited due to lack of stimulation.

Therefore, for maximum benefits of breastfeeding, exclusive feeding is the ideal.

This is not pressure, but is a fact.

If a mother then wants to mix feed with the full knowledge of what the impact could be on her breastfeeding, then that is absolutely fine.

Mothers sometimes get upset when their supply dwindles, which is not what they intended. It is good to know that the amount of formula can be reduced and breast milk production increased if that is what the mother wants.

wannabump2006 - I would bet that the people around you are trying to support you in your initial choice to breast feed. It has got nothing to do with pressurising you. If you are not worried whether your breastmilk diminishes or not, then all you have to do is communicate that to them.

Informed choice is the key.

What tiktok said.

There are 2 decisions to make IMO, when you're deciding about breastfeeding.

1. What's healthier overall? - almost always, it'll be exclusive breastfeeding. (Sometimes not though - especially of course when someone just can't do that).

2. What's best for mum and baby? - could be anything. It's a completely different question.

Where these debates get heated, it's often because people are muddling those 2 ideas.

There's absolutely no doubt that a pint of EBM sitting on a lab bench has better things in it than a pint of formula.

But we don't always make our choices in life based on purely health considerations (or there'd be no chocolate industry which would be tragic).

Cross posted with mears so...

What mears said.

I'll give up now as tiktok and mears say these things so much better than I do!

Totally agree with everything Tiktok has said.

I don't think the people who think that the only thing to say to the OP is to reassure her that everything will be fine are doing her the favour they think they are.

OK, now we know that the OP has said that she doesn't mind switching completely to formula. But at the beginning she just wanted reassurance that the mixed feeding that suited them was OK in general (not OK-given-that-I-don't-mind-stopping-BF). Anyone who knows that if she's mixed feeding in that particular way at only 4 weeks she probably won't be able to keep that mixed feeding going for longer is being a much better friend to her by telling her that, than by keeping quiet about it. I honestly don't think it's helping someone to tell them only what you think they want to hear,even if you know something that is going to make them come a cropper a bit further down the line.

And to the OP - I'm really glad you've got something going that suits you and you're happy with the implications for longer-term breastfeeding - you're making an informed choice, and that's what counts. But Tiktok and the others who've pointed out about the supply risk are not trying to persuade you to breastfeed. I very much doubt they give a monkey's whether or not you personally BF or not. The issue of whether or not you mixed feed is just so not a debate-inspiring issue, it's just something that has some relevant facts to do with it which you apparently didn't know. And you do know them now and they don't affect your decision and that's great. But someone giving you those facts is not pressure, it's people sharing information. How would you feel if you were only mixed feeding on the basis that you could keep partial breastfeeding going for the next six months, say - wouldn't you be glad to be forewarned of a risk to that? I'm really surprised that anyone would think giving out that kind of information counts as pressure and tbh if it does I think you're stuck with it! Better that than a board with everyone saying "oh yes that'll be fine" in public while thinking "uh oh, that might not work" in the back of their minds!

mears and tiktok, oh how i wish i'd had mumsnet when i first had dd...

Hi Wannabump2006,

I tried to post a similar thread to yours a few days ago but didn't really get the responses I was hoping for (my fault, probably didn't express it right!) but I so agree with you.

My DS is a little older than yours (5 months) but I tried so hard to EBF him for the 6 months but it was really draining me - I also have an almost 3 year old so I was exhausted. Family was worried that I was losing too much weight, and I was so tired all the time.

I saw the HV about his weight gain because he is so small (barely 12 pounds at 5 months) but she told me not to worry, I told her I had tried to introduce a bottle, but that he wouldn't take it, and she told me not to upset him too much by trying to force the issue!

I took him to another GP (I am on holidays in Australia at the moment) who diagnosed Failure to Thrive and she referred him to a pediatrician, she suggested in the meantime to introduce a bottle and some solids, along with some BF.

It was a tough couple of days but now he quite happily takes a bottle and we are both so much happier and my family have told me how much better we look.

There is so much pressure to EBF. Formulas these days are ALMOST as good as BM, but I honestly believe that by giving my DS a combination of the BM and the bottle it is the best of both worlds, especially now as we are both so much happier.

Don't feel guilty,you are doing a great job and you are a great mum!

Fireflightly, I do agree with what you said but the debate continued after Wannabump said that she had taken on board all the great advice and understood the implications of mixed feeding. She also said that if she ended up exclusively ff she would be fine with that.

One post then said:

"There are some who don't understand why a mum would want to feed her baby something inferior ...."

I can completely understand why that would make a vulnerable new mum feel bad. It shows very little empathy imo.

I remember feeling I wanted to hear from others who had had the same experience to make me feel better about my situation. And I acutely remember how sensitive you feel in those first few weeks with a new baby. That's all I was trying to say.

mm - sorry but forumula is not almost as good as breastmilk. It is an adequate alternative but it far from almost as good. That's a fact so if it offends anyone or upsets them, makes them feel guilty etc , well, not much I can do about that apart from usggest you put your head in the sand.

I believe weazel milk is closer

formula is a perfectly adequate alternative

Formula usually permits babies to grow and develop within normal limits.

This is not the same as saying its nutritional quality is 'almost as good'.

We can either be grown up about this, and use common sense and share information without judging other people's situations.

Or we can pretend everything that happens is just lovely and with no down-sides at all.

I like being a grown up, myself

Absolutely, TikTok. I am very uncomfortable with the idea that "support" means the same as misinformation - that people should igore the evidence in the interests of giving people seeking advice and information an unqualified ((((hug))).

Your posts are never judgemental - they always manage to be empathetic and solidly backed by the research evidence.

It's a basic principle that people should be informed about the implications of the choices that they might make.

I hate the idea that that grown women should be infantilised in the way that some posters here seem to have suggested.

As someone said earlier, there are several debates getting mixed up here.

I think most of us agree that bm is best but formula is an adequate alternative (I am not sure the Weazel milk comment was particularly helpful).

Mixed feeding can lead to exclusive ff so it is good to be aware of the problems.

However, if you are happy with that then it really should be enough said.

I wasn't trying to put my head in the sand or pretend everything was lovely. Quite the opposite actually. I remember how un-lovely the guilt (usually self-imposed because you feel hyper sensitive) was. I was just trying to be empathetic.

I was also just trying to say that in the grand scheme of things, this really shouldn't be the big deal we make it. There are many more big issues to deal with on the way and it is the way you love rather than the way you feed your baby that is the crucial thing.

I obviously didn't say that very well,

the weasel milk comment was downright offensive but you can see with comments like that exactly why the op feels as she does.

I agree zookeeper. Not constructive, not helpful and does a disservice to those people who simply offer practical advice about bf.

twofalls, my comments were not particularly directed at your posts.

I don't understand about the comment on weasel milk being offensive...eh? I think the point is that when people talk confidently about formula milk being almost as good as, or very close to, breastmilk, making the (humourous?) observation that other animal milks can stake an equal if not better claim to 'closeness' and that formula milk is based on the milk of another species.

I have met many people who do not know where formula milk comes from, by the way (as an experiment, ask people....most of them have never thought about it, and some are amazed it comes from cows!).

One person thought it was actually breastmilk, dried and canned.

Sorry, last post does not make sense. Shd read:

"making the (humourous?) observation that other animal milks can stake an equal if not better claim to 'closeness' and that formula milk is based on the milk of another species can remind us of what we are talking about.'

oh grow up tik tok of course it was an offensive comment.
What planet are you on?

It was a comment that might shock some people but that's all. Weasels are not particularly awful animals, no worse in themselves than cows or humans. We're all mammals after all! Try saying "I feed my baby human milk" over and over again to yourself, it sounds weird at first!

An awful lot of the time most of us don't instantly associate 'milk' or what we feed our babies with with anything animal related, and yet regardless of how we feed our babies it all comes from one mammal or another!

The "these days formula is almost as good as breastmilk" line is always going to be picked up on on a big public board like this (whereas it might not be in private or face to face, or not on a feeding board) because while it's lovely and reassuring, it's not actually true, and those people who are empathising with readers/posters/lurkers who want to make choices from good information won't leave it sitting there without commenting on it.

The fact that good information sometimes makes all of us feel a bit uncomfortable for a moment (even if often only till we re-examine our decisions and decide we're happy anyway) is something we just have to put up with in an internet board context. So long as that information is presented tactfully, kindly and without judgements about the overall quality of other people's parenting (I reserve the right to think some people's decisions are crap while still acknowledging that they are good people!), that should be OK. I'm not sure the weasel comment was presented that tactfully but as information in itself it's not offensive.

PS I'm not referring of the OP when I say I reserve the right to think some people's decisions are crap - it sounds like she's made just the right decision for her, she's done loads of breastfeeding, which is fantastic, and as with most of us, the very fact that she's worrying about whether or not some decision or other is right is a sign she's a good parent!

Fio, I agree - who was lecturing her?

zookeeper, don't be rude to me. It's not necessary. Maybe you don't like weasels - to me, they are just another non-human animal!

fireflighty - good distinction between what might be said in RL to someone's face, and on an internet board, which is speaking to potentially many 1000s, and which can never be a throw-away comment, as on mumsnet at least, it's archived for a while....anyone coming on here for information on mixed feeding might well come upon this thread, and they need to have some factual stuff to think about.

Fio - it's not good to make comments about the content and quality of posts on no more than a skim read....the OP's difficult history has been acknowledged several times, as well as the fact that her choice and happiness with that choice is paramount.

I've just read this through... where's the lecture on breastfeeding? I believe all that people have been trying to do is make sure the OPs choice is an informed one.

My goodness, I consider myself well educated and fairly well informed but before I was bf DS I hadn't realised that... mixed feeding could be the end of milk supply, mixed feeding interfered with the gut and you lost some of the benefits of breastfeeding, and that formula was no where close to breastmilk. And I'm so glad that someone pointed those things out to me when I wanted to give formula. Being given that information let me make an informed choice about how to feed DS.