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

wanna - OP means 'original poster' or 'original post', nothing to do with doctors! It's just an internet/chat room term, that takes the focus away from you as a person. It's a safe way of continuing the discussion without it being personal to you. If your name was used every time, it stays personal. OP is not a harmful thing at all.

I am really sorry you feel the way you do. None of the discussion is meant to upset you, but sometimes, the way debate and discussion go on a discussion board mean that the original post is not focussed on - that's what happens in conversation, in real life too.

I won't contribute to this any more. No one has lectured you, I don't think, but there have been some bullish comments to other posters - again it's what happens. None of it is nasty. None of it was directed at you. But it's not worth it if you are upset, I know.

I hope you feel better soon and continue to enjoy every aspect of being a mum

bit too late to aplogise now

you lot need to take a lesson from this

I'm sorry that you're upset wannabump. In terms of my own experience, ds1 left hospital being mixed-fed (long story, but it was the only way that I could get him discharged!). Within one week he was only being breastfed, though from 4 weeks he did have the occasional bottle of formula fed (I never did get the hang of expressing). I therefore mix fed with him until around a year, though I would have to say that probably at most he would have one bottle of formula a day (or night).

Ds2 was breastfed exclusively (I seemed to have no problem expressing second time round), but when I did introduce a bottle (5/6 months) he lost interest in the breast over night.

Tiktok said - Formula feeding does have a negative impact on health - no one can argue with the research that shows that. But that is not the same as saying 'your baby will be unhealthy', though I know it can feel as if that's what it's saying"

what's the research? do you mean statisically speaking ff has a negative impact? i know LOTS of ff people in their 30s who have never had any health problems.

also, just curious -- do you do this professionally? where does your breastfeeding info / knowledge come from?

wanna, i'm sorry about saying 'the OP' if it offended you. truth is i have a very bad memory and i always say 'the OP' becasue i am on a laptop and scrolling down the page or flipping the thread is a pain. i wouldn't read any more into it than that.

wrt to the support issue, you have had loads of support. i don't think one person has been unsupportive of your decicions, tbh. they have wanted to check that you knew about the probably exclusive ff, that's all. and you do, which is fine, but believe me lots of equally intelligent women don't. i'm no slouch in the brains dept and i didn't realise quite the impact it would have on me.

also if you've been here for three years you'll know that the boards are public, and you can't control what is posted, nor can you control how the conversation develops. don't give it further head space, it's a sunny day, go and play with your daughter and enjoy every minute of her. whether a debate continues here is no longer relevant to you, you have made your choice and you are happy with it.

wannabump, I completely understand what you are saying and where you are coming from. I think I might of sparked the debate when I butted in and said that all you wanted was a bit of support and TLC not a lot of advice and I am truly sorry that it didn't delivery the help and support it intended.

Enjoy your little girl, you deserve to.

It does seem to be a constant debate on mn about bf v ff. I think everyone knows that exclusive bf is the best for your baby by now. Like i said before, not everyone gets the option to bf and have to ff, some choose to ff and some choose to mix feed. There is no right or wrong here as you have to do whats best for you and your baby and even though their seems to be a great controversy on ff, i don't think any parent is going to knowingly put their childs health at risk as every parent wants the absolute best for their childs health.

It's not a case of people making people who ff 'feel bad', it's when say in a conversation on mn you happen to mention you formula feed, you then get people listing the benefits of bf etc because they assume that you have chose to ff and in some way act like your not putting your childs health first. This is not always the case but this has happened to me many times on mn.

I'm sorry about saying 'the OP' too if it offended you - like the others have said, it's really not meant in any offensive way - it's just a board thing. It is less personal but tbh that seems right for posts that aren't directly responding to you any more so much as making up a side discussion.

Like Aitch said, go out and play in the sun, it's not your problem that the thread moved off the original topic .

honeslty, icing, you're going to have to provide links... i've just never seen that happen in the manner you describe and i've been on a lot of those threads myself.
what i have seen happen is someone comes on and says 'fm is nearly as good as bm' as happened here, and that is somethign that cannot be allowed to stand, i think, not even on the most delicate of threads. it's because too many people find MN through googling for specific subjects and find threads through the archives. that's certainly how i found MN, quite a few times, before i came to have a look for myself.

Sun? What sun? Where are all of you living? It is cloudy and cold!

are you in britain? it's bloomin boiling here...

Not-so sunny South London - where I was promised 24C, but I'm tempted to put the heating on.

I'm loathe to post on this thread because my comment is nothing really to do with the original post but in response to later posts (in fact I wish it was on a separate thread because then it wouldn't be in any way linked to Wanna) but here goes - I think it's wrong to assume that all mners know all the facts on feeding after all new people must be joining all the time. In fact I'm sure many people join to learn more about feeding etc. I know I did. Therefore, I think that Tiktok et al are right to state the facts, how are they to know whether or not a person has the knowledge or not (perhaps there should be an acronym basically saying 'I am not looking for facts I already know them, please just give me support)?

I really feel for Wanna and she shouldn't feel guilty at all about doing her best but equally Tiktok, Mears etc have helped a lot of people on here and sometimes having the facts from someone who knows what they're talking about can be a real comfort. Support comes in many forms.

Just wanted to answer jj131 in case tiktok doesn't come back to the thread. Tiktok is a breastfeeding professional who gives stonking advice based on official research and training. She knows her stuff.

Wanna...sorry to hear of your loss, and to read that you are upset.

Sounds like you are doing a stirling job as a mum.

I'm sure everyone here had your best interests at heart, even if certain issues appeared to have fallen by the wayside. Folk have different ways of expressing it I think.

wanna- I have 3 children - bfed the first 2 (actually mixed fed ds2 for various reasons), coudn't bfeed ds3 for very long at all (no milk). I found mixed feeding worked very well with ds2- it meant I fed him for much longer (over 2 years!)) than I would have if we'd been going exclusively. When he was weaned I was able to cut back on bottles so eventually all his milk was breast. When mix feeding I fed from both breasts then topped up with 4oz of formula if ds2 was still hungry.

I also gave ds1 a few bottles (in the same way- as top ups or missing the before bed feed) in the early days as I was so so so sore. It gave a chance to heal. The breastfeeding councellor was very anti me doing that, and got quite unhelpful about it, but I think if I hadn't I would have given up on breastfeeding. I don't think she understood how painful it had become. I was able to get back to exclusive breastfeeding very quickly with ds1 (who was evebntually bfed until 13 months). I used shields for a while as well until everything healed.

how did you do the mix feeding gess? how many bottles of formula a day, d'you think, to keep the BM going alongside? or does it not quite work like that? genuine qu.

Differently with ds1 and ds2. DS1 I had gallons of milk, more than I knew what to do with, I mix fed to give myself a rest, once I had recovered had no problems at all with supply- never did with him.

Ds2 was a difficult early birth (not that early 38 weeks- elective c-section but he didn't breathe properly afterwards.). He was very sleepy and didn;t feed well. He lost an awful lot of weight by 6 weeks he was literally skin and bone, no fat on him at all, at which stage he was discovered to have a raging cord infection- treated with abs and quick recovery. With him I did made sure that I fed first at every feed- until both breasts were empty, then added a bottle feed afterwards- 4oz. Lukily he had no nipple confusion and preferred the breast. My milk supply gradually built up and I gradually dropped the bottles, eventually losing them entirely. This was a very difficult time for us emotionally, when ds2 was 2 weeks old we were told that ds1 was autistic (but he wasn;t officially diagnosed because the consultant who saw him was not a paed- so we had to try and sort out a dx, with no access to any professionals because he was just on waiting lists and had been for a long time) at 6 weeks old we were very worried about ds2 until the infection was diagnosed. it was very unclear why he wasn't putting weight on We were also moving/selling house. Really my aim was to get as much breastmilk into ds2 as possible- I didn;t really giive a stuff about exclusive feeding.

DS3 I tried the same approach as I had with ds2 (well intiially I tried exclusive, but I had no milk). Again it was a dififuclt time, ds1 was going a bit mad, refusing to go to bed until 11pm, he was changing schools from ms to special (which helped, but still a new school), we were cooking tea at 11pm and ds3 had reflux. This time it didn't work very well, ds3 preferred bottles (typical of him), my milk supply really didn't recover. That's not that surprising it was impossible to sit doown for an entire feed without having to get up to get ds1 down from somewhere at least once, most of ds2's breastfeeds were done with me standing, and walking around the house trying to contain ds1. Not ideal. My millk supply got worse and worse, I tried expressing - in the end I was lucky to get 1oz (I would have leaked 1oz with ds1). I always gave him what I had, but eventually it got to the point of being pointless. He;s 2 now, we stopped breastfeeding vry early one- 6 weeksish I think, and I can sometimes still squeeze a drop or 2 out Weird!

that is weird, gess! sometimes when dd cries i feel my breasts tingling, we gave up at 17 weeks and she's now 16 months. interesting post, thanks. (tis aitch, btw).

oh mine do that- or if I sit and think about breastfeeding I get the let down feeling. Been wondering who you were!

but i hardly ever got the let-down thing when i blitheringly well did bf, that's the irony of it all. i used to dream of having leaking breasts... [wistful] [weird]

I always had the feeling- even with ds3- , just no milk

gess, I think some babies know than bfing is stressful for their mums and prefer bottles because of this. A friend of mine had 3 DC's. She said feeding the first was lovely, just her and her dd against a backdrop of cushions! Feeding no 2 was more difficult, and her 3rd baby self-weaned at 7 months. She was convince the baby had self-weaned because she was sick of getting fed beside swimming-pools and the like!

pmsl chipmonkey- you could be right. That's pretty much my memory of it all.