I don't want to breastfeed.

[PandaLouise]

Hello everyone. I'm 16 weeks pregnant and since finding out I've decided that I don't want to breastfeed. I understand everyone says breast is best and that I might "change my mind" but I'm pretty adamant that I don't want too. Does this make me a bad person?

"where I live and work now it’s 9/10 bf big and HUGE disdain heaped on those who don’t."how does this fit with the vast majority of babies in the U.K. being ff?

Well that’s what I mean. Because my experience was that any inkling of using formula got a dogpile reaction, and almost everyone both here AND in the uk I knew bf. And it’s a reaction I see a lot of MN as well.
Then I go back home to the specific bit of the uk I’m from and everyone is ff. so I suspect that there are big demographic divisions on this one.

What is ‘term’ in relation to breastfeeding?

Natural term apparently... age varied depending on who was haranguing me at the time. :) I honestly don’t care how long people feed their babies for, and was pretty surprised that people seemed to care about what I did with mine. It’s like there’s a hierarchy of parenting virtue. I fell in the lower reaches as I dispense chocolate buttons on a Friday and allow the TV to be on. BAD ANA.

Seriously I breastfed him for 18m, it’s not like I threw him a bottle of cola and left him out for the wolves.

My main parenting resolution for the second baby is to give precisely zero fucks about people’s opinions.

The worst judgement I’ve encountered when I stopped breastfeeding after over 6 months was from a male relative who has no children and obviously doesn’t have breasts! ‘Why are you stopping?’ I thought you liked it?’ in a very disapproving tone! This relative also liked to pass judgement regularly on how I bring up my child. If my toddler cries there must be something wrong with him and it’s not because all toddler cry their tired! He’s not speaking full conservations at 1 so he must need more to stimulate his development. He has not experience with any dc himself and has never looked after any! I can’t bite my lip much longer!

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Lots of people seem to think formula is overpriced but I disagree.
I’m not sure of the price now, but with my DS a tub cost only £11 and that would last almost a week! It never crossed my mind that it was expensive, and I didn’t care what the markup was as long as it was made safely.

But actually, I did breastfeed to begin with which made me so hungry that I definitely ate more than £11 worth of additional food in a week. As soon as I stopped my appetite returned to normal. So I probably wasn’t any worse off financially when I switched to FF.

My main parenting resolution for the second baby is to give precisely zero fucks about people’s opinions.

@Anatidae I think I’ll adopt that mantra myself.

As @coffeeforone said when I breastfeeding I was hungry all of the time and shopping bill went up so financially it worked out no more expensive to FF.

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I will go against the grain here and disagree with many. I do think you are wrong to decide at a fairly early stage of pregnancy that you don't want to breast feed. You should keep an open mind until baby is born and knowing it is best for the baby perhaps at least give it a try. A bigger question is what your objection is, why don't you want to do it?

A bigger question is what your objection is, why don't you want to do it?

She shouldn’t have to justify that to anyone. She doesn’t want to. It’s her body.

@Vangoghsear your attitude is so narrow minded. There isn’t a one size fits all with how you feed your baby. Do you know OP’s personal family history or what she’s been through in her life? Do you know OP’s personal reasons for not wanting to breast feed? And even if the reason is I just don’t want to than that is fine as well!

It’s ignorance like yours that I’d be worried about passing to dc not breast milk!

Its literally no one else's business what op does with her breasts.

"I don't want to" is a perfectly acceptable answer.

It is very difficult though. The Mumsnet Code says that you must never ask anyone why they don't want to bf- and there is always a massive pile on if anyone does. And obviously nobody should feel pressured to do anything. But on the other hand, there are lots of misapprehensions about bf-and as fewer and fewer women do it. So how can we give information without it looking like pressure? There are, for example, 3 things I always see being said about bf-usually unchallenged-that I know to be at best misleading-at worst downright wrong. What should I do about that?

I dont think there’s anything wrong with listing information but I’m guessing OP’s decision will be informed. What I don’t agree with is questioning somebody ‘why do you not want to do it? when nobody should feel pressured to justify their choices to anyone.

But that's the problem, isn't it? If someone says "I'm not going to bf" you can't know if it's because they just don't want to (absolutely fine) or have got the wrong end of the stick about something unless you ask why not. And the horror stories on Mumsnet would put anyone off. People have tried to start threads with positive bf stories but they never turn out well......

Yes but if it were to turn out someone was basing any choice on wrong info then you’d want to give them full facts. That goes for anything really. Lots of people don’t or can’t make informed choices, for instance I met a mum of 2 the other day who didn’t know formula was made from cows milk. She thought it was some sort of chemical substance designed to mimic breast milk. I agree that would be an extreme example but making informed choices about formula and different types/brands is really hard because the only info on it comes from formula companies. That’s why I’d always direct someone to an impartial charity to try to get full info. First steps nutrition trust is the best I’ve come across.

I already said “temperament” probably wasn’t the right word but I’ve heard of some women who really struggle through tears, pain etc to continue to BF. I just wouldn’t be prepared to do that to myself (although respect to people who do) just because it’s really not in my nature.

" (although respect to people who do)"

respect to the "sack cloth and ashes miserable types"?

I think the 'horror stories' can be helpful and should be told. I gave up bfing ds1 early on because I believed the claptrap of "it doesn't hurt if you're doing it right" and "it's easy because it's natural" from the midwives. If they'd have been honest and said how much it can bloody hurt, how time consuming, how it takes practice and can take a while to get to grips with it who knows, I might have persevered. I stuck at it with ds2 because a lovely friend of mine gave me the warts and all version, so I knew the thrush, pain,mastitis, bleeding nipples, taking 2 hours a feed etc in the early days were actually fairly common and didn't necessarily mean there was a problem.

Ok, seeing as you seem to have nothing better to do with your day than pick fault in everything I type, no respect then! Jeez it’s only bloody breastfeeding. Hardly the be all and end all of everything.

I didn't with my first and wont with my second. I've got the MIL complaining about it as she can't accept my answer of "I don't want to"

Maybe it would be helpful to list the breastfeeding benefits/misconceptions for OP to look at is she hadn’t already. I just don’t like questioning choices of people i don’t know them especially. I had enough people pressuring me about different things when I had ds.

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