Anyone else regret breastfeeding?

[RidingMyBike]

I think DD is self-weaning as she hasn't wanted a feed for a few days. She is 28 months. Which means I've been reflecting on our 'breastfeeding journey' (stupid phrase) and wondering whether it was worth it?

I have never enjoyed breastfeeding. I loathed every single second of it for most of the first year. I only really kept on going after ten months because she only wanted to feed once or twice a day and doing something you hate for ten minutes a day is a lot easier than constantly.

None of the supposed benefits I was told about seem to have been true. It wasn't free (it cost more than formula in terms of extra food for me, plus the bras, tops, pump etc), it didn't help us bond - in fact it gave me PND and totally mucked up bonding for months. It wasn't fun and snuggly. It wasn't 'convenient'. It turned out most of the research into its benefits could be ruled out because middle class mums are more likely to BF and the advantages come from that background not the BF. The benefits of fewer infections etc are at population level, not individual, although she has no allergies and has never had a stomach upset (whilst EBF cousin has multiple allergies and several upset stomachs!)

DD was combi-fed from five days after crap advice from midwives meant she developed hypernatraemic dehydration when my milk didn't come in and their obsession with EBF meant I was advised not to supplement with formula initially. I loved feeding her formula - I liked measuring the little scoops, getting it all organised. Looking into her eyes whilst giving her a bottle did help us bond.

Why is there so much pressure to BF? With what I know now I wish I'd just formula fed from the start - although doubtless I'd be beating myself up on missing out on the bonding experience I'd been told about.

Anyone else feel like this? I feel like I've been mis-sold a product that has really not lived up to the hype beforehand!

Enforced breast?! What the heck is an enforced breast?!?

ENGORGED!!

So you wouldn't want any breastfeeding specific support, it should all be called infant feeding and cover all aspects of feeding?

"I suppose what I mean then is that infant feeding support gets called infant feeding support so it's clear you can turn up with your question about enforced breasts or latching or sterilising or pumping or mix feeding or whether you should use follow on milk (I know it's a marketing thing before anyone jumps on me, but many don't). And then you wouldn't get the comments from other attendees about using formula at a BFing meeting (been there done that) and parents would get the support to mix feed or bf or whatever, which I suspect would increase the numbers doing any bf at all."

YES!!! YES!!! YES!!!!
some areas do this. A lot don't. Needs to change.
How do we get there? Can we have a Mumsnet campaign for more individualised, non-partisan, approach to feeding support in the UK? How do we ask for this??!

Sorry, so you want breastfeeding support groups to be called infant feeding support groups? Really not sure about that as there is so little support for women breastfeeding as it is. However support groups do themselves a disservice if they are so militant that they won’t let you discuss mixed feeding. The aim should be to support the women in her wishes (peer supporters aren’t actually meant to ‘advise’ as such, although many will based on their own experience). Most support groups are now run by volunteers so you’re not often likely to find a qualified HCP running one sadly. Re. Sterilising, it’s not really something you would need ‘support’ doing. It’s pretty straightforward once you’ve been shown/read/done it once.

I was handed a list of places I could go for BFing support by the hospital - they were all called things like 'BFing cafe' or 'cosy snuggles'. None of them were in my town so I didn't actually get to one until a few months down the line, where I got dissed by some of the other mums for using formula.

There was no other support available to new mums at all. If you didn't bf you were on your own - as I've already said, the postnatal support groups stopped running a month before I gave birth and the HV told me they were unable to provide support to mums with PND.

I don't see why support for BFing specifics can't be provided at an infant feeding support meet up. And it's pretty appalling that the only support offered to new mums is to those who are BFing.

@bigmamapeach I don't know how to get it to happen. It would be fantastic if this sort of resource was available widely though. It's lovely to hear there are some areas where it exists.

@Grandmaswagsbag you'd be surprised re sterilising - I've come across people who thought it was a good idea to dry all the things on kitchen roll after they'd been sterilised!

Were there no HV drop ins or appointments for weighing your baby and getting advice?

“And it's pretty appalling that the only support offered to new mums is to those who are BFing.”

The problem is that in almost all cases women who are ff don’t actually need much support specifically about feeding. And in almost all cases, women who are bf do. Both need support for all sorts of other things, obviously, and there are plenty of baby groups that don’t focus on feeding.,

Sadly now there’s very limited support full stop. Something like 1500 children’s centre have closed or are only open so infrequently they might as well be. We are VERY lucky where I live to still have one that’s a privately run charity (caters for all sectors of community) and they run our breastfeeding support group and pay for the peer support training. The nearest one to that is about 15 miles away. Believe me, the NHS does not fund support groups for breastfeeding any more than it does for other mums. Midwives should of course be checking how people are sterilising, but I would still argue it’s not something that requires ongoing support.

@AssassinatedBeauty not really. There was nowhere to just drop in for advice. There were baby weighing clinics but they kept getting cancelled (no warning - you'd just turn up and find out it wasn't on) and when I did get into one it was one crowded room with three HVs trying to get as many babies weighed as possible. Not really the sort of place you could stop and seek advice.

There are no health visitors where I live. Nurses at the baby clinic no help at all. I eventually went to the big academic hospital in the city nearest is and went to their specialist breastfeeding clinic. They were useless. I asked them to check for tongue tie and they had no idea how and said it didn’t exist as an issue. I might as well have asked in our local supermarket for all the help they were. Bf is pushed here relentlessly and most women bf. You are judged to Hell and back I you don’t

I did end up bf ing for 18m but really more through stubbornness than anything else.

But saying ffers don't need advice like bfers do is dividing it up into either or again. At the moment people doing anything other than EBF aren't made welcome at [many] bf support places. Whether that's the intention of them or not, it's what ends up happening. Therefore, by opening them up as 'infant feeding support' it'd be a lot clearer that you can get support there for mix feeding and those people doing that wouldn't be excluded.

It might also teach the unpleasant EBFers that people can mix feed so they'd stop being so nasty to anyone feeding formula...

I just don't understand why making breastfeeding support less visible is a good thing.

It’s not about making breastfeeding suppose less visible though is it? It’s about offering a more balanced feeding support system to cater to all women’s needs.

support*

"But saying ffers don't need advice like bfers do is dividing it up into either or again"

Are you saying that they do?

By reducing support offered to breastfeeding mothers by converting all breastfeeding support into a less specialized infant feeding service.

I would absolutely agree that there should be more NHS/HV led infant feeding support, alongside specialist breastfeeding support.

There is no money for any of it though, nor the will to support post natal services, so that is very unlikely to happen. Services will be cut, not increased.

But it's making it more visible not less - opening it up to more women as it's more obvious that they can use it even if they're not EBF.

I can't see the point of putting the relentless pressure on women to bf when they don't then provide the support once you've had the baby. And I mean support to every woman to feed her child.

And the relentless pressure isn't actually doing any good anyway - is it encouraging more women to bf? Is it encouraging women who've given some formula to bf (definitely not at the moment as it's EBF or nothing). It's driving a lot of women into mental health problems because they end up feeling like failures

If you re-label all NHS/HV led breastfeeding services as infant feeding, then of course it is making breastfeeding less visible. It would also mean that there will be less actual support for breastfeeding problems as the sessions move to become about other issues to do with feeding.

As I said, I absolutely think there ought to be additional general infant feeding alongside specialist breastfeeding support. And breastfeeding services should advise on mixed feeding. They should also be upfront and clear that anyone who is abusive towards other people at the sessions will be asked to leave.

I think also that bf related problems need more hands on support. You really do need to have someone there in person to look at the positioning and latch. So yes, I do think there needs to be more resource for breast tbh.
The info id like on mix feeding could easily be put on a sheet of paper. Most of it is logistical (when to start, etc.)

It’s important it’s not seen as one taking resource from the other - breastfeeding support is underfunded enough as it is, of there’s more info on mix feeding (which I do think there should be) it’s got to be extra, not come out of the bf support budget.

“definitely not at the moment as it's EBF or nothing”

I don’t doubt for a second that some women feel like this. But apart from my immediate vaguely hippy dippy circle, practically everyone I know formula feeds/fed. A quick check on both NHS and NCT (NCT for heaven’s sake!) websites talk about mixed and formula feeding. GOSH provides formula ( it just says you can’t use powdered formula on the ward because of concerns about contamination). And nobody has been able to show any sort of directive to NHS workers forbidding them to talk about formula feeding. So is it possible that some of the pressure people are feeling is pressure they are putting on themselves? It’s no less real, or serious. But it’s not something that would be relieved by renaming bf support groups.

So is it possible that some of the pressure people are feeling is pressure they are putting on themselves?

Deffo. Certainly for me it was. But then I had to ask myself where that had come from - why was I feeling like that. Part of it is definitely internal but a fair amount of it was from some very judgemental comments I’d received when I told people I was struggling with bf.

You’re so vulnerable in that first baby post birth time. I consider myself generally quite resistant to such things so it shook me that I felt like that.

With baby 2 I hope I will be much more confident telling people like that to feck off and just getting on with whatever works best best for us - which will (hopefully) be mainly breast, with a bottle a day.

I found very little support, and too much judgement. I’m all for more support - bf support services should be better funded and able to reach more women. What you do about individual judgemental arses I don’t know.

The person who told me I was disgusting for breastfeeding an 18m old was particularly unpleasant. I don’t think I’ll forgive that easily.

Already said this but I gave birth at a BFIH (not GOSH which is a children's hospital not a maternity hospital so I'd expect it to be providing formula for babies who aren't bf? )
The only info offered was about EBF (that includes posters on the walls - I was there eight nights so I read them several times. There were posters about newborn stomach size. There was even a display of knitted nappies and knitted poo showing what a BF baby's nappies look like at different stages. The staff refused to advise on bottles, sterilising or formula. Formula wasn't provided in the maternity unit (I have no idea what happens on paediatric ward of same hospital).

I had zero idea that BFing rates were so low. Until DD was about five days old I was under the impression it was what everyone did - I thought the rate of low milk supply was so rare it was about 1 in a million.