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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Why "choose" to bottle feed???

732 replies

Difers · 13/07/2007 21:08

I am a breastfeeding mum and I meet lots of mums who said they tried to breastfeed but weren't able to which I can totally understand but My mother-in-law said she "chose" to bottlefeed and didn't bother even trying...

So I am wondering, given the benefits of breastfeeding, why would anyone "choose" to bottlefeed??

OP posts:
lissie · 14/07/2007 17:57

but a lot of women see formula as being just as good as breastmilk.

any reason is valid imo, doesnt mean i agree tho.

tiktok · 14/07/2007 18:18

MotherFunk, you came home after a day. Good maternity care would have meant you saw a midwife on the next day, and she would have checked the feeding was going well - and the day after that and the day after that. You would have been informed that your baby should be pooing and weeing, and by day 4-5 your baby's poos should be turning yellow. Your baby would be feeding enthusiastically and often, day and night, and you would have learnt what signs to watch for,in his feeding behaviour.

Stress would not affect your milk production, any more than stress stops the circulation of your blood or the production of lymph or your nails growing....you produce milk as a direct result of having a baby and it is totally physiological.

Sometimes, mothers' milk comes in very late indeed - but these (rare) situations can be spotted, if the mother herself has been told how to tell if all is well or not with her feeding - long before the crisis hits at day 6 in your case.

Not seeing a drop of milk is a sign all is not well - someone should have been at your house seeing that all was not well, or else been summoned by you, because you had seen these were danger signs. On day 2-3. someone should have been helping you express colostrum ie as soon as it looked like things were not going well.

Just telling you to persevere without fixing it is not a help - as you found to your cost, when your baby was weighed.

To have lost three pounds from his birthweight is a truly massive amount - and it was, as I say, your poor maternity care that led up to it, and not your stress.

MotherFunk · 14/07/2007 18:40

Message withdrawn

tiktok · 14/07/2007 18:46

MotherFunk....your story is so sad. I don't want to bang on about it, but your care was dreadful, sorry. It's no good a midwife saying 'is the feeding going well?' - she has to see, and ask the right questions. Clearly this didn't happen.
PTSD might well have delayed your milk coming in - but it would not have stopped it enirely, and it should have been spotted, and action taken.

Not your fault, MF....absolutely not your fault

MotherFunk · 14/07/2007 18:51

Message withdrawn

ScottishMummy · 14/07/2007 18:52

Difers go polish your breast feeding halo and when you are finished feeling all sanctimonious and holier than thou and presumably holier than the FF mums take a deep breath and consoder the following facts before u post such a insensitive and bound to get mums upset...

BF is a choice - mums chose it - frankly up to them
may not work for all mums
domestic arrangements - want partner/others to help with feeds
its a private individual choice
limited support/pain/other problems can pose BF difficulties
but most of all none of your business imo

loonyballoony · 14/07/2007 19:23

I chose early on in my pregnancy to bottlefeed as the thought of bf gave me the heebiejeebies (still does). And no, my norks aren't surgically enhanced, it wasn't for vain reasons. Just purely because the thought makes me almost sick. Don't mind if others do it and would never question it. My mwives at hospital were fab and never tried to talk me round to bf, but sadly in rl I have encountered some very zealous people who demand you defend your decision but don't really want to listen or understand because bf is the be all and end all of parenting in their eyes! No offence to any very keen bfeeders here obviously

daisybo · 14/07/2007 19:32

i am gonna get lynched for saying this, but to be honest i don't really care. it's my opinion and i'm entitled to it.
i really don't have any time for people who choose to bottlefeed from birth, formula milk is not as good as breastmilk. it's full of crap for gods sake. it's milk meant for a calf that's then pumped full of chemicals and fish eyes. baby's sleep for longer on formula cos their poor little tummies can't digest the rubbish, not cos they're contented and full.
breasts are for feeding your baby, and there are hundreds of studies that prove beyond doubt that breastfeeding is best for mums and for babies.
unless there's a solid medical reason (such as being hiv positive etc) people who bottle feed from birth are just incredibly selfish. they are thinking of themselves first and not what is best for their baby.
i understand why people switch to formula after having breastfeeding problems BUT 99% of the time there's no such thing as "can't" breastfeed. nearly every woman could breastfeed if they got the correct help. it's not these mothers who are to blame, it's the system that doesn't make sure they get the help they need. however i just cannot understand people who bottlefeed from birth.

feel free to start screaming at me know, i don't care

lulumama · 14/07/2007 19:34

you might not care daisy, but as i have said before, on this thread, and elsewhere....there are complex emotional & social reasons why women don;t breastfeed, or start and cannot continue

a lot of women do care, and care deeply, and feel they might have failed at breastfeeding, that sort of post doesn;t really help

IMO

tiktok · 14/07/2007 19:39

MotherFunk - I gotta go now, but my point was your milk might well have been delayed, but the fact your baby was not getting colostrum or anything else should have been spotted early on by the people whose job it was to check for problems. Instead of doing this, they missed the lack of milk right up to the crisis point. It could have been spotted on day 2-3...I could go on, but maybe start a new thread if you want to hear more

FioFioJane · 14/07/2007 19:41

do they really put fish eyes in formula milk and do they stare up at the baby from the plastic bottle?

lulumama · 14/07/2007 19:42

and i know of plenty of FF babies who were not content and sleeping through....

MotherFunk · 14/07/2007 19:58

Message withdrawn

Piffle · 14/07/2007 20:05

I have only read OP and top few posts so realise this has descended typically into the usual bf vs ff slanging match

Can I just put in my 2p pls.

I have fully bf 3 kids 2 until 16 mths - their choice to quit entirely... one still currently at 16 wks feeding well. Why do I bf?

My mother did as did my gran. I also was lucky enough for bf to happen easily for me.

I have a close friend who chose to ff from birth with all 3 of hers, she was a nurse now a midwife and had homebirths and in any other way you would presume based on stereo (earth mother) types that she bf.
However sexual abuse at age 11 took that choice away from her.
But what gutted me most was that she felt she had to feel she had to tell that to everyone who looked askance at her ff her children.

There is no place anywhere for anyone to judge with or without the facts.

I do the best for my chldren as every other mother does for theirs - I feel lucky that I can make my feeding choices freely and without judgement...

End off surely?

EscapeFrom · 14/07/2007 20:07

Daisybo, I'm quite glad you don't have any time for me!

Mercy · 14/07/2007 20:08

Daisybo, your post just demonstrates how little some people know about or empathise with life outside their immediate world.

My grandmother struggled to feed my mm because she was tongue-tied. My mum in turn struggled to feed my brother and I because we were tongue-tied.

Apart from that, maybe the benefits etc of breastfeeding should be made part of sex/health education at school rather than leaving it until women are actually planning to become or are already pregnant.

FioFioJane · 14/07/2007 20:13

diasybo wants a fish eye shoving where the sun dont shone

FioFioJane · 14/07/2007 20:14

shine[bllussssh}

EscapeFrom · 14/07/2007 20:14

I bottlefed from birth because breastfeeding would have pushed me into another nervous breakdown, leaving both my children to be cared for solely by their father. How can that be selfish?

What would have been selfish would be to do what I wanted to do, which was try to breastfeed, and to take the tranquillisers anyway. YOu think I enjoyed the washing, the sterilising, the vomitting, the search for a teat that didn't make him scream, the filthy smelling nappies, the need to always be near somewhere that would happily heat a bottle, the snide eye rolls and raised eyebrowes on the maternity ward?

I hope you enjoyed posting your opinion daisybo, and I hope you are never put in the position I was in, because I wouldn't wish it on anyone, especially not someone too ignorant to make an informed decision.

allgonebellyup · 14/07/2007 20:19

actually i kinda agree with daisy on this one - formula is pumped full of crap..

Difers · 14/07/2007 20:20

Looneyballoony - Do you know why breastfeeding gives you the heebyjeebies?? Obviously if it too sensitive a reason then you may not want to answer but I am genuinely interested??

Scottishmummy - There is really no need to be agressively rude. I didn't start this thread to be sanctimonious I started to learn more and perhaps change my views.

OP posts:
Mercy · 14/07/2007 20:22

allgonebellyup - what is the crap then?

(apart from the fish eyes)

MotherFunk · 14/07/2007 20:30

Message withdrawn

daisyandbabybootoo · 14/07/2007 20:38

daisybo...if a mum is suffering from PND, a single parent, struggling to feed and actually at the point of shaking her baby and screaming at him to "do it properly FFS" (as i was ) then believe me, FF is very unselfishly the right choice.

There are many varied and emotionally complicated reasons why women can't or won't BF and I don't think anyone has the right to castigate them for either making the choice willingly or being forced into it like I was.

loonylovegood · 14/07/2007 20:40

Well said daisyBOO!

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