just confused what the best thing to do is

[busybee987]

As the title suggests im feeling torn about what to do with breastfeeding or bottle feeding, less than 3 weeks to go i really need to get my mind in order. i tried it last time with my dd and felt i gave up too easily, it was the one thing that upset me totally at the time, even though i was firmly i will give it a try and if it doesn't work it will get a bottle. Can anyone help with advice? I sometimes feel the reasons i talk myself out of trying breastfeeding are purely selfish reasons, and im taking the easy way out. Does any of this make sense at all? any advice greatly appreciated.

Try breastfeeding. It's the best option if you can do it. You can always mix feed if EBF doesn't work for you/baby.

Make sure you have the right support as much as possible and ask for help if it isn't working at first. Keep asking for help. The idea bf comes easily because 'it's what your body's meant to do' etc. is very often rubbish. Lots of people struggle and need support from La Leche League or BF consultant or HV or someone.

If it doesn't work out don't beat yourself up, move to expressing or formula and enjoy your baby.

thanks i know thats what i should have done sooner last time in asking for help, i left it too late and by then id already talked myself out of it. am hoping an education class about breastfeeding we r going too next week will help allay my fears, i really have no idea what im doing and maybe being better educated about it i will be better prepared!

In the long term it is so much easier to bf, no bottles to wash, sterilise and cart around with you for a start. I struggled for weeks because it was sore, and like you I feel that I gave up to easily with my first. It really is amazing and easy once you’ve got the hang of it.

Breastfeeding for me was horrific and so hard until it wasn’t. It’s like one day a switch flicked and it was just so easy. I should have gotten help from a lactation consultant way earlier, he had a shallow latch and it was so sore and for some reason I was resisting using shields- I obviously enjoyed pain? But once I used them more and then got his tongue tie cut it suddenly got better and one day I forgot the shields and it wasn’t sore and I stopped using them all together and now we’re laughing.
I had a goal of 6 weeks and when I reached it I felt I had worked too hard to just give up, and after that it was just a case of getting to the next feed each time.
A bit of advice my sister in law gave me was don’t guve up on a bad day, if you’re giving up do it on a good day so you’ll know you made a choice rather than felt forced into it.

I thought my babies would know how to feed and latch on with no assistance from me and that didn’t happen, really glad for bfing support classes.

Get some bf support, and give it another go - if you can get established, it's so much easier, and better for the baby of course. You don't say what went wrong last time, but remember, it gets easier - the first few days are by far the worst. You get better as you go along, and crucially so does the baby.

Remember milk doesn't come in usually until day 4 and babies have natural fatty deposits on their body to see them through this time so don't think day 2,3,4 etc something is wrong.

Having had five children all of whom I breast fed to begin with I can tell you now some babies are good feeders and some need a lot of help, out of mine four were natural breast feeders and knew what to do instinctively, one of my twins (baby number 3) was rubbish. If he had been my first I would have totally blamed myself but having breast fed my first two for 12 months each I felt I knew what I was doing. I decided after a week to bottle feed my twins. It was a good decision for us and I enjoyed their first year. I breast fed my last child for 8 weeks again deciding that with 4 other young children this was as much as I could do.

My advice is try and breast feed if you need help ask for it but don't feel you have to continue at all costs. It's not the end of the world if you and baby don't get on with breast feeding. My sister expressed breast milk for six months with her first child because of breast feeding problems, tongue tie and flat nipples and she regrets the stress she put herself under

Enjoy your baby and know you are the best person the decide what is right for you both

blossom28 did u manage to successfully feed subsequent children and if so what did you think u did differently that gave u the momentum to do it?

thank you everyone for sharing your experiences i dont think i know anyone that bf so i dont have much 1st hand experience of it so to speak. am thinking if i at least give it a good go for a week and see how it progresses, i know a week isnt long but so long as i can see a light then i will keep going. how would you go about finding a local lactation consultant, i definitely think i need a hand hold early on to know that what im doing is right.

Check out www.laleche.org.uk to find local support.

I would say it was hard for maybe 6 weeks...but my son had tongue tie & we had to wait that long for correction. I'm now nearly 10 months in, and honestly it's not difficult at all. I had to top up with formula for a few months so have the experience of bottles too and breast was definitely my preference. That said, he still has a bottle at bedtime so that my husband can get that bit of time with him after work every day. Good luck!

I’m mix feeding at the moment and that’s going well. It’s my first and I found the first few weeks challenging - he’s 8 weeks now - but it’s so much easier now & I’m glad I stuck with it. It’s so much less time consuming as OP said bottles / steriliser etc each time. Working well for us :)

The midwives were great at the hospital teaching how to breastfeed but also there are breastfeeding homestart teams who come out to help you at home too. So take a look to see if there’s one local to your area. I’ve found them so helpful & great to have that extra support even over the phone when I needed it.

Buy some pillows or BF pillows to help too as I found one of the challenges for me was positioning. Especially if baby is tiny like my boy was. I had a cannula in for fluids which effected the way I was holding baby initially too.

Try different positions when baby is here too to see what works best.

Also you could try expressing as
OP said - that’s something I’m trying now too to replace formula :)

@FleurBaby I am planning to do a FF in the evening but have read how it affects your milk. Did you encounter any problems with bf once the bottles came along? I think my husband is chomping at the bit to feed and also finds it quite frustrating that the baby cannot leave me for more than an hour at the moment!!

@FirstTimeMumApril19 hey! No, I didn't have any issues with bf when I started giving bottles. That said, the top up bottles I gave during the day were always directly after a boob feed, same with bedtime bottle until he was maybe 3 months (then we swapped to just a bottle at bed). I think the main thing is to make sure your supply is established before you start skipping any feeds. You could express while baby's having the bottle if you're worried?