For everyone that decided not to/wasn't able to Breastfeed

[VictorianSqualor]

I just wanted to say..
To those of you who tried- well done.
To those of you who didn't recieve the support you deserved -sorry.
And to those of you wo have felt guilty ever since because of some generally awful attitudes- Please don't.
To those of you who decided against it- I hope it was because you made an informed decision and not through lack of support available and hope any threads you read about breastfeeding do not make you feel bad either, you did what you decided was best and have nothing to feel bad about.

It seems that just lately there has been an awful lot of threads judging people who do/don't bf/ff and I hope that as mothers we can unite in wanting the best for our children and having all the information to hand so we can make an informed decision.

I was unable to bf DD, after being born 8wks prem, and my milk practically not coming in, I gave up, and I wished I hadn't.
Maybe if I had had more support with trying to express whilst she was in SCBU I would have been more successful, I don't know.
Thankfully with DS I had a wonderful midwife who helped me to latch on after my first night of despair, and have since learnt not to blame myself for not succeeding with dd.

I don't think anyone else should either.

Great Thread
Oh I was so sick of having the 'Breast is Best" chime rammed down my throat !
the Irish lady who said "mummy is more important than milk" was sooo right.
How can you look after your baby if your in such a muddle about breastfeeding....cant remember which boob you last fed from,cant sleep,arguing with hubby through lack of sleep,other children to look after and the guilt that comes with that too....
I wanted to breast feed my babies and tried for 2 months....the hv promised me it would get easier...but it never did.They NEVER slept,I had very sore cracked,bleeding nipples,with,without shields,and latched on PROPERLY! ....... the midwives will always blame you for not doing it properly!

all 3 of my babies were big and fed constantly {not at the same time ! they arent triplets ! sorry if I've mislead!} Now ,I would be wonderwoman wouldn,t I breastfeeding triplets! haha
anyway back to the point.....
the amount of guilt which is piled on Mum's these days for not solely breastfeeding is distgusting.
When I was having my 3rd baby,I actually witnessed a midwife giving a young Mum 'a right rollicking because she'd breastfed her baby....then 10 minutes later asked another midwife for a bottle of formula.
She stormed up to her and shouted," you have just breastfed that baby,by giving her formula you could have seriously harmed her! your baby's stomach is the size of a walnut!"
The poor girl was in tears and promptly rang her Mum to come and take her and baby home.
and this new claim about breast making babies brainier......twaddle !
me and my brothers were all bottlefed from day one-I got 8 GCSE's,an A level and a Diploma
my hubby and his brother were breastfed till one year old....and claim to be as thick as 2 short planks!
I,ll be honest now....if I was to do it all again....I would have bottlefed,for sure.
Everyone is different though.It just wasnt right for me.
By the way,my youngest permenantly has a cold,so breast wasnt best for her either!!!

I tried to BF no1 but failed badly.
I FF no 2 as result of experience of no 1.
I bf no3 up to 5 months and feel pretty pleased with myself.

I never felt guilt about no2 as it was the right thing to do for me at the time.

Please let folk do what they feel is best rather than torturing themselves forever more.

Thanks for the thread OP

I just wanted to share - we all set out with our 'dreams' and thoughts about what will and won't happen when we have children. Boy for us was dd1 a sharp learning curve - especially about things being out of your control.

For me personally I was very anti c-section - mainly cause I am a big wuss - not vocal about it though - jsut not for me. was going to breast fed etc.

Then we had dd1 - who was born after a scan showing she was in danger and needed to be born then - so from an ultrasound at 9.30 to baby being born at 11.08 after an emergency c-section.

Baby taken to ICU - I saw her briefly in passing, dh got a cuddle.

I tried 2nd day to express milk - got some. But in essence despite persevering for roughly 8 weeks - if dd1 had relied solely on breast milk for survival - she would have starved. She started with a special formula for premature babies, then she had formula and some breast milk for 8 weeks.

I found it really heard - recovering from c-section, seeing babe in ICU and then SCBU, visiting as much as I could and dealing with other stresses. No family support - I was living in the UK thousands of kms away from family and life long friends. Il's had their own care situation with elderly relatives.

So once dd1 had her surgery - she took to the bottle no worries but needed a special prescription formula to repair the damage to her lymph system. Then finally able to have regular formula.

To look at her today - you can't tell whether she was breast or bottle fed. She is very healthy.

Dd2 - came along and everyone assumed as she was my second I knew what I was doing. As I said in the other thread - only through supportive sil, friend and dh I managed to breast feed dd2 for 18 months - despite blocked ducts, thrush etc. What helped was dh saying - if I wanted to bottle feed that it was okay - whatever i wanted. The fact I had a child with special needs and a lot of demands and committments also made it tough BUT with the support I made it.

Dd3 - seems so easy in comparison.

I have an acquaintance who suffered a number of bouts of mastitis and decided to bottle feed - who am I to judge - it is what works for her in her situation.

There have been a number of friends who have chosen to bottle feed - not my business. Again what works for them in their situation is what is best. If they want support and help then I am happy to do that - support them in their decision NOT judge them or make them feel guilty.

oh boy did not realise it had gotten so long

lovely thread, victorian, good idea.

just briefly wanted to register my distaste at the use of 'zealot' further up, though. it's such bollocks. one OP on the other thread, she had been thoroughly lambasted for her ignorant stance, and that is generally the way these things go. so where are these MN zealots? No bloody where, that's where.

Lovely OP, VS.

I must say, I don't see much judging of ff-ers on MN. Every now and then a loony pops up but is quickly shouted down.

I think - having read lots of MN threads on bf/ff - that the saddest posts are from people feeling guilty about something that wasn't even a choice in the first place, ie they wanted to bf and couldn't for whatever reason.

In an ideal world, it would truly be a choice and people could look back on their decisions without guilt or regret.

We used to have threads like this fairly regularly a few years ago - usually a run of them. It was really hard for me, as my ds was only about a year old, and I took ages to come to terms with my bf experience (it was fairly typically crap). Things I learned:

that only a tiny minority of b/f people deliberately hurt you, mostly through refusing to care or try to understand, and making jokey comments;

that when you are perhaps grieving, you see people attacking you everywhere - generally they aren't - though they may have a bit of their foot in their mouth - and it's crucial I think not to attack back [guilty];

(Grr MN won't let me do a long post...)

(continued...)
that sometimes not being able/helped to breastfeed is like a grieving process, and that a little compassion/humility from the other side really goes a long way. Which isn't the same as watering down the message to play to people's guilt - it's just compassionate in certain situations.

that for every happy breastfeeder, there is one who is doubting herself, and who needs support and lack of judgement as well. It works both ways.

I really hope the other thread dies a death and we can forget about it - it harks back to nastier times.

I agree Aitch, there are a hell of a lot of MNers who support breastfeeding, yes.
I certainly wouldn't say that's the same as the impression we are sometimes given about these people, they are not trying to cause any hram or sadness to anyone just help those that are really trying to breastfeed but need a little extra support.
Like Tiktok said on the other thread, it's very unlikely someone with the kind of attitude that claims women are selfish or lazy for not breastfeeding would be accepted to train as a breastfeeding counsellor anyway.