I hate breastfeeding

[TooManyAnimals94]

Exactly that. Yet again I have woken up in a stinky milk wet patch because my boobs have let down and soaked the bed. My dressing gown also smells like the posh cheese counter at the deli because I there is only so much laundry I can do and I haven't put it in the machine yet.
I live in fear of getting thrush because I always seem to have saturated breast pads against my skin.
The time when I'm not washing the same three tops AGAIN because I refuse to spend anymore money on nursing clothes, I am fishing said breast pads out of the dog's mouth because she gets them out of the bin and shreds them.
I hate that my fast let down means that instead of serenely nursing my baby to sleep in the evening, the poor child is subjected to having milk sprayed up her nose, I'm her eyes and when she does stop fussing at latch on,she chokes, sputters and cries so I have to calm her and start again.
I have tried using a haaka pump to relieve this and yes it works a bit but it turns the whole thing into even more of a faff.
It isn't 'convenient'! I remember the midwife using this word when she found out I had horses. She said it's so convenient when you're outside because you don't need to worry about hygiene or bottle temp. Yeah, never mind we're heading for winter and I'll soon be fighting through three coats to get my tits out in sub zero temps....so fucking convenient. To then be covered in milk which will make me even colder.
Lastly, I miss my boobs! I never had a great body but I liked my boobs. I liked the way they looked, I liked to have them touched. Now they just look like cow udders to me and I hate the fact I have lost any autonomy over when I get them out. I want to punch my husband if I catch him looking at them. It disgusts me that he could even contemplate them in a sexual way.
I'm not sure what I'm hoping to get out of this but I thought a rant might make me feel better...it has, a but. I've said I'll keep going until the new year when she'll be three months and I feel like I've 'done my bit plus money is tight and there's no point spending on formula when we don't have to but I'm literally counting down the days.
It's just another thing that NO ONE TELLS YOU! Ladies who have breastfed for the recommended 6 months to a year or even longer, I applaud your resilience. I genuinely don't understand how you do it. Is anyone else a horrible mum like me who resents sharing her body with her child? I did it for nine months! I thought I was done 😂

The early days are tough. I did stop leaking fairly early on so I hope it’s the same for you.

I can’t say I particularly enjoyed it but did find it convenient. Once you start having to make up ( and clean bottles) you will realise why! I managed 6 months but wasn’t a natural that’s for sure.

How old is your baby? The leaking really doesn't last long, my 3td Bf baby is 6 months and I stopped using breast pads months ago

I felt exactly the same as you! Hated it. Was in a group of friends who all serenely breastfed their babies until they were about 15 and cried when they had to stop. I literally counted down the days. I gave mine a bottle of formula per day which was my favourite time of the day because no one was on me. I did 6 months like this with my first and maybe 5 months with my 2nd. So glad I never have to do it again. You are not alone!

It is terrible at first, no doubt. And no one warns you. All I can say is that those problems like leaking and engorging, fast let down, baby choking etc all go away and it does become convenient. I’m 3 years and I’m breastfeeding right now and all those issues are a very distant (and horrible) memory. But it’s so so hard at the start.

Baby was 6 weeks old on Saturday. I feel like my supply has regulated to her needs but if she's not awake exactly when my boobs think she should be, bam! Trevi fountain time.

I quit at 3 months. Everyone told me it got easier but it didn’t. Exactly the same thing for us - fast letdown. Made the whole thing hideous.

Also I never wear jeans / joggers. I’m a dress person and hated not being able to wear any nice dresses after 9 months of maternity wear.

Ah, man, I remember this feeling so well. Every day was my last. I limped onto to 13 months and dc2, 8 months.

It does get easier, but it's not always this convenient utopia of simply putting your boob in a baby's mouth every now and again. I had issues with fierce let down too. I'd have to put a Muslin down my bra to catch the mill from the boon I wasn't feeding from because otherwise the baby would have a wet middle. I did start to catch that let down milk as a kind of expressed milk by chance thing. But I never got to use it because I had to feed the baby off my boobs because if I'd given them an expressed bottle I'd have been in agony!

Take it a day at a time. Solidarity if no useful advice.

Oh and bottles are not a faff at all. They are 10 times more convenient then washing bedding and getting through 4/5 bras and tops a day because of leaking boobs. I still can’t stand for them to be touched and my little one is 6 months. The cost of formula was also nothing compared to the breast shells, nursing bras and tops, lansinoh, haakaa, pump, multi mam and god knows what else.

I was a very messy breast feeder but actually those memories now make me and DH laugh so much ….sitting at a cafe window trying to be discreet but milk ‘jets’ down the pane, hungry DD getting swamped by a strong letdown etc - they are some of our most humourous and precious memories of early parenthood. I appreciate when you’re in the thick of it and sleep deprived as you probably are, the humour wanes. But honestly in time the bad stuff fades.

I think things were much better by 3 months - I was in terrible pain until then - and became actually easy (breastfeeding wise) about 5 months. But of course there’s always other options.

I am currently breastfeeding DC3, he is 1. I breastfed my older 2 for a long time each (DC1 was still breastfeeding when I was pregnant with DC2 😬)….

And I can tell you there have been many, MANY days when I’ve hated it. I mean I like so many aspects of it (and I do find it very convenient!), but I do hate being constantly touched, hungry, tired etc etc.

Your feelings are totally normal.

Well done for getting this far!

(Ps, can you express off some first during let down, and you can stick it in the freezer?)

You've given your daughter a great start with breastfeeding. You are allowed to stop though. I hated breast feeding and moved to formula after a few weeks. Glad to see you've kept a sense of humour about it all. Some of your post made me laugh.

I'm firmly of the belief in Happy mum; happy baby. I was so relieved to give up breastfeeding, it was actually making me quite depressed. Do what works for you x

Yanbu at all. I BF’d my first. Hated it, hurt like buggery despite all the lactation consultations etc etc. This time round I’ve gotten a hospital grade pump and formula. They get some from me, some formula and I’m quite sure they’ll be fine. I’m also getting about twice the amount of sleep.

I hated it for 20 months and had to keep going as my son was a bottle refuser.regarding your fast let down, can you express off some before doing a feed?

I agree there is a lot that comes with BF that you aren't aware of before you do it.

I do think it is convenient though rather than sterilising bottles and what not in the middle of the night.but do not continue if you don't want to, i wish I stopped when I felt like this

So glad it's not just me! That sounds horrible, sorry, I'm not happy that others suffered too 😅 but I do feel less alone and useless now.

DS is 3 months. For the first 3 weeks it was AGONY. Bleeding, cracked and blistered nipples. Took 10 weeks to “settle”. Then last week we had a bad latch and I’ve got a bruised nipple: again. I have a lot of friends who use bottles and gave up breastfeeding. I envy them in some ways but I am far too lazy to prep bottles everyday. I’m exhausted from feeding. You’ve made it to six weeks (this was my goal as high risk for PND). There’s no shame in stopping. Breastfeeding is utter shit.

It can take a while for supply to settle way more then 6 weeks and for some it's much longer. Mine took 10 weeks to stop serious spray.
I then had a oversupply I couldn't get down and attempts to reduce it led to blocked ducts so I became a neonatal unit milk donor instead. Yes it was a bit of faff pumping but helped my boobs and knew it was helping others. If you have a high supply which isn't settling down then it might be a option for you.

I hated early days then it just clicked. It definitely was more convenient for getting out the house to go do stuff I wasn't organised enough to formula feed I was always mega impressed when mums who did were not only out the house but on time! I would have been at least an hour late!

It also definitely made going on holiday a hell of a lot easier.

I agree, there are loads of things about breastfeeding no one tells you!

In NCT we were shown a montage video of some women in India wearing brightly coloured saris and serenely feeding their babies. The babies were strapped to them and in other shots the women were going about their business, eating, weaving, chatting to other women, with the babies matched on so they could have a little feed whenever the mood took them.

Visually it was lovely, but wasn’t easy to relate to as I was trying to desperately shove a nipple into my newborn’s mouth and get him to stay on it at 4am in a darkened hospital ward.

I had to switch to bottles on day two because I literally had open sores on my breasts, and got an infection.

I’m pumping as much milk as I can but it’s a hell of a commitment.

I've just read your post through for a second time and honestly, i don't think you should wait another couple of months, I think you should just stop now. Or start introducing formula in small quantities because I have a feeling of your baby hasn't had formula yet then it may take some time for adjustment.

I'm just thinking back to how I fucking hate my three nurses bras, having to wear specific nursing tops, feeling embarrassed getting my boobs out in front of my dad, FIL, uncle etc. I'm due end of Nov and I honestly think this time around I'll do the whole colostrum thing and maybe express for a bit but not actual BF because I don't want another bottle refuser. Then I'll switch to mixed feeding.

My second used to vomit up entire feeds just after finishing. So I'd suffer the feed only for it to not only have been pointless, but to also then be covered in my own regurgitated breast milk. He's almost two now and he did it again yesterday, for old time's sake I guess.

The leaking does ease off. For some people it stops entirely, but I still leaked from the opposite breast when feeding. Better than just leaking all the time though and waking up in a pool of your milk! I found lansinoh breast pads good - they have a blue core like sanitary towels do so they wick the moisture away from your skin. I tried cheap ones without that and they made me so sore 😣 didn't get on with reusable either.

My first was a summer baby and I used to need to get my whole boob out very indiscreetly to feed her. My second was born in December and I quickly got good at feeing with the bare minimum amount of boob exposed 😂 because that is not fun in winter, especially if you get reynauds in your nipples.

We did bottles of cows milk after DD turned one and just that was inconvenient enough when going out and about though! It's hard work in the early days but for me it was worth persevering so I could be lazy later on 😂

YANBU, it's really hard at first for all those reasons! My supply didn't regulate for a while and I would also wake up sopping wet.
If you did want to continue here are some things that helped me!

No need to buy nursing tops, I just did the double layer method of wearing a vest top underneath whatever normal top/jumper I wanted to wear. Baby was born October so this is especially useful through the winter!

Honestly, reusable bamboo nursing pads were SO much better than the disposable ones. They held a lot more and felt a lot dryer, plus I felt like they covered a larger area!

I carried like ten muslins minimum wherever I went, they fold up so small and were really useful to tuck into my bra/vest so baby and I didn't get soaked when a let down happened!

You don't have to carry on breastfeeding if you don't want to, your mental health is important too and if it's really getting to you then both you and baby are better off swapping to formula! It's not for everyone!

I will say it definitely does get easier as time goes on, I stopped using breast pads at maybe the 3 month mark (but I had a huge oversupply) and from then I didn't have to worry about any of these things! I could stand to have my partner touch them again (although of course this might not work for everyone) and I didn't feel half as much of a cow as I did previously 😂
LO had only just stopped having nightly/post lunch nap milk in the past few weeks and she's 2 tomorrow! Although I highly suspect this is because I'm pregnant and have dried up 😂

You are definitely not alone. I struggled on with my first dc hating every minute. I was desperate to get my body back, sleep without a bra, not tangle through layers of clothing to find a book, ditch the milky wet pads. Bottles looked so easy by comparison. They weren't though and I was so disappointed that they were harder. I found them so much more of a faff. The measuring, boiling fresh water, cooling, reheating etc was all such a faff and took so much time. I really regretted it and was gutted as I'd looked forward to it so much. The grass is not always greener on the other side.

With my second dc I relaxed into it much more as I wanted to avoid bottles. I decided I would not add any pressure of expressing, would buy a couple of nice tops and bras, would hand express the initial explosive let down into a muslin rather than over an annoyed baby and I always had loads of muslins and something good to watch on TV.

It is tough in the early days, and I clearly remember the first three weeks seeming like a decade. I am wondering if the expressing you are doing is increasing the flow? Dunno it was just a thought.

I hate every way of feeding babies. BF, bottle feeding (expressing is just awful), purées, BLW ... done it all and it's just messy, inconvenient and shit. I remember when eldest turned 1.5 and it all suddenly got easier. I'm waiting for that time with DD!