why is you can't say a word about bf, without feeling paranoid people think your smug?

[feelinggutted]

name changed, MN regular.

yesterday went to a family "do", was asked are you still feeding dd? [5months btw]
i replied simply yes, one of my cousin turns around saying to another family member, something along the lines of people that bf are so smug,

i wouldnt mind if i had been "going on" or something i simply answered a question, with a very simple yes and smile.

fucking hell, is it rude to even answer questions these days

grrrrrrrr!!!!!!

harps - hardly the same. for most women there is more of a choice element in how they choose to feed their babies, where there is less of a choice if you have to have an emergency c section.

no apology then, for insinuating i am crass and hurtful when you hadn't read my post properly ?

I think using words like 'succeeded' and 'failed' around feeding a baby is unhelpful and people shouldn't be encouraged to think like that.

I use to bf and found that my friends who ff would ask if i was bf and when i'd say yeh they'd feel that they had to tell me why they didnt bf! I'm not really bothered whether it was coz they couldnt or just didnt want to! I didnt feel the need to tell her why i wasnt bottle feeding! I think the slogan breast is best makes a lot of mums feel bad about not breastfeeding but formula contains all the nutriants ur baby needs too so i wish they'd wouldnt feel so bad for ff x.

Looby, I don't think there is a choice for most women actually. A recent big survey showed that 9 out of 10 breastfeeders stopped breastfeeding sooner than they wanted to. That's really sad.

Looby, what would you say had happened to a woman who wanted to breastfeed and couldn't, for whatever reason?

Is there an alternative word for "failed" that could be used? I'm asking genuinely, because I've tied myself in knots trying not to use the word in the past because I know it causes offence and upset.

I think you're on the way to fulfilling my amazing and generous criteria

The odds are stacked up against breastfeeding. It's disastrous if people can't talk about their experiences without others reading this as smug posturing.

With dd1 I found breastfeeding really, really hard; I managed to keep going (thanks to MN) and am so pleased that I did because it came right in the end and worked well.

But I don't feel comfortable talking about the experience in detail on MN because it's almost impossible to tell a "succeeding against the odds"-type story without being accused of telling other people they didn't try hard enough, or of saying that everyone should breastfeed no matter how painful - things I wouldn't say or think in my wildest dreams.

It saddens me to see that almost any positive statement about bf on MN is seen as smug or as an attack on ff, because I suspect there are a lot of struggling bf-ers out there who could really do with some positive statements.

I know that reading positive stories helped me enormously in my worst times and I would love to pass on the favour, but sometimes I feel that even my rhino hide isn't thick enough to be openly positive about bf on here.

hi welliemum - i know that some women physically can't bf, but i also hear so many stories of women who appear to have 'worked through' terrible pain in their quest to continue, and tried every suggestion to put to them to work through their problems.

I, unfortunately wasn't one of those. I ws one of the 9 out of 10 - fed for 3 weeks hating every minute of it, dreading feed time approaching - just like a zombie really. But lots of people (particularly women i have encountered on other threads)would argue that I had a 'choice' whether to continue and i decided not to.

i completely agree with you - it is really sad women don't continue. i feel very sad about it on a personal level but i think it was the right decision for me at the time. i have another lo due may and am really torn on how to feed this time, even tho my experience won't necessarily be the same.

hunker - at the same time as my attempts to bf went completely tits up, my good friend bfed with very little difficulty (and is still giving the odd feed to her 3.11 year old, and feeding her 18 month old!). So I've also not let my experiences colour my commenting on bfin g to other people, as I realise that for some people bfing works enormously well.

In terms of the wording "failed" bfeeder - at a distance of nearly 4 years, I am perfectly happy to use it - it sums up the situation concisely - but I can see that other women who are nearer to the experience in time or in feeling might not like it.... I think the only neutral way of putting it would be "stopped before you wanted to"

Looby, I had a terrible time with dd1 and then it was soooo much easier with dd2. Fingers crossed it happens for you too

good morning hunker. hope you enjoyed your film last night. i've thought a lot about your last post since i read it. i was trying to think of another scenario where you probably wouldn't use the word failed, out of sensitivity to the person.

for me the word failed implies someone has failed to reach a set standard - like passing a test where there is a pass mark. i just don't see bf that way. i personally would say that i tried and struggled with breast feeding, rather than i failed - because how is failure in this contect measured ? i was pleased my dd got colostrum and some of my milk for a few weeks - i don't see that as a failure

i hope that makes sense.

thanks for your grin and smile. i know i have shared some negative experiences on mn but i certainly don't paint a negative picture when talking to expectant first time mums.

When I was struggling to bf dd1, "success" and "failure" were exactly the words I had in my mind.

Rightly or wrongly, that's how people think.

welliemum - thanks for your support and encouragement. i am 50/50 at the mo - considering bf and ff from very early on, whereas i hadn't considered this as an option the first time. Glad it was better for you 2nd time around.

welliemum - just saw your post at 10.01. i absolutely agree with you as i felt the same way - but if someone else had referred to efforts in those terms - would you have not felt they were being insensistive ? 2 years on and i am still hurt by it. but i know everyone is different.

Sorry to hear about bf mums getting nasty or unthinking comments from others. Just to say, though, as a ff mum I got some odd comments myself.

... Like the old lady who lives down the road from me who stopped me a couple of weeks after I gave birth to dd2 to have a look at baby etc. Within a few seconds, she said: "Are you breastfeeding?" And I fumbled and stuttered and said: "No" To which she replied. "You naughty mummy." And proceeded to tell me in depth about how she bf all hers and it was a real struggle and I was, basically, a very bad person. Went home and cried all night!

That's a very good point, looby - I think part of the problem is that people see bf as an "all or nothing" thing - I know I did.

But it makes much more sense to think of it a bit like exercise - every little bit is good, none of it is wasted effort even if you don't do as much as you'd like to.

But I think we are always our own harshest critics and I think a lot of people really do think of themselves as having failed, which is awful.

sorry welliemum - missed the word 'your' out from my last post, should have read 'your efforts'

Looby, I have often heard of women who have had an awful time feeding their first who go on to breastfeed their second and find it a healing experience (bittersweet, perhaps, but still healing).

I agree with Wellie - it is hard to talk about breastfeeding without having to add caveats such as "I'm not having a go at women who don't want to, or tried and stopped for whatever reason" - because if you don't say it, people will assume you're thinking horrible things about them and judging them.

I want an end to it. I want to be able to speak about infant feeding, the issues surrounding it, how to offer women proper choices, not "choices" based on the breastfeeding support that's available in their area - and a start to that is to be able to talk freely about why women want to bf or ff, I want more information about bf and ff out there, not less - but factual information, not fluffy "we all do the best as mummies" or "happy mummy, happy baby" or "don't make women who couldn't bf feel guilty" - because, you know what? If it's not spoken about, ever, or it has to be couched in fluffy, woolly terms so that nobody is ever slightly upset, nothing will get better for anybody in the future.

Just think, had this discussion been had say ten years ago, had more support been put in place then, women now might be feeling very differently about feeding. Without this discussion, which will hurt feelings, I'm sure, nothing will change - in ten years' times, the women who might've been helped by talking more openly about it, setting aside personal regret and grief - well, they'll be repeating the same, "Don't let anybody make you feel guilty" stuff. We have the ability to make it different for them by choosing our words carefully now - on both "sides" of the debate.

thats awful puppy monkey - i was lucky that noone said anything horrid like that to me. apart from a friends mum looked a bit suprised when i said i had struggled and stopped, cos at the time, her daughter was feeding with absolutely no problem and she had fed all her 3 kids. but that was the worst of it. still hurt though . thats how sensitive i was and am about it.

And you've all posted loads whilst I was writing that!

PM, how dreadful for you Some people really don't think about the power their words have. I posted a thread about a similar thing happening to me, with an elderly neighbour asking me if I was feeding DS1 myself - different outcome for me, because I was. But the thread was about how we feel about our choices - I'll see if I can find it.

Looby, I agree, thinking of it in stark "success or failure" terms isn't wholly helpful - but I also agree with WM that it's often how people view their own experience. I think it's one reason why the NCT's "Reasons To Be Proud" list is good - I'll see if I can find a link to that too.

Here you go, PM - the thread I started yonks ago

Hunker is right. In order to get to a place where we can improve women's bf experience, we will need to talk about things which will hurt people.

I managed to breastfeed. I am tandem feeding my sons now. But the first four weeks of bf ds1 were a dreadful struggle - due to 'advice' and 'support' from HCPs which I now see was utterly awful - and I was mixed feeding him for those four weeks, having been dreadfully pressured to give formula at a very, very early stage, before moving to exclusive bf. Those weeks were a dark time. I was shocked and bewildered that bf was so difficult, hated and loathed giving formula, and felt positively despairing at the thought that bf might not work out. I remember finding it very difficult indeed to read things like 'ff has risks'. Part of me wanted to run away from it all and take refuge in the don't-feel-guilty, happy-mummy-happy-baby camp. But at the same time I knew that would have been wrong - not morally wrong, but wrong for me.

Bf has been very, very special to me because with ds1 I had to return to work early as I was sole earner. I managed to shift a lot of my hours to home and used to spend time literally running between home and work (10 mins' walk away - ds1 was at home with dh) in order to keep exclusively bf ds1 until 6.5 months. I struggled dreadfully with having to work, and I did cling to bf as a really central part of my identity as a mother. I think I would have found my situation very, very dark without it. I have taken seminars (I used to teach at university level in a conservative part of Germany) with silly 20-year-olds audibly casting aspersions on my qualities as a mother because I WOHM. So I am proud of bf, I am proud of overcoming what I did, and I am very happy to let that pride shine out. Anyone who thinks I am smug because of that does not know the half of it. That is not to say, though, that I am not sensitive towards women for whom bf did not work out. Quite the opposite - I have almost been there.

I never use 'success' or 'failure' myself - if the mother herself uses these words, then of course she can go ahead, but I use instead 'had a bad/good experience breastfeeding' or 'breastfeeding didn't go well/went well'....that's far more objective and has none of the 'passing a test' connotations we all want to avoid!

You can also say stuff like 'after a lot of problems at first, X went on to breastfeed for Y months/years' - there's no need to say 'X went on to successfully breastfeed for Y months/years'. If someone did not breastfeed for long, you can say 'X breastfed for 2 weeks and then switched her baby to bottles as breastfeeding was not going well'....no need to say 'X only breastfed for 2 weeks....' or 'only managed to breastfeed for 2 weeks'.

Away with the loaded words!! People in a sensitive place see meanings in words even when they are not loaded at all, so we have an obligation not to add to the feelings.

Having said that, it is very annoying when something happens like the OP's.

It's a bit like women going through fertility problems - they may find the very sight of a pregnant woman makes them feel terrible, and women with small babies seem 'smug' to them just because they have small babies. I know they feel like this because in another part of my working life I have had dealings with very many of them...but they do know that it is not logical to feel these mothers are being smug or showing off! You can't ask pregnant women to stay inside all the time, lest they upset a woman who is desperately TTC.

The same insight may not be there with feeding issues.

Thanks for thread hunker... v.interesting! I'm sure people don't really think about what they say half the time. If they knew you went home and pondered their words in depth for the next three or four years, they would be mortified! I'm fine with the old ff at the mo, I know I made the right choice for me and dd2. But those early weeks, you can be very sensitive!

tiktok - yes, I avoid the terms 'success' and 'failure' as well (I tend to say bf 'worked out' or 'didn't'), although I was very much thinking in them during my experience with ds1. I remember saying, tearfully, to dh and my lovely midwife, 'I'm a failure at this'. Their instinctive don't-be-silly response was oddly not helpful, as I felt not taken seriously enough in what I wanted so badly to do. My lovely midwife was right, in the end, that I needed to get into a place in which I was at least emotionally more relaxed in order for ds1's breast refusal to resolve. But I know all the time I was thinking in terms of failure, and I know I was thinking in terms of success when it did happily work out. But I would never dream of using those terms to another woman.

PM, no, often people don't think about what they say. I'm glad you found the thread useful.

It's a massive subject - have a look at the recent GMTV forum thread for lots of evidence of people getting it spectacularly wrong, again, on both sides of the "divide" - with the notable exception of our lovely BabiesEverywhere.

It is possible to talk about this and to move forward with a greater understanding of how to make it better for future women (after all, unless you have a time machine, you're never going to be able to alter the facts of what has gone before - all you can do is come to terms with your experience not being all you'd perhaps imagined or hoped for).

But it is difficult to talk about, especially when many, many women come to the discussion with the assumption that anybody who has had a good breastfeeding experience (thanks, Tiktok ) is therefore going to be anti-formula and very judgemental.