was this a stupid thing to say?

[robinrednomorenowemptybreasts]

my cousins just had her third baby, baby is a week old, when talking to my mum after mum had been to visit, mum said the baby was going every three hours, and that she got to have a cuddle after the baby had been fed.

when mum said the baby was being bottlefed, i said oh thats a shame, mum got quite annoyed with me.
i would not of said that to my cousin or aunt or anything.
and now im wondering if i was out of order saying that.
please be honest, i won't mind if you say i was, i just thought it a shame

I think it's a shame that you didn't bother to find out why she choose to ff.

I ff dd, due to lack of support, tbh. She also needed a build up formula as she was 4lb when born. I am sorry of people found it awful to see her with a bottle, to me I was just feeding my baby the best way I knew how after a very bad start. It was a bottle or nothing.

Don't think that she doesn't feel as good as you, just because you bf & she is ff. Yes, it is wonderful & I hope to do it this time, but it isn't the only way you bond with your baby at all, I hate all this 'wonderful bondng moment' that some bf mums think is somehow exclusive to bf. I bonded beautifully with my baby & she never took an ounce from me.

I bet I felt just as good, if not better than you, as I finally saw my dd put on weight & climb up from a scrawny 4lb-er!

I cannot believe that in this day & age mothers STILL judge each other, don't we have a hard enough time as it is, with outside sources, without turning in on each other?

We seem to have come such along way, yet this is still such an age old debate, is really rather sad, imo!

hear hear colacube!
Hasn't this already been done to death?

"It is truly awful to see a newborn with a bottle but like you,I keep my thoughts to myself."

Apart from telling the entire world on the internet, that is.

Robin, i agree that it was abit naive to say what you said to your mother with you knowing the history of how your mother feels about bf and ff, seeing that she ff you, etc.

However, every single one of us has opened out mouths and before we finish our sentence, have realised that we also have a foot in it.

Put it down to experience, learn and grow from it.

For those who are pointing the pointy stick, hwen you talk about 'i can't believe in this day and age mums are still judgey of each other on feeding issues, etc' Remember that new mums are invented every day. The job doesn't ocme with a handbook.

We have all said and will always say ridiculous things from time to time. The good thing for robin is that she has taken the time to reflect on her naiveté and learn from it. Many, many mums are not like her hence maybe why there are women, long finished with childrearing, who take offence at the naiveté of a young mum like Robin (eg, robin's mum?).

robin, you ask me what you can say to your mum....I dunno, she's your mum

You have issues with her - she undermines your choice to breastfeed with comments, she dislikes breastfeeding in public, she resists the notion that breastfeeding may be a positive choice for health. But you know she loves you and wants the best for you, so on that basis alone, she might be willing to listen to your request for no undermining, and for acceptance that breastfeeding is important to you. You can also tell her you don't judge her for not bf you, and you know very well that support and information may not have been available.

And for the record, I think moondog is alone in thinking the sight of a baby with a bottle is 'truly awful', and I wish she hadn't shared that feeling with this thread. I suppose it's a vain hope you could apologise, moondog?

ok thought about it and i think your right, i will not say anything like that next time

I agree with FioFio. Think Robin's comments have been totally blown out of proportion - hardly naive.

It IS a shame that the baby didn't get the opportunity to have colostrum or bm. There may be good reasons for that and no one questions the mother's right to decide.

But ultimately the baby didn't get the very best milk it could have and a casual aside on that is hardly villification.

"It is truly awful to see a newborn with a bottle..."

Thank you very much moondog. You have just brought back every feeling of shame and failure that I had during the time my newborn was exclusively fed with bottles (from 2 days old to about 6 weeks), even though I know a lot of the blame lies with the mws who were supposed to be caring for me. I am now sat here reliving every time I had to excuse myself to another room or toilet use a piece of machinery to extract my milk so my baby could be fed from an evil bottle and my first LLL meeting after DS was born, wanting the ground the swallow me whole when I had to go to the kitchen & warm his bottle in front of the whole group. Luckily everyone around me was very supportive & didn't voice any similar views on the use of bottles and gave me the strength to persevere & get DS back feeding from me. I can't imagine how someone who didn't have such wonderful support must feel reading that comment

I know I shouldn't FioFio, and normally nasty comments like that don't bother me as I know there wasn't much I could've done to change what happened and things did work out for us in the end. But it's very hard seeing in black & white like that (probably more so than it would as a passing comment). I am very sad to have lost that newborn time with DS, and still very scared about initiating bfing with any other babies I might have

Please, please, can we agree that moondog's view is probably unique to her, and her manner of expressing it was unkind and thoughtless?

I really don't want to spend more time on mumsnet telling women that most of us here do not judge them for formula feeding, or think it is 'awful' to see a newborn with a bottle, only for them to quote that post and this thread in response

I agree moondog is obviously unique!

"judging those who don't or who chose another path (sometimes thinly veiled with - each to their own comments before going for the jugular e.g. 'so sad to see a newborn getting a bottle'"

Sorry but you've got it completely wrong. She wasn't judging the morals or mothering skills of women who choose or who have to bottlefeed. She was judging a method of feeding.

See the difference?

Like Moondog - my heart also sinks when I see a young baby being bottlefed. I feel sad for the baby that they've been deprived of breastmilk, and the pleasures of breastfeeding. I feel sad for the mothers who've not been able to breastfeed their babies, knowing that most of these women could have breastfed had they had better help; I feel sad for the women who've chosen to formula feed because I suspect that many aren't fully aware of the profound and sometimes subtle differences between breastfeeding and artificial feeding.

I'm not meaning to be patronising in saying that - I just know how I was, particularly with my first. I didn't know enough about bottlefeeding or breastfeeding - what it's like - to make an informed choice. If I'd jacked in bf early on(as I nearly did with my first) I would have had to make the choice as to how to feed my second without having had the opportunity to compare bottlefeeding with normal, healthy breastfeeding. I also think that most women who choose not to breastfeed have probably
not been given sufficiently detailed information about the health issues and that this makes it hard for them to make a properly informed choice.

sabire, you are re-writing moondog's post. She used the word 'awful', not 'sad'. She has been around here long enough to know that words should be carefully chosen, otherwise at least two things happen:

i) some people decide they're going to get on their high horse and use this as ammo

ii) some people are distressed and hurt by the comment (unsurprisingly - who wants to think people are looking at your lovely baby with a bottle and thinking 'that looks awful'??)

There is no excuse for it. When people are in a hurt, sad place, method of feeding = method of mothering (why would this not be the case, given that feeding is part of a relationship, however it is done?) , and if you appear to judge one, then you are judging the other, too.

I am sad for mothers who are under-informed, under-supported and left wishing things could have been different....but I don't think it's 'awful' to see a newborn with a bottle, and if I did, I would have the kindness, and the tact, not to tell an internet talk board.

Moondog is around and posting today. For some reason, she has not come back on this thread to clarify or to apologise for any distress. One might think she has concluded it doesn't matter, but from my point of view, breastfeeding supporters like her we can do without, quite frankly.

I was not ill informed, or unable to bf, I made an informed decision, it was mine to make, as was yours.

I really dont see why its open for debate as a wrong choice or an ill-informed one.

OK Tiktok - I see what you're saying.

I start from a position of trust in mothers - that nobody loves a baby or wants the best for it more than its mum. Nothing should get in the way of that one basic truth.

Exactly, Sabire....and to read that someone thinks this adored and cared-for baby with a bottle in its mouth is an 'awful' thing to see, is hurtful.

colacubes - if you don't mind me asking - where did you get your information from when you were making up your mind as to how you were going to feed your baby?

The reason why I ask is because I know how little I knew about this issue with my first - and I was a voracious reader - hungry for information on any and every aspect of becoming a mother.

I've found out a so much more amount about babyfeeding over the past few years through reading specialist texts - and it's made me look at the information that I was originally reliant on - the usual parenting manuals, mother and baby magazines, NHS sponsored materials etc (ie leaflets and booklets) and feel it was very inadequate.

colacubes, if you were informed about your choice, then I'm not sad for you I think you're missing out, but I also think you have a right not to feel the same way....I'm only sad for mothers who don't get the support and info they want. I've only so much sadness to go round

It's only like saying 'That's a shame' when you see someone smoking who has a baby, you know it's not the best thing for either of them, but yeah it's their choice, but not the best one.

I read, also my aunt-in-law, was a midwife, so I had a good resource right there, but all in all it was an instinct that I had, it never was something that I felt drawn to, It was not an unpleasent or a freudian responce as I know some have, regarding the breast, it was just purely a choice.

I have never questioned it, and my opinion didnt change, my 2 are 10 yrs apart so must be a basic instinct for me. I feel breast feeding is a worthwhile feeding method and I appreciate the closeness you must feel of having your child to your breast, but I too have (they are not babies any more, my ds would be horrified if I tried now) held my child to my naked skin and felt the closeness of skin contact, so I know the pleasure of the intimacy of mother and child. This I think is forgotten by some bf mothers, they must think we always wear cardies!

Interesting, colacubes....it must have been quite a strong feeling against it, though, despite what you say about it not being an 'unpleasant' thing, 'cos your reading (and maybe the midwife auntie!) could have led you to re-examine your instinct, I would have thought??

How old is your aunt? Most of the important research into the health benefits of breastfeeding has been done in the last 10 years. A lot of older midwives are woefully misinformed on this issue.

"so must be a basic instinct for me"

Depends how you understand the word instinct I suppose. I think if you grow up in a society and a family where you have almost no exposure to other people breastfeeding in your day to day life from childhood, and don't see it as a biologically normal part of having a baby you're very likely to find the idea of doing it alien.
Stands to reason really. But it's a conditioned response surely, not an instinctive one?

Re: the intimacy - I agree that bottlefeeding can be and often is as intimate an experience as bf, but have seen too many mums bottlefeeding their babies in car seats/bottle propping/feeding their babies at an arms length to feel that this is the way it always is.