why would anyone CHOOSE not to bf? if they know its the best thing for the baby?

[milkgoddessmakesthefinestmilk]

this totally baffles me, , i truely cannot understand it.

i can understand it, if you try and find it too difficult, and decide its not working out for you.
but i honestly can not understand why a mother would not even want to.
surely every mum only wants the best for their baby?

is it because they do not understand the risks of giving formula?

as a prostitute

I agree FreddyTeddy MG posts are horrid

so the night nanny can take over and they can be well-rested for the personal trainer in the morning.

so the night nanny can take over and they can be well-rested for the personal trainer in the morning.

Oh FFS so we can all go partying with each other and Daddy can take over tis much easier .

How many of these threads has there been now?

Seriously YAWN!!!!

When i had my dc, i found it difficult to believe anyone would CHOOSE to have a baby latched on them 24 hours a day, but thats what it is a choice

i pondered that choice manies a time at 4am jumpingbeans.... it cartainly didn't feel like the right 'best' or 'right' choice for a long time with dd. the only reason i didn't ff is because my mother told me to hardly a well educated decision based on scienficic facts really

Pinktulips, As long as you are happy with whatever you are doing, that's the right thing for you and your baby

Perhaps OP you have not thought about this very much, have to agree with hunker, the word naive springs to mind.

Perhaps some mothers do give it a go but it doesn't work out (for whatever reason) then number two baby comes along and the mother thinks that they are unable to bf because they remember their previous experience.

This very nearly happened to me. I had an ESection and had little bf support, ds2 was planned section and until I really questioned/wondered about the crap advice I was given previously,, I was under the impression if I tried bfeeding I would be doomed.

Clue me in here - is it now politically incorrect to express an opinion that small babies are better off with their parents than in nurseries?

If I expressed that view here would I draw down a whole load of 'how dare you imply I'm a bad muvva for putting my child in nursery rather than allowing my house to be repossessed because I couldn't pay the mortgage if I wasn't going to work' type comments?

"As long as you are happy with whatever you are doing, that's the right thing for you and your baby"

Really? "whatever" you are doing?

So that no matter what decisions about our children's diets we make now or in the future, they'll always be the right ones?

That's supremely reassuring.

It makes you wonder why the government gets in such a stew about childhood nutrition these days - given that all parents are making the right decisions for all children, all the time.

If you can't ask a genuine question with tact and diplomacy then you will be flamed round these parts. Would have thought the OP had been round here long enough to know that.

Sabire: I think the point is that you can express opinions in a way which understands that people can hold different opinions (which seems to me not only to be a great MN philosophy but also one for real life).

Any post which includes a phrase "Surely every mum only wants what's best for their baby" absolutely implies that what they're suggesting is both best for their baby and that people who disagree don't want the best for their baby. If the OP had been genuine about wanting a debate she could have started the thread in a much less inflammatory way.

Milkgoddess,

I've replied on a few other of your threads in the bf/ff topic and you've always seemed genuinely interested in the opinions of others.

However with this one, and the SAHP one, the language you've used - well, at best it's ill-advised.

Many people have jumped on you and called you some nasty names, and I think you have to ask yourself if it's the way you've phrased your question, in what's already a difficult topic.

Perhaps if you'd written "I am trying to understand this topic more clearly and am interested in the reasons that you chose to ff from birth" you might have had a slightly better response.

But things like, "surely every Mum only wants the best for her baby" implies that those who don't initiate bf do not want the best for their baby, and that is a very hurtful thing to say.

I really would like to believe you are just very naive and haven't been on MN for long and don't realise the feelings that this kind of thread stirs up.

However, I think after the SAHP thread you started you should have thought twice about starting a similar thread, or at the very least thought, "hmm, that last thread kicked off quite badly. And this is a contentious subject too, with the potential to hurt people. I know, I'll take extra extra extra care to phrase it in a sensitive way".

For me, the issue isn't about financial need.

I like to work. I love my DD. The two are not mutually exclusive, despite MG's posts on other threads.

Message withdrawn

Milkgoddess do you sell your milk to Tescos then?

milkgoddess - you need to do a profile page on MN else everyone will think you are a troll who has nothing better to do all day than go around starting threads all over the place.....

You must be a troublemaker or a namechanger as if you do a search for messages from you they are all in the last week

Ladies just move on and ignore her as she is obv getting a kick out of this - why do som many rise to the challenge bait yet again

But assuming it's a genuine question:

There are many, many reasons. Just three off the top of my head as an example:

1. They panic about the thought of bf in public in a society that fetishises breasts and often tells women "if you must bf in public for heaven's sake do it discreetly"

Just because society's attitude is wrong, or because you haven't experienced this (and you have iirc with relatives) doesn't make it any the less real.

1. Their previous experience or the experience of family or friends tells them ff is easier than bf

Just because you or I see bf as the easy option doesn't mean everyone does. How many people have you heard say "when I switched to ff baby was more settled slept longer fed less often etc. etc."? And we live in a world where babies - and their mothers - are judged on how "good" they are!

1. They are on medication that either is, or they are told is, incompatible with breastfeeding.

I think the former is pretty self explanatory really. And in the latter catagory - how often do you hear someone come on here and ask for a second opinion on something they (or their baby) has been prescribed being incompatible, and it turns out it isn't? Well, how many people take the Doctor's word at face value? Most people, really, and why wouldn't they?

And that's just three that I thought of from the top of my head. There are many, many more reasons for the 20% or so that don't initiate ("try") breastfeeding. And instead of starting OPs like this, the best thing to do is to try and remove some of those reasons (e.g. make bf in public easier, petition for laws like in Scotland etc.).

Also I think initiation (i.e. "trying") is a bit of a red herring. I think the problem of the 90% or so of women that stop in the first six weeks but didn't want to, is a bigger issue. Get them all breastfeeding as long as they want and others will hopefully follow, as the more bf people see, the more it becomes the "norm" and the more people will "try" it.

If people dont want to though they dont have to. Its called having a choice. You dont have to justify yourself to anyone

milkgoddess, you're really going for it with the 'i am really a troll' or the 'i am really not thinking' threads aren't you?

Do you really think most women 'choose' not to BF?

Or do you think they perhaps have a really hard time with the lack of advice, strong pro-formula messages, struggle BF can be anyway without these things, lack of public support, lack of a strong BF culture in this country, lack of knowledge among many HVs, MWs and even their own families?

I rarely post but think the OP comment is mean the capitalising of "CHOOSE" shouting at mums is uncalled for. BF/FF is an emotive area and she is trying to create row. I managed to BF for to months and have never cried so much through the experience.