Bottle feeding, why are we looked down on (sorry its long)

[jofeb04]

Hiya all,
My ds is now 10 months, but since he was born we fed him with a bottle. However, this wasnt by choice.
However, i noticed that other mums always looked down at me because of this.
The reason why we bottle fed him was because once he was born, a pediatrition had to look over him (for quite a while), we he didnt go stright to the beast. Due to the method that he was born under, he had a severe head ache, so bad that he wouldnt let you pick him up.
He then went to neonatel for 6 days, and i expressed for him, but it was extreamly hard, as he needed to be fed every hour on the hour to low blood suger, infection and possibly hyperthumia. The doctor asked if it was ok to bottle feed him, we said yes, as it was the best thing to do for him.
We carried on bottle feeding once we got him home, and he loved it.
However, once we were home, the midwife that visited always tried to latch him on, even though ny ds didnt want to. He got stressed, i got stressed. When my hv came, she was alot more understanding. However, I noticed that other mums were the wrost, saying all sorts of things, from "you should breast feed him, not bottle" to "you'r gonna injure your son, making him use a bottle".
Please breastfeeding mums (I dont mean any of you though!!), when you see a bottle fed baby, dont always assume its just because mum doesnt want to.

hotmama - you are so right - I had the same experience as you. All this pressure to breastfeed with so much conflicting advice - I really wish I'd known that it could be extremely painful. I spent 6 terrible weeks taking paracetomol before feeds - travelling to a lactation consultant in tears with my ds in his car seat screaming. I became so sore that I was advised to stop until I no longer expressed pink milk and then try again. There seems to be this heirachy, that if you do not feed your baby yourself, you are neglecting your child. What rubbish, you sound like you've had an awful time, but at some point you deserve to enjoy your baby and they will enjoy seeing you happy and no longer stressed. Don't be under any illusion however, most bf mums I know are topping up. You are probably making up for it in all sorts of other ways, instead of being tied to the sofa, feeding constantly - you are out experiencing life with you baby. Their smiles tell you that all is well.

oooh but mickj, thats a bit unfair poppet
tied to the sofa? Not experiencing life?
Apologies off topic but had to object on personal grounds

No you're right - didn't mean to sound negative - wanted to make mum feel better. Just read this article in the standard about another lady who had a terrible time - she said the same sofa thing. So apoligies Mumsnet

;)
Watch out of the bf mafia will come and getcha
JOKE!!!

oh pants! truth is Piffle - would love to do it - really miss the closeness and the natural element, but I think ds would like his mum to keep her marbles!!! Maybe next time!

I'm sorry you've had this experience . To echo what everyone has said, feeding is a personal choice - but can I just say in defence of b/f that I often got comments from bottle feeding mums about 'how can you bear not having a glass of wine', 'boobs down to your knees', 'getting the tits out in public' 'body not your own' etc etc . It would be great if we could just accept each others choices and not pass comments, I think.

I think you just need to go with the flow, if it works for you, so be it. b/f mothers should not be looking down on you and if they are they should get off their moral highground and back to reality where its not allways possible/the best thing to breastfeed xx

I think that the comments often go both ways. I was told to 'get him on a bottle, for God's sake' and 'surely he doesn't need feeding again' (complete with rolling eyes) in the early establishing supply/growth spurt days.

I'm appalled that you've had comments like this jofeb04 - what unpleasant women.

hi jofeb04.

i had this too at a toddler group. it was my first week there and when i took the bottle out i got a few funny looks and then one woman asked me if i wasn't breastfeeding. i said no. she wasn't even my baby...i'm a childminder so it would have been pretty difficult!!!

My baby son is six months old. When I was pregnant the hospital pressured us into breastfeeding at the ante-natal class. I tried it unsuccesfully for about six weeks and had the same soreness and bleeding described above. It made me feel a failure as a mother and I dreaded feeding my son. I couldn't get the milk to flow and my son became an object to achieve this aim - there was no bonding at all. I discussed this with a visiting midwife early on who described the b/f mania as propaganda. It really feels like big brother out there. I now bottle feed and hate going to my local health clinic as I feel I am getting looks from the b/f mafia!
I think this pressure brought about depression which has only just left me. My son is very happy and slept through the night at six weeks of age (partly due to bottle feeding).
In my family my sister in law who breastfed has four grown up children: two were obese, one had asthma, one had behavior problems and Chron's disease (my sister in law contracted breast cancer)! The other nephews were bottle fed and are big healthy boys now. So much for the benefits of b/f. I think lifestyle, diet and genetics are more important.

I am glad that I found this website as I realise that I was not alone (though I often felt it) in my problem.
Thank you.
Bobbiem

Please do not use phrases like "bf mafia" it is offensive and unnecessary. Thank you.

Agree with SD. Also, I have never found a breastfeeding mania, the only mania I found among most HV's is about the baby's weight - if she doesn't do that percentile thing, they start getting all jumpy and immediately talking about moving from breast to bottle, as if they're on some kind of sales target or something.

Yes, there is a group of people who under the guise of recommendations from the World Health Organisation are spreading propaganda about the so called benefits of breastfeeding. These so called breastfeeding counsellors, who seem to act largely in a voluntary capacity (indeed many of them are just mums who theythemselves have been duped into believing the "health benefits"), are in fact members of a far more sininster organisation ie the mafia.

Please dont be fooled into supposing they are simply trying to get across the truth about breastfeeding in a society where bottle feeding is the norm and where breastfeeding figures are incredibly low especially compared to other countries. These women are only in it for one thing, that is to torture and in many cases kill, yes murder you and your offspring. As the mafia they have also been involved in abductions, organised crime and drug traffiking.

You have been warned.

If you think the information given out about breastfeeding is propaganda how would you feel if the government witheld such information from us?

Dont forget they are competing against multi national, incredibly rich companies who have no qualms about using propaganda to get your money...

Actually, this sounds more like some of the more dubious manufacturers of formula (Nestle in Africa anyone?!) !!!

not just in Africa but also in Srilanka. My grandfather was head of Nestles there and my Grandmother used to go round the hospitals giving lots of "free" samples out to the mums. This nicely made breastfeeding nigh on impossible and so meant these parents had to buy milk from nestles. Never mind they couldnt afford it or had the necessary sanitation to feed their babies safetly.

Ho hum....

Perhaps your visiting midwife had shares in Nestle, Bobbiem?

YEs, my mum thinks the sun shines out of Nestle's ***. All that helping mums paid for a very expensive private education for my mum and her 2 sisters abroad in boarding school followed by several years supporting them through University.
My mum and sister also got a nice inheritance out of it.

Why do people who have a negative breastfeeding experience feel the need to rubbish all other women for breastfeeding?! Breastfeeding mafia - ffs! Mind you, I do put horses heads in people's beds if I get half a chance.

LOL Herc