if you chose not to breastfeed, why?

[thisisyesterday]

a genuine question. I can't imagine not wanting to breastfeed, and am honestly interested to know why other people don't want to. and partly because I am going to train as a LLL leader and want insight into this kind of stuff

is there anything anyone could have said or done that may have changed your mind?

do you regret not doing it now?

do you/did you believe that breast is best, but formula is an adequate replacement?

I realise that there is a distinct possibility of this becoming heated, but I am not posting it just to get people upset or anything. would be nice if we could discuss nicely, no?

But it's not your fault if you have a bad tour operator that put you in a half built hotel, next door to the airport and three miles from the beach. We need to sort out the tour operators!

Oh - hear hear TinkerbellesMum!

S'alright, i did know what you were getting at sabire

Keeping with the analogy it would mean only some (middle-class? educated? high income?) would have heard of the fantastic beach holidays in Thailand and aspire to go there. For others Butlins is what they grew up with.

Yes, but maybe the tour operators aren't up-selling well enough? These days you don't need to be middle class to go abroad.

I'm sort of going abroad soon - to Ireland on the ferry. Maybe that means I would be a mixed feeder!!

No, TBM, you don't have to be middle class to go abroad but it helps to have the dosh and have friends who've been abroad to exotic places and you then want to keep up with them. Actually, this analogy isn't getting anyplace good because it means it's jst a passing fashion.

at PM's mixed feeder.

You can't blame the Tour operators as many people travel independently anyway and take no heed of the Consulates advice on the risks of travelling to a particular area in the first place.

That's also true. I've heard so many women say they lied about getting a latch so they could go home.

BTW, I shared the analogy with a BF group and they all think it's brilliant.

"Keeping with the analogy it would mean only some (middle-class? educated? high income?) would have heard of the fantastic beach holidays in Thailand and aspire to go there. For others Butlins is what they grew up with."

Or you can be an ordinary mum who's born there who takes the wonderful landscape for granted........ (think of all those millions of women in developing countries who have to breastfeed, do it - on the whole - unselfconsciously and without the problems we have, who are pop-eyed and hysterically amused at the idea of Western women needing 'breastfeeding classes').

thisisyesterday

Very disappointing that you are going to train as an LLL leader and the first line of your research post includes......."can't imagine not wanting to" (breastfeed)

next line talks about what would have "changed your mind" (addressed to formula users)

next line asks if the formula user "regrets not doing it (breastfeeding) now"

Surely a LLL leader is best utilised assisting the mums who are breastfeeding or wanting to breastfeed, as increasing the number of successful breastfeeding experiences amongst those who want to try/start to breastfeed is surely one of the best ways of promoting breastfeeding.

Or is there an evangelical conversion agenda behind the scenes of organisations like LLL.

Do you want to spend your time as LLL leader assisting mums with breastfeeding or do you want to use the position as a platform to try and increase the rate of breastfeeding in the UK ?

Please think about the questions you asked in your opening post and what your motives are.

You know what thisisyesteryear - I can see the value in the questions that the OP asks.

I suspect MANY women begin breastfeeding because they feel pressured to. I've seen posts on this board from people saying as much. In a world without any breastfeeding promotion they would probably choose to to formula feed from birth. I think many of those women who have hugely ambivalent feelings about feeding will come into contact with breastfeeding support services........ Isn't it important to understand what drives women who have ambivalent feelings about breastfeeding but who go ahead and do it anyway? Don't they share a lot of common feelings with bottlefeeding mums?

sitdownplease - all the vol organisations ensure that overly evangelical supporters, the ones who want to persuade people to change their minds, are weeded out early on, believe me. The OP has lots of training ahead - you can trust that if there is any of the 'persuasion' tendency, it will disappear.

I agree - support is best directed at people who want it.

But knowing and understanding about how people make their choices and what their experiences are does come into training, too, so it's fair enough to ask the questions, I think.

Fair enough to ask the questions but perhaps do some reading beforehand. There's lots of material about it, lots on here too. Then once you've read up on it, have some "theoretical" understanding and some practice in counselling, ask people to open up and help you out further.

Maybe to clarify the aboce; i've seen so many threads on here and elsewhere start with "help me understand why..." then you have 1000 responses and the OP still shrugs shoulders and says "I'll never understand why....". What's the bloody point?

For me it was a case of ...ughhh I'll give it a go...
hateful hospital staff and a very ill baby due to being manhandled at birth ..LONG STORY... anyway it made me heave... I was sick at her near my breast ..annnyywayyy tried with DD2...for ohhh about 4 weeks...she was a dream baby and yet strange,the only one who is ever ill !! then DD3....god I was worn out and thought no...no,no no......... have this bottle and family can help me out....all of my girls are just awesome and so,so happy that I have no guilt at all....plus formula is lovely..I used to drink it myself and I miss it
Also....and this is quite rude...I like my husband to man handle my boobs..not a baby.
I'm VERY supportive of my BF mates and on occasions have come to blows with people in resturants etc not being happy....
Tolerance all round is important and respecting everyones views.

I haven't read the whole thread but I'm feeling miserable about this tonight so thought I would post.

I was very keen to breastfeed, although went into it on the basis that if it didn't work I wouldn't beat myself up about it. I was slightly worried about the lack of sleep and the total dependency but thought it would be okay. When DD was born she was not delivered onto my tummy, she was handed to me after 3rd stage and I was told to feed her. I did so but it felt very wrong and uncomfortable. Persevered overnight - DD wanted to feed all the time and I had read various parenting things (I know Iknow) which said that babies only needed to be fed at 3 hour intervals.

DD screamed all day and night for her first week. I continued BF but nipples were ripped to shreds, bleeding, mastitis, thrush etc. MW came round and told me to put some proper effort in because DD was hungry - I couldn't bear it anymore and gave her formula.

The following would have helped:

1. Some advice saying it can be bloody painful and that might mean you're doing it wrong

2. BFCs visiting with MWs

3. MWs/BFCs who are actually prepared to come and visit when they have tearful conversations from new mums saying they can't cope and don't know what their doing.

4. Actually sounds silly, but a decent summary of what help is available locally and what it involves. For example - bit stupid, but I didn't realise that baby cafes actually had people feeding their babies who would show you what to do/ telephone counsellors who would come over. I just didn't think the sort of help I needed would be available so I gave formula.

5. Mixed feeding is not evil. It is surely better for babies to get some BM than none, so if the mother has given in and given some formula she should be encouraged to BF as well or for some feeds.

gosh, reading all these threads brings it all back... DS dropping 10% of weight at day 5, milk not coming in until very late, pethadine and long labour left us both exausted, DS screaming solidly for the first 4 nights, DS feeding for 3 out of six hours one day, endless visitors, painful shooting pains in nips, lack of milk and unable to satisfy him, DH not being on paternity leave bla bla bla. I managed mixed feeding until he was nearly 10 weeks. I still live with the guilt of not continuing longer - but hey, I have a very happy 16 month old who doesnt appear to carry any of my guilt thankfully! I am desparate to be able to breasfeed fully again next time - but at the cost of my sanity??!!! we'll see...!

sitdownpleasegeorge have ytou actually read the entire thread?

I have stated a couple of times now that my intention is not to hunt down people who don't want to breastfeed and force my opinions on them and try and make them change their minds.

But as Sabire puts it, I am likely to come across people who don't know whether or not they want to breastfeed or not.
And I may come across some for whom formula feeding is the "norm" and who haven't considered breastfeeding (such as scorpio or colditz)

and yes, I do believe that people who don't make an informed choice may well look back and regret it.

if you haven't already then take a look at la leche league philosophy
yes, I am very pro-breastfeeding, that's why I have chosen to train with LLL.

Asking questions is important especially if you are training to be a counsellor. Some of the answers to this question (not necessarily on this thread) are incredibly personal and in a real life group situation people may just not want to disclose such information. Before coming onto here I had no idea why people would bottlefeed their babies, if you don't come from that culture, you just don't know.

Stopped bf LO at 6 weeks:

Exhausted after induction, labour and c-section.

AGONY when milk came in.

Breasts very hard with milk.

LO sucking very hard, which hurt.

I needed to sleep!!!!

Sick of being thirsty all the time.

Had to stop anyway as developed PND and started anti-depressants.

Only really bonded with LO after i started to bottle-feed her.

LOVEMYMUM, can understand what you've said, but I'm confused about:

Had to stop anyway as developed PND and started anti-depressants.

You would have to be on some of the strongest anti-psychotics to have to stop breastfeeding for AD's. I know some people whose life would be at risk if they didn't take medication that isn't compatible with breastfeeding, but as I say that's really strong drugs. Not that I'm telling you you're wrong, just get annoyed when mothers are told things like that. Doctors are too scared of being sued to look up if it drugs are safe, it's very sad.