was shocked by the amount of bottle-feeders in hospital

[misdee]

found it quite upsetting at times. my bed was by the empties 'bottle bank', so saw how many people on the ward were bottle feeding. in the 4 days i was there, there were 10 women on the ward in total, and only myself and another lady was breastfeeding. The midwives offered help to everyone, but most decided on bottles.

the reason i found it upsetting was because i didnt want dd3 to have formula but that choice was basically taken away from me whilst she was SCBU and was given formula by tube.

Message withdrawn

Just luuuuuurve the way the same old names crop up to attack the breastfeeders and bang on about how confident they feel about being bottlefeeders. If so, why are they wasting their time and energy here?
Stitch, I agree. I think seeing a baby (especially a new one) with a bottle of formula is a dreadfully sad sight.
Oh and yes, I feel terribly TERRIBLY with myself that my children were/are fully breastfed. Can't stop congratulating myself in fact....

MD, trust you

evening moondog

have you noticed that there is only a tiny amount of breastfeeding mnetters that come and have a go, but when someone who is a breastfeeder makes an obversation or comment they get attacked?

Puff!! Hunker!!!!
My old partners in crime.....
Given myself an 11:00 pm cut off time tonight. Gotta get a life!! Will still go to bed feeling terribly superior though even more so when I am woken 5 times through the night to feed ds!!

seeing that my last post was ignored i thought this thread had died of death

see, i AM the phantom thread murderer!!!!

lilsmum

11pm is my new cut-off time too! Nearly there - ulp!

No you're not lilsmum
Hope the b/feeding works out for you next time!

Hope you're well misdee
XXXXXX

This link shows another reason I wrote to my MP (did I mention I'd done that? ) about breastfeeding support in this country.

percentage of mothers who would've liked to breastfeed longer

Misdee, you're super - when DS was 6 days old, I was in a sleep-fuzzed state and couldn't have held a reasoned debate about whether to close one or both eyes when I blinked...

i am so happy now...>>> lol

In my short BF experience (7 months) most women ask "are you still feeding her yourself"? and then congratulate me for it then feel they have to give me an explaination why they didn't breastfeed, it's sad that they feel they have to give a reason and see it as a failure. I never would ask or look down on someone for bottlefeeding.

For me it just makes sense that human milk is the best thing for human babies (and I'm too lazy to get out of bed and find a bottle) it was a struggle and there were times I had tears in my eyes during a feed, I can completely understand why women give up it is hard, it doesn't come easy (well it didn't for me) I had no support from family or friends, thankfully mumsnet was here and I'm eternally thankful.

I still get upset with myself for allowing some healthcare professional (don't know what she was) pull and squeeze my nipple and force it into my jaundiced day old babies mouth. I mean would you accept being treated like that in any other situation is that BF support?

i think this has been a very well thought out debate with no hard attacks but rather opinions, it was nice to see many people saying "whatever floats your boat"

the hardest of opinions have come from the BF..ers who can't gettheir head around why someone would not want to. the way i cant get my head around why some people are not in the whatever makes your life slighly tolerable after giving birth - be that bf or not.

choices choices eh? however i do agree that to have a choice needs information and information on both sides should be readily given out as should support.

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

i have jsut logged on again, and im very surprised at how heated this debate it. and i still dont understand why moms who bottlefeed from day one get so upset.
i still stand by my opinion that seeinga newborn being bottlefed is sad. true, it would be much sadder to see a baby starve. and im not on the moral high ground here, as someone else said. what you want to do with your baby is your business....
but why all the hoohaa. whats wrong with calling bottlefeeding artificial feeding? thats political correctness gone mad.
two of my sisters were bottlefed, whilst myself and my baby sis were breastfed. now we are in our thirties and twenties, you would never be able to tell which was which, because all the other aspects of our care was the same, the nurturing, the love, etc etc.
but its still sad to see a newborn being denied species specific milk. please note that i use the term 'sad' not anything particularly negative or judgemental. just sad.
and why do all the militant bottlefeeders out there assume i want to get into a slanging match?

stitch,i think the problem is that "bottle/forumla feeders" feel like they are looked down upon by the big "i am wonderful" breastfeeders, and are made to feel like its soooo bad to forumla feed, to me i think its whatever floats ya boat, but i dont like it when people are pushing their views on others, its up to the individual to decided how they want to feed "their baby", and shouldn't be made to feel guilty for not wanting to breastfeed, while you breastfed (which i am not denying is the best for baby)i probably excelled in another area, as long as the love and care is in place, nothing else matters

Actually what is sad is seeing new mums struggle to "do the right thing" when its plain to see that it's not working, for whatever reason. What's best for baby is what makes both happy and content. ( and by the way I breast fed both of mine and didn't feel sad when I saw other mothers bottle feeding, just jealous that they were getting loads of sleep and I wasn't)

I do think it's sad when a tiny baby gets given a bottle, they and their mums are missing out on so much. For some people breastfeeding isn't possible, and that's sad too, but for so many women to just not want to try breastfeeding there must be something going wrong with our society somewhere.

Moondog, you're such a bore. I know you think you're 'terribly' clever I always sigh when you I see your name, as I envisage inflammatory nonsense and I'm never disappointed.

I really do not understand what is the big issue. What is the problem with someone deciding it's just not for them, they are not comfortable with it and deciding to feed with formula? At the end of the day, as lots of you have admitted, you can't pick out a bottle fed child or breast fed child from a line up and children fed on formula do not suffer at all (I don't care what your 'stats' say, I've seen no evidence to convince me that there is anything to worry about if you choose to formula feed).

This issue is only one of the many things that you make a decision when it comes to parenting and although there is no doubt that breastmilk is absolutely the best thing for a baby, formula is an excellent and very close alternative and we don't always do what is absolutely the best thing for the child in every single aspect of their upbringing because there are often other people and other factors to consider. Some people decide to carry on smoking despite knowing that is not the best thing for their child either, and sometimes people give their babies jar food because it's convenient - even people who are absolutely evangelical about breastfeeding go on to do these things and, OMG, may even give their kids MacDonalds once in a while!!

Lets just get a grip here - is choosing to bottle feed really the end of the world? If you want to then fine but FGS why get so upset because the next person doesn't? They are far more pressing things to be worrying about IMO.