Breast feeding enthusiasts- answer this question!

[jocesar]

Hi

This is a hypothetical question but I am trying to guage how important bf really is.

OK, which scenario is better for your child?

1. To be bf for up to 2 years but then fed a not particularly healthy diet such as sugary cereal for breakfast, crisps for snacks and ready pepared meals with squash to drink and perhaps an outing to McD's once a week?

or 2. To be formula fed from birth but then fed a healthy mostly fresh produce diet?

Just curious for your answers, I am hoping to bf for 6 months and then hope that my son eats a healthy diet- obviously this is the ideal, but if I only had the two options above i think I would have to plump for 2.

Jocesar, I am not offended by your question and I think that I can understand where it stems from.

The thing is that the answer to your question is that the answere is not an either/or! Good nutrition is important for life! As a "breast feeding enthusiast", my pov is that it is wonderful, if at all possible, to give my infant the best start in life by breastfeeding as long as I can (but that may be shorter than for some people and longer than others), with the intention of maintaining a well balanced diet for his whole childhood. I bf for 9 mths with ds1 but hope to maintain it for a full year or more with dc2 when he/she arrives.

I am not puritanical, though and I want my ds (now almost 4) to enjoy food, so I let him eat some "unhealthy" foods occasionally, he loves cakes and chocolate and chips, but they are not the mainstay of his weekly diet.

Are you already bfing? In my experience it is much easier to decide how long you want to do it once it is established and taking into account a whole host of factors that are applicable only to your own life!

Ignore my last post, I have reread the OP and saw that you hope to breastfed i.e. Your baby is not yet arrived.

It is still worth remembering that, there are health benefits in continuing to breastfeed alongside solids rather than giving formula.

However I would concentrate on establishing breastfeeding with your new son and not worry about what to do at the six month point.

I only planned to nurse my DD for 6 months and we are still going at 2 years, something I could never of even thought of whilst being pregnant.

I have a dd for whom I went for option 2.

When I had my son I went for a sort of option 1 except he doesn't eat that much rubbish, he is a bit of a fussy eater buit still gets lots of fresh fruit and veg.

Given the choice of the two options I would go for option 1, however option 1 is a bit of a silly option. The reality is that a child whose parents are likely to feed him the junk in option 1 are unlikely to breastfeed for up to two years.

In all cases any breastmilk is better than none at all regardless of any other dietary factors other than the mother taking something like noxious cancer drugs or something.

don't forget there are other benefits to bf other than nutrition for the child (health benefits for mother, bonding etc).

i would def try and bf for a bit and see how it goes - any is better than none!

How can you be 'made' to feel bad?

The OP's question is bizarre, and I'm feeling like formulating some alternative versions ... is it better to BF and then run your child over with a steamroller vs FF and then not run them over with a steamroller?

neither, they're not realistic options.

just because you're not giving a fantastic, all organic, fresh from the farmers market diet to the child does not immedietly dump you into the category of 'crisps, squash and maccy d's'

i do neither of the above, i can't afford to feed my kids the best of the best. i feed them as well as i can on the budget allowed and try and prevent them having mcuh junk at home (not counting cookies, you've got to have a few cookies ) but if we're at my friends house for example i won't ban them from squash and crisps, although i draw the line at fizzy drinks and fast food.

there is a happy medium which is not only best for the child nutritionally but is best for them phychologically as well as you're promoting a healthy attitude to food and teaching them that bad things are ok as treats as long as the basic diet is good.

jocesar, it would be v. difficult to weigh up the importance of early vs later nutrition, so no-one knows or possibly can know the answer to your question.

You can only do your best within the limits of what's practical - which is what most of us are doing after all.

One thing I would point out though is that there's evidence that continuing to bf at the same time as introducing new foods is protective against allergy. So from that point of view, stopping at 6 months wouldn't be a good plan - you'd have done all the hard work of getting bf established, but might then miss out on a very useful advantage.

You do need to be careful how you frame questions here, especially if your question seems to be "bf vs ff", or to equate ff with junk food. It's much more complicated than that and you're likely to make people v. angry if you suggest that it's a matter of simple choices.

Well, surely the obvious answer is that for the first six months option 1 would be best, for the later part of their life option 2 would be best.

BUT, sugary cereal and a maccyd's once a week isn't necessarily a bad diet. Nor are ready prepared meals.

'I'm proud that i'll be bf my ds for 6 mths. Should I feel bad about not continuing longer than this?'

depends why you stop - let's get hypothetical:

if it's because you blindly believe the advertising and think formula is as good as or better than bm, you should feel bad.

if it's because you maliciously want to deny ds the benefits, you should feel bad.

if it's a considered choice based on both yours and ds's needs and lifestyles (if you have to go back to work and there's no way you can express, for example) then no you should not.

madness.

also, without wanting to be overly negative, please be carewful about blindly presuming you'll get to 6 months. read some of the threads in this topic by women who've struggled and fought and still had to give up for various reasons before presuming that you can simply decide to get as far as 6 months and it will happen

there's also the fact that the first 6 months are the horrendous part, after that it actually gets enjoyable, madness to give up then imo!

Ridiculous!

OP is ridiculous - no one else by the way!