Thanks Harrogatemum
(ooh I have a friend from Harrogate...she's frightfully posh )
Maybe the point about lack of support is right, I guess my friend didn't get the support to bottle feed and others give up on breastfeeding because they need support to persevere.
Really, I don't know why people get so heated about all of this. I was born in 1970 and almost everyone I know of my generation was bottle fed. We suffered no ill effects and our mothers don't feel bad. What's to feel bad about? Healthy well adjusted children who mainly went to university and grew up happy?
Of course, that also means I'm kind of culturally conditioned that bottle feeding is ok (all babies in my family since then have been bottle fed) so I don't come under any pressure from my family, there are no expectations of me.
I'm pretty much the last of my friends to have a child and I've watched them bring their children up with great interest. One of the things that struck me was that my friends had very different experiences of breastfeeding. I rememebrr one spending almost all day trying to squeeze out enough breast milk so that she could leave her babysitter with a bottle for her son. One had sore, cracked nipples. One described herself as a "tit on a lead" because she always had to be near to the baby (an hilarious description!).
Others seemed to breastfeed effortlessly and they loved the whole thing. I must admit, in the ideal world, breast milk is probably best for the baby. I mean, it's hard to contradict that and I wouldn't want to. But I also need to weigh up what's good for me. I'm not one of those utterly selfless people and my child will be the most important thing in my world, but it will not be the only important thing, and I'm going to have to some a close second. I've spent too long having it all my own way, coming and going as I please with no responsibilites to suddenly feel so utterly tied to somebody else, perhaps a function of having children later in life. I know I would become depressed, and that wouldn't be good for my baby.
At the end of the day, we make all sorts of choices for our children, and it's always about weighing up the benefits versus the costs. I mean, how many of us think our baby would be better off if we looked after it rather than a nursery or childminder, but do we all give our jobs up? Maybe the cry of "I can't afford to give my job up!" is seen as a valid reason not to. Personally I just love my career, and it would cost me too much emotionally to give it up, so there's another decision made. I don't know how feeding decisions are any different.
I saw a post on another thread where someone suggested that givng your baby formula milk was akin to giving it dogfood (something about it being designed for another species). What a hoot! I remember daft arguments that girls had when I was at school, but come on ladies! I've been on MN for about a fortnight and it strikes me how often people are slagging each other off rather than supporting each other. Surely this website it a place to come for support. What happened to sisterhood? Congratulations to anyone who makes a decision for the right reason rather than through pressure.