My opinion on why bf often fails

[sunshine75]

Quite a few of my friends have recently tried to bf but have given up by 4-6 weeks. I think it's because they have had a pump in the house from the very beginning so if baby wouldn't latch on properly/only feed for a few mins/feed for too long then they expressed and gave baby a bottle. Soon they were expressing all of their feeds, their supply began to diminish, they introduced some formula top ups and then gace up completely.

With hindsight, I think my meaness and refusal to buy a pump until I was desperate (about 6 weeks) meant that I was able to continue.

Sooooo, do you think early use of breast pumps can hinder breat feeding?

Don't think it's that straightforward - my dd was very sleepy when she was born and slow to feed. If I hadn't expressed until I/she got the hang of it don't think it would have worked out for me... I don't think supply would dry up even if someone was expressing all the time - only if they were not expressing/feeding frequently enough.

my personal experience is that it is vital to ensure there are no pumps, bottles, formula, sterisliers or any of that malarkey anywhere in the house, and that all adutls with access to tesco/ sainsburies/mothercare, or local petrol station know, absolutely know, that when yoau re screaming at them at three in the mrongin to feed the baby with anything at all, they know that you dont mean ti.
if breastfeeding is the only option, and you ensure that there is someone aroung who ensures you are well fed, then bf is more likely to be successful

Hmmm - not sure. I had to express for dd3 for a week, as she was in SCBU. If anything, I had more milk for her after using the hospital's industrial strength pumps than with my other daughters. However, she is my third baby and I was determined to bf her and also knew what I was doing once she was out of SCBU IYSWIM.
I had a bad time with establishing bfing with DD1, and di have a pump in the house but was crap at using it. She had formula top-ups for a while but, with a lot (and I mean a LOT) of support from DH (including some which seemed quite cruel at the time) and a fab bfing counsellor, she was eventually exclusively bfed. So I think the support is what's critical, not the access to alternatives.

I had the same experience with DD1 jaundice wouldn't latch to feed so I had to express for her, give EBM then try and get her to latch. Eventually she got the hang of it and was exclusively BF from about 2 weeks old.

Personally I think you have to be very careful with formula top ups in the first week or so. Sucking at the bottle is far easier than BFing especially in a newborn so BF can be hard for them they will fuss about, milk can be slow at coming in compared to giving a bottle when they down 3-4ozs quickly. Mum thinks "thats the problem baby was starving I am not making enough milk" quickly switches to bottle. Put into the mix no support and well meaning relatives who are saying "I raised all of mine on the bottle etc" and you can see why BFing fails.

There are so many reasons (all changeable through education) why bf fails. In my (probably ill-judged and not well researched) opinion, the main reasonas are:

1. So many women succumb to the myth (often peddled by hcps) that "many women don't produce enough milk".

1. Many people believe that the amount you can express is related to the amount your baby is getting, which then leads to "well when I express, I only get 2oz, so I don't have enough milk"

1. People think that bf and ff are essentially the same thing (i.e. getting food into a baby, whereas actaually bf is so, so much more than that), and that just because their baby will guzzle down 6oz of formula really quickly, they "must have been hungry"

1. These days we are so hooked on control and "feeding to a schedule" that ff can seem attractive.

I don't blame women for these reasons though, so much of this is institutional and peddled by midwives and health visitors.

To the OP - I think your point is a valid one, for a lot of complex reasons. People believe that they need to express early on if their baby is ever going to take a bottle, and then it's easy to get hung up on seeing the milk going in and fast feeding, which leads to 1 -4 above.

The opposite for me. Breastfeeding has an emotional element - if I wasn't relaxed my milk did not flow. I had formula, bottles, pump etc in the house. Having them there meant I knew my baby wouldn't go hungry, so I relaxed and feeding worked. I binned the unused formula months later.

I do think that my state of mind about bf probably helped. I hadn't ever heard of women who could not or did not breastfeed (in my family it is the norm so there was never anyone hanging about "helpfully" offering a bottle) and I always assumed that it would work. Although I had the kit, if it had not worked I would have been really really surprised and would have kept trying and would not have instantly reached for a bottle.

In my experience (and I talk to a lot of new mums) is that there are three major factors:

lack of support in establishing good latch and position and in understanding that it is hard to start with

believing that they do not have enough milk, especially when baby starts feeding lots to ramp up supply

mums/dads/mils and under their pressure also dps saying that baby is hungry and needs a bottle

I failed because I was in farking agony, producing blood and puss from my nipples, ds puking it up and NO ONE WOULD HELP ME!

Not that I'm bitter...

Expressing gave ds 2 extra weeks of breastmilk he wouldn't have got otherwise.

Actually, I'm interested in this idea that you have to give a bottle early to make sure the baby will take it. I didn't give DD2 a bottle until she was 7 months old and I was getting ready to go back to work. She still preferred the breast, and DH was the one who had to get her to take the first few bottles but it still worked. I wondered if it was because she was already having solid food that she was more receptive to the idea that food could come from somewhere other than my breasts. DD3 still hasn't had a bottle and she's nearly 16 weeks now .

my dsis has successfully by passed the entire bottle culture.
she breastfed till after first birthday, and thenmoved straight onto a mug/glass/cup. and even that only because she is pregnant again. otherwise she would have continued breatstfeeding.
a bottle is probably one of the least necessary things, for a mother that is.

With my first I expressed after 5 days because of cracked nipples/bleeding.
She took the bottle then- but when I tried the odd EBM bottle later on so that DH could babysit for a couple of hours when I went to the movies she refused to take it and waited for me to get back.

So far with DS I haven't had to do anything but nurse. I have a brand new electric pump still in its box!

I agree with the schedule aspect of failed BF. In France (where I'm from) they actually give you a schedule of how many feeds a day a baby should be taking- ie after x weeks a baby should be eating x times a day.
The 'schedule' is like a bible all pediatricians refer to, there is no difference in their eyes between FF and BF babies.
As a result I only know of one of my friends/acquaintances who nursed past 2 months. She did it with her 1st but not with the other 2, as her son was jealous. Otherwise all the others either nursed for 2 months, or took tablets in hospital to stop their milk coming in.

I had to express for the first week as DS wouldn't take the breast at all. If I hadn't had a pump I'd have had to use formula, so expressing is definitely what kept me going with breastfeeding. We didn't use bottles though, fed him from a cup so he wasn't using a teat.

And expressing did affect my supply, but in a good way - I could express 200ml easily in 15 minutes, the midwife said she'd never seen someone produce so much milk! She actually told me to tone it down a bit as otherwise my body would start to think it was feeding twins and carry on producing more milk than DS would ever need, causing me various problems. I stopped emptying my breasts when expressing, then DS started latching on anyway, and they seem to have regulated themselves down a bit

i pumped for england, scotland and wales - could get 8-9 oz out in about 15 mins BUT ended up with mastitus and an abcess that had to be drained twice with a needle without anthestic when dd was about 6 weeks old. I had to go on v strong antib's and anyway, was v ill with it all so dd went on formula from 7 weeks. I put this down entirely to my overuse of the pump (my own fault but I didn't know what I was doing was wrong) and would never use a pump again. I also FF my ds from birth because I was scared off it happening again..

I find all that 'make sure there are no pumps etc' in the house stuff very patronising - it assumes you can't make rational decisions and have no willpower and that f-feeding is so great and easy you'll end up doing it if you give yourself half a chance. But then, I was lucky not to have anyone pressurising me to formula feed. Maybe if you do it's different.

I 'failed' to bf (not sure I like that word, I actually chose to stop) dd after three weeks because I had no idea it was normal for her to want to nurse constantly (ended up ff on demand anmyway, but... ) and wasn't really aware of what to expect.

This time around (with support from Mumsnet and Kellymom), have just trusted it, got latch sorted and gone with it - lots of faith involved. Can only express 1 or 2oz a time usually but ds has gone from 7lbs 4oz to 17lb 15oz in 15 weeks so must be doing something right

I think the "bottle-feeding culture" which is so prevalent these days is a major reason why breastfeeding often fails.

For may people, the "norm" about how long a baby should feed for, and how often, is based on what a formula-fed baby would often do. The long, frequent feeds associated with most babies in their first few weeks of life are seen as a problem because so few people have any idea that this is entirely normal. I know of so, so many women have given the length/frequency of feeds as the basis for their belief that "they aren't producing enough".

I think the expressing thing is another factor - particularly for women who cannot successfully express, the pitiable amount in the bottom of the jar can look like proof positive that "baby isn't getting enough". (yet I know that in many cases, expressing milk has been the key to "saving" breastfeeding).

And of course, ther are loads of other fcators - the over eager promotion of "top-ups" by hcps. Uncorrected poor latch. False beliefs about the effect of diet/certain medications/alchohol on the quality of breastmilk....

And bottle-fed babies want to nurse constantly too! Babies don't always conform to schedules bottle or breastfed.

i think HVs lean heavily on women to start giving bottles if the baby is not gaining weight what they consider sufficiently quickly.

just happened to a friend of mine-they told her the baby was starving basically...
am not sure if she is still breast-feeding at all now (baby is 3 weeks)- I hope she is

Having said that I succumbed to the very same pressure-it's hard when it's your first and you're worried about feeding anyway, and finding it hard going and the HVs are making you even more paranoid.

I managed to mix-feed for about 7 months though which I htink is not too bad. Was determined not to switch to bottles entirely...

With ds1 I used a breast pump so that others (ie gps) could feed him if they wanted to at times when I usually would. So it helped maintain my supply. I did top him up though.
With ds2 I used the breast pump from when my milk came in to boost my supply - expressing before or after feeds. Stopped using it after a couple of months and was much more successful at satisfying ds2 than ds1 (didn't top up except with expressed milk towards the end of the two months).
I plan to use the same approach with db3.

With DS1, I think having the pump kept me going in the first few weeks. He was a very sleepy baby with hardly any appetite for the first month, so expressing kept my supply up when he wasn't interested. i always put him to the breast first, and sometimes gave a top up of EBM if he really wouldn't latch on, but within a month we ditched this.

I believe that if I hadn't expressed and just fed on demand (which was hardly ever, he'd go a good 6-7 hrs between feeds if you let him) my milk supply would have diminished rapidly.

DS2 has arrived now and has a much healthier appetite so I haven't expressed at all yet, but I will as I like the flexibility of having a baby who will take breast or bottle.

So no, I disagree that the early use of pumps can hinder bfing - in some cases it can save it.

not sure really as I had to express for the first week as I had a ceaser and DS was strugling to feed. The second week he had a mix of EBM and fed from me but I used a nipple shield to help him latch on. After that we were fine. I made my DH go out and buy a pump before I would leave hosp so that I could ensure I could feed. Formula has never been an option for me ( I am much too stubborn for my own good sometimes !) but I came very close to it in those first months.
I have been helped to BF by fantastic midwives who came in to see me every couple of hours after my ceaser to pick up DS and help him to try and feed, NCT, local baby cafe and peer mentors. Even though I was absolutely adament that I was going to breastfeed there is no way I would have started or kept going for as long as I have ( 9.5 months and counting) without all that support.

and a very good breast pump to start me off !

(Read whole thread now) Also agree with MrsHappy had all the paraphanelia in the house with ds2 for bottle feeding "just in case" which allowed me not to stress about the what-ifs of not being able to satisfy ds2. (With ds1 dh had to do an emergency run to a 24 hour Tescos.)

everyone is giving their own opinions, if you dont like someones opinion, or find it patronising for you, then dont follow it.

is it impossible to have a thread on this section that doesnt get nasty?

Kathy - I agree. I had to buy a pump on day 5 and start pumping to try to increase my supply as DS wouldn't latch on. Without it I would have probably ended up fully FFing DS. As it is I have fought and fought to increase my supply over the last 7 weeks and resisted FF as much as possible to the eventual detriment of my son. He is not thriving and has dropped off the chart. I don't know why I don't have enough milk, I know my mum had the same issue with her first two and had to mix feed for 10 mo with each. I haven't jumped onto FF because it's easier, I have resisted it until I realised I am actually harming my son. I still hate giving him bottles but have to accept that the boy needs more milk than I have.
I intend to mix feed as long as I would have BF for as I love it, and I know it's so much more than food, although I'm glad I can give him some BM as it is best for him.
I know there are misconceptions around (my friend told me yesterday she thinks her supply is running out because her 5 wk DD is feeding more...) but pumps and FF are really vital for some of us.