Do you say anything when you know someone has been given v bad BF advice in the past, but they are ok with it?

[Caz10]

Sorry that is very poorly worded but a post has just made me think...

Amongst my friends I can count at least 5 who stopped breastfeeding earlier than they intended, due to what I now know to be very poor advice. Individually they have been told things like

• their baby was too big to be breastfed
• you need to give a baby bottles after 6pm as your supply runs low then
• you have to stop BF when you go back to work etc etc

They were all upset at the time, but just pleased to have done it for as long as they did, and still believe they had no option but to stop. I see absolutely no point in saying they were given poor advice and haven't said anything. However from time to time it crosses my mind that this is probably part of the reason that there is so much poor info floating about out there.

What does anyone else do in this situation?

Gagarin - I think you're dead right about people saying one thing but meaning another ie 'I couldn't' means 'I didn't really want to'. Pavlov makes a similar point.

I was delighted to be advised to move to mixed feeding at week 4.

I differ slightly from the premise that the OP starts with in that I feel very well informed about my choices - I think OP was referring to women who were less well-informed for whatever reason?

But I can tell you all this - if any interfering breastfeeding evangelist so much as dares to offer me some unwanted advice at a baby group I will take off DS's nappy and let him do a nice big custardy formula poo all over them . And then punch them in the face and stamp on them

Got that everyone?

I still regret giving up bf with my older DC. I had no support, HV advised switching to formula at 10 days with DD1 as she had lost alot of weight and was big. I was only in my teens and had no idea, my family haDN'T bf so I just went with her advice. Everyone I knew ff. With DD2 I gave up at about 6 weeks as I thought ff would be easier/better. I regretted it straight away but it was too late to get my supply back . With my twins I gave up at 5 weeks but in that case I don't think I could have carried on (I was very ill) so was just glad to have done it at all.

My new DS is 5 months and I am still bf thanks to sheer determination and MN has helped alot. I had many complications, c section, too much milk, reflux, low supply, anaemia, etc etc but managed to stick with it.. I wish I had known that ff wasn't the answer to any bf problems, I wish bf was the norm around me. I try not to feel guilty for giving up bf but I wish I got more support and knew more about it at the time.

Marla - I'm very lovely ... if you refrain from offering me unwanted advice. Actually I'd say the aches and pains of pregnancy and the experience of giving birth have been as nothing compared to the irritating outpourings, often moralising, wrapped up as 'help', mostly from other women, blocking up my airwaves.

This whole thread could be retitled 'should I stick my nose some time after the event and potentially upset someone in the name of promoting breastfeeding, which the recipient of my advice may or may not then pass on?'

Not everyone who tries to offer advice is >doing it to be condescending (or self-righteous) though...

True - but they often are, even if this is a bit unconscious on their part as they're an unreflective person. For every 'nice' piece of unsolicited advice I've received I've probably had half-a-dozen 'annoyings'.

the trouble with breastfeeding myths is >that if no one does anything to dispel >them, they remain myths that too many >people believe.

But do these myths really still exist? No woman having a baby in modern Britain can have failed to notice the breastfeeding posters and leaflets at every clinic they attend, can they? Hopefully they also get access to support via midwives, HVs, counsellors (I say 'hopefully' as I got my first visit from an HV yesterday, 5 weeks after birth of DS - just as well I had sought advice elsewhere). But the fact of the matter is that the majority of women still don't do it for very long. Why is that? Is it really because they didn't see the poster or leaflet? Or is it because they just don't want to?

Isn't it worth trying if one woman is >interested to find out the truth about >breastfeeding and then goes on to succeed >with a future baby

Yes, it's worth trying if this woman looks like she wants the help ie she says broken-heartedly to another person 'I really wanted to but they said I couldn't'. But it isn't worth trying in the scenario where you meet me at the baby group, ask me about breastfeeding, or comment that I am bottlefeeding, I politely remark that I am mixed feeding because [insert excuse eg 'I don't have enough milk'] and then you weigh in with 'oh that can't be true .. have you seen a BF counsellor ..'. That's when you get the custard poo.

BTW has anyone copyrighted the phrase 'breastfeeding evangelist'? If not I want to claim it!

Any advice or information has to be offered sensitively, and not offered at all in some cases....no doubt about it.

If someone says to me 'I'm mixed feeding' and then goes on to proffer some reason why which could be a 'excuse' or spurious, then I might try to work out if she's open to the suggestion she could have had other options...and in fact still may have them.

If people think 'I didn't have enough milk' is a way of deflecting further, even tentative, queries, then they're wrong though.

'I didn't have enough milk' can often mean 'I didn't have the right help and information to continue with breastfeeding'.

Posters and leaflets dont ever help much with this, and people who stop breastfeeding before they wanted to are almost never suffering from a lack of posters and leaflets!

What is sad is the people I know who say they didn't bf as it 'seemed pervy'. I feel abit awkward around them.

Tiktok - the trouble is that people/women are sometimes not very assertive, as they want to fit in. That's one reason why they might say 'I'm mixed feeding as I didn't have enough milk'. As you may be able to tell I don't suffer from a lack of assertion - however I don't like to go about gratuitously starting arguments (unless it's the internet of course!) so I might also initially be unlikely to say in a baby group situation 'I'm mixed feeding ... and very happy with that thanks' - because the 'very happy with that, thanks' assumes you think the other person is going to judge you, before they actually do.

However, this can lead to misunderstanding:
Tiktok: are you mixed feeding then?
MrsB: Yes .. the midwife said it would be best
Tiktok: Why did she say that?
MrsB: She didn't think I had enough milk
Tiktok: Almost everyone has enough milk you know
MrsB: Yep, thanks, I'm very happy with mixed feeding.

In this imaginary conversation I could have said I was happy with mixed feeding earlier - but didn't because (a) that's not how women tend to talk to each other in women-only situations and (b) it's easier to recite what the midwife said than to give too much 'real' personal information to a new acquaintance.

This is the point that Gagarin makes earlier - I'm just fleshing it out really.

There are quite a lot of things I'd like more than extra help and advice on BF:
*cheaper childcare
*a cook/housekeeper (!)
both spring to mind

Funny that no-one is offering me those!

MrsB: here's the way the dialogue would go with me. Lets say I am meeting you at a baby group of some sort and you know I am in some sort of support role. I am making general conversation to be sociable.

Tiktok: how old's your baby?
MrsB: four weeks.
Tiktok: ah...where'd you have her? (general chit chat about preg, birth and so on, swapping stories...moves on to feeding...I might ask 'how's it going?' I never ask if someone is bf or ff)
MrsB: it's going fine....she has breast sometimes and bottles at other times
Tiktok: mmmmm...did you start off that way?
MrsB: Yes, but the midwife told me I didn't have enough milk so I started to use bottles.
Tiktok: Are you ok with that? 'Cos some mothers aren't...
MrsB: Yep, thanks, I'm very happy with it.

End of conversation about feeding and we move on

Tiktok - that sounds very sensitive and nice. I hope everyone at the baby group will be like you

Right with that, time to actually do some BF...

V interesting replies, thought provoking!

I am not at all assertive/argumentative person and have never ever said anything to any of my friends. Most have finished having children anyway, the one with the baby that was "too big" now has a 12yr old son! So I see no point at all in upsetting them.

But at the back of my mind is the concern that they are passing this information on - they ALL passed it onto me when I was struggling - thankfully I got great help from the BfN and MN and just stuck with that, eventually realising just how wrong my friends' advice had been - but it was so well meant.

Very difficult. I can remember at 5 weeks desperately wishing for a severe case of mastitis, or some post birth complication involving hospitalisation - I was really fantastising about what reasons I could have for stopping!

HoochieMehmeh - I think you may have a more optimistic view of human nature than me!

I also think women's motives for offering advice to others can be complicated - on the one hand one says to oneself 'I'd really like to help that other person'. But at the same time there can be other motives too. Some of those are about creating drama, some about power/asserting alternative values and some of those - in my experience, if not in yours - born out of nastiness (a bit like in the girls playground). I don't say this last category applies here - just that silver-tongued 'advice' can be a cloak for other agendas.

I still think this thread debates exactly the same question as a magazine problem page about 'I saw my friend's DH with another woman - should I tell her or not'?
'She won't thank you for it' goes one answer
'Yes, you should tell her - I'd want to know' goes another.

The key for me here is whether advice proferred is asked for, or not.

In a scenario where I was seeing a health professional I'd expect them to proffer the BF advice first, then other advice as the situation might require.

In a playgroup or similar setting where a BF counsellor-type person was present in a professional capacity and identifiable as such and I wanted a chat/advice that would also be fine (although not if they continued to proffer advice and I said I didn't want it).

But what I think is unnecessary is for other women I'm barely acquainted with (eg other mums at a playgroup) to be worrying about whether I'm BF or not and attempting to broach it with me. And that's what I understood the OP to be about - not about midwives, counsellors or others offering advice that they're getting paid to disseminate for, as you say, public health reasons.

You're a humanist ... I'm a libertarian (although of the left wing variety, not the far right!). This doesn't sit very easily with parenting/being a mother of course, but I digress ...

What I find most interesting about this whole discussion is the question for those who want, for good reason, to promote BF, about how best to influence women to do so. We already mentioned advertising (posters and leaflets) - but actually this thread is about how face-to-face contact might be a better means of persuasion (coupled with access to proper advice etc).

IMO proactively offering advice after the event, when you're not sure it's wanted (as the OP stated) is in conflict with the personal liberties of the unwitting advisee (who in my case has made an informed choice, whether or not pro-BF-ers may like it) - at which point, if she's me she feels annoyed. Givers of advice may find more fertile ground than me of course - which is why the OP asks her question (should I risk upsetting someone by offering advice?).

If anyone in RL asks me (and I shall wait to be asked) for advice on BF etc in the future I shall say - give it a go, access the help and support that's available - and if you find you can't or don't want to do it that's fine - take another route because if you're happy the baby's happy.

This sort of 'do what you like' advice is hard for those who would like to see higher/longer rates of BF to combat - I expect those who get paid to promote BF in various ways have to think long and hard about how best to do it.

Anyway - that's enough makeshift political philosophy for one day!

Mrs Baldwin - do you reserve your contempt only for people who dare offer advice on breastfeeding, or would you be hurling crap at women who suggest that this type of bottle or that type of teat can help/hinder bottlefeeding?

I think it's a really sad state of affairs when an articulate person like yourself has been reduced to such a state of anger about feeding that there's talk of attacking another mother for offering advice.

Or maybe you just mix with really horrible people. All the new mums I know are sympthetic to each others situations and would never want to say anything to hurt or upset them.

But that's the way it is I suppose - which is why we're reduced to spouting platitudes about breastfeeding like "if you're happy the baby's happy", which actually imo is a completely inadequate response to someone who's had to give up breastfeeding because they find 'they can't' do it.

"This sort of 'do what you like' advice is hard for those who would like to see higher/longer rates of BF to combat - I expect those who get paid to promote BF in various ways have to think long and hard about how best to do it".

Nobody who promotes breastfeeding wants to see women not do what they want to do. In fact, as most women want to breastfeed and want to breastfeed longer, I should think that the sentiment 'I think you should do what you want to do' is one they'd share!

"In fact, as most women want to breastfeed and want to breastfeed longer"

So why don't they then? I had a feeling I read a stat that said after 6 weeks about half of the 70% of women who had started BF had given up (although correct me if I'm wrong). Are these women all saying they'd have liked to BF longer but support from health services etc was inadequate .. or is it, as another poster suggested earlier in the thread, more socially acceptable in middle-class mummy circles to say you'd like to have done it longer but for some reason couldn't? Some women may be in the former camp and some in the latter.

And we should all be clear - it's unsolicited advice I don't want. I'm very pleased that there are BF counsellors, lactation advisors and the like out there to advise people who want to be advised ... Nope, it's not the professionals I take issue with. The OP was a general question about offering unsolicited advice to women, informally, after the event - and that's what I'm offering my view on. I'm not in a state of anger about feeding as such (well actually I'm not in a state of anger at all - this is the internet after all ) - rather I'm irritated by the thought of all the hypothetical ladies out there busily trying to second-guess me (and others like me). Like I said in a previous post - it's a question of freedoms.

I rather like 'if you're happy the baby's happy' idea myself - well, it works for me anyway (and my DS seems happy enough on his mix of BM and the devil's drink formula!) I'm not suggesting it works for a broken-hearted woman who finds she can't BF - clearly she's not happy!

Off to baby group now - I shall post again when I get back if anyone has the temerity to offer me any advice

I think feel your way. Someone who needs to believe they were right, psychologically, won't change their minds and will still firmly tell people, and you may threaten a relationship by challenging them on something painful. Someone who isn't will listen to you and adjust their perspective. You can suss out which is which after a few minutes in my experience- the interested often are thirsty for good info and sources for it (I tend to give links and contact numbers.)

what about converstations like this

mil: she (4 week old dd) just won't settle will she
me: think she might be hungry
mil: she can't be she only finished feeding half an hour ago
me: look she's rooting,
dd gets plugged in and is happy
mil: you know your milk might be too thin for her, that's what happened to me which is why i had to stop feeding my youngest

if i contradict her i will make her unhappy but if i don't will have to explain why i don't want to stop bf

witchwithallthetrimmings, in a conversation such as you mention my tactic would be a non-commital mmmm, followed by changing the subject. I had a number of the "oh off for an hour long feeding session" comments from my mother when ds2 was born as although she is absolutely pro-BF her info is from a 10-minutes each side every 3 hours era. I just worked on the basis of smile, nod and ignore.

Sorry tiktok but "Tiktok: Are you ok with that? 'Cos some mothers aren't..."

Would really get my hackles rising.

Aren't you a b/f councillor? Do you actively tout for business in this way then?

The OP was asking should we challenge this bad advice/false world view?

I really don't know!

Start a row with MIL? Undermine someone's happy feeling (but prob incorrect) that they did everything they could and the advice they were given was correct?