I'm a bit confused. Why do I hear some women say they needs lots of support to BF and others say they BF because it's easier than FF (genuine question)

[HeinzSight]

I failed miserably each time to BF and am determined to give it another go when this LO arrives in August.

I'm trying to get everything in place so that what happened last time doesn't occur again, ie being told by GP and HV I couldn't BF because of ADs. I now know this isn't the case so have spoken to my GP who is lovely and is open to suggestions and doing a bit of research himself.

My DH has a paralysed arm so it's difficult for him to support me in practical areas. We also have a DD who will be 23 months when this LO arrives.

I guess what I'm asking is, why do I often read that the only way women have managed to sustain BF is to have had the support system around them.

I need reassurance please.

I also have read on here that quite often women BF because it's easier and they're lazy

I don't know if it will help, but telling your DP your expectations of him in advance might make him feel more confident, and know what support to offer. PP is right - so many men do like to 'fix' things, but the most valuable support my DP gave me was sitting on the sofa, holding my hand when I was in floods of tears from latching a thrashing newborn onto very badly damaged nipples (which absolutely AREN'T inevitable, and if you've done good latching before you can certainly do it again ) and NOT suggesting an alternative. Just sitting with me, telling me what an amazing job I was doing, crying with me sometimes (bless him - he's an emotional lad!) and calling the NCT BFC when I was too choked to talk to her.

Lol Treedelivery. I failed to read your post before posting much the same thing, albeit less eloquently. Sorry .

Mij - he's sounds a star!

Honestly tree, I am the luckiest woman, particularly when I can be such a stroppy cow. I really don't deserve him . He also used to make me sandwiches to have by our bed for when I woke up starving in the middle of the night. And not cos I asked him to, he thought of it himself.

I have one like that. We do deserve them.

Duffy - it's all good, more evidence for having knowledge.

It is inherently stressfull to be the only one in the house who knows stuff about bf, ff, bedtime routine, anything. Everyone looks in your direction when stuff goes wrong. Better share the load. Hence collapse of extended family a disaster for family life and bf in particular. No auntie to pick brains of.

LackaDAISYcal, yes he ran the London Marathon last yr, what a good memory you have , you sponsored him didn't you? (Thank you again x) He raised over £1500 in the end!

I'm going to pursuade him to read this thread later

I did, and well done to him

I think with that sort of determination, both you and your DH will do just fine with BFing/supporting BFing.

Congrats on your pregnancy by the way. I've got 17 months between my DD and DS2 who is now 6mo and although it was hard and there were a lot of "argh, who do I deal with first?" moments we got through it, although at 23 months now, she is a lot harder work than she was at 17 months!!

I haven't read all the posts so am likely to duplicate.
I am lucky to have never had pain when breastfeeding. I did need help to establish breastfeeding in the first place. I also needed support to enable me to stand up to a thoughtless health visitor who raised needless concern over slow weight gain. Some common problems which might cause women to believe that they can't breastfeed include: Poor latch, pain due to mastitis or thrush, baby refusing to feed because of over engorged breasts or very aggressive let down. Child with tongue tie, nipple confusion due to bottle use, frequent feeding and night waking (which I consider normal for a young baby - but ff friends might consider a problem.) My point is that all of the above can be got past with help and support. I advise you to find details of a breastfeeding cafe / counseller near you, and be prepared to persist through problems you might encounter. Once established with breastfeeding you get the pay offs. It is not as necessary to sterilise feeding equipment for a breast fed baby, even bottles used with expressed milk. If you are happy to co-sleep, or take the baby into bed with you on occasion, you might get more sleep than if you follow the current safety rules for formula, which require you to make up each bottle as needed, even in the middle of the night, with water at least 70c (to kill bacteria) then wait for it to cool - while baby screams!
Althoughh we coslept some of the time, once DD was in her own bed, DH would go to her if she cried and bring her into our bed for me to feed. I managed to continue breastfeeding after returning to work, although the disturbed nights took their toll and we chose to nightwean eventually.
I mean this to be a positive post, but thought it wise to refer to the negative aspects to give a full picture. These are often fiven as reasons not to breastfeed - but they need not be.

Hi Heinz

Just thought I'd share some of my experiences with you to add to the excellent advice from others.

For me it took about 6-10 weeks for me to feel I was confident bfeeding. For two weeks DH was the only person that could get DS latched on (i.e. I couldn't!) and he came with me to the hospital to the breastfeeding clinic too. I couldn't cope with going on my own but it may just have been because DS is my first child.

Then there was the bringing of various pillows, water, nipple shields as I seem to forget something every time I start a feed!

It's now (8 months later), the easiest thing ever so now feels worth the difficult beginning.

Again, want to express my thanks for some brilliant advise here.

Interesting, I found that the times I was at my calmest/happiest was when I was Bfeeding DD, PND was v bad for me and included dreadful anxiety. I've heard that BF can offer protection against PND?

Heinz - I think that perhaps it can!

DS is now 9 months old and I have been fine until he was about 6 months old, but have struggled and am now seeing my GP about depression, the large part of which she believes is post natal.

I find it interesting that I only started to have problems was once DS started having solids, and as his intake of milk has dropped I have felt worse and worse. It does make me think that there is a correlation. He is still BF now.
I haven't had depression of any kind before so I didn't realise until very recently what I was feeling - you will have the advantage having been through it before that you will probably recognise the signs much sooner than I have.

My own experience of BFing was that we had problems with latch initially and then supply. I have also had problems with mastitis and then thrush which are all gone away now thankfully! Even through all that, I still feel very happy and proud of myself because I know that I've done the best possible thing for DS - which helps me to feel less down.
You are doing absolutely the right things by preparing in advance. Everyone is right that your DH is as key to this as you. Not once, even in the middle of the darkest and most sleepless night when DS was new, did DH say to me - I think we should try some formula. I had 100% backing from him, and from my Mum. Without them I wouldn't have done it - for sure.

That's reassuring to know Alibaba. I think there is some research (although not yet proven) that suggests BF does indeed protect against PND. Something to do with the hormones released.

We had problems when I had DD because I had too much milk and she wasn't bothing to latch on properly, she was just licking it off my nipple. She ended up being cup fed for a couple of days, but then a brilliant no-nonsense midwife came along and basically just shoved her head towards my boob and she latched on perfectly!

I must say I was the opposite of the people on this thread, I found it easy at first (after the first couple of days) then at four months I was just fed up. I think it was the fact that she was very unplanned, so I felt like when I had got pg I went straight from having a very full social life to having hardly any, and it was continuing while I was BF. I was exhausted and had terrible PND, for which I was on sertraline, and just felt like the baby was too reliant on me. I had no problems expressing, but I was constantly leaking and my boobs were sore. I ended up in hospital for short visits a couple of times with PND/PNP and I needed the baby to be more independant, so I quit. I'm hoping that this time things will be a lot better and I'll be able to carry on for much longer.

Hi just thought I'd pop my views in as helping a friend who is keen to succeed with longer feeding of DC2.

Support comes in all sorts of formats from; midwives helping you to latch on, realatives/friends playing with toddlers, fetching drinks or snacks whilst you're on a feeding frenzy.

But the big thing seems to be the comments made from others that can undermine CONFIDENCE in your feeding! E.G my afforementioned friend had a fretful DS and many friends and family blamed it on BF "he'll settle on a bottle, he's hungry" etc so she saw FF as some miracle cure, it wasn't, he screamed for 4 months and she now had to make bottles up too!

Many people are ill educated about BF and think that FF is easier because you stick to a schedule and others can help! Try to be strong and ignore their comments. BF babies do feed more often especially in the early days - to build up your supply and because its pure, designed for them and easier to digest. Equally the 1st 4-6 weeks are all about building up the supply and with a growth spurt thrown in at 3 weeks its demanding, in that its time consuming, hence the support needed from others to OTHER jobs. My MIL even said it wasn't normal that DS fed for practically 24 hours on a spurt and he needed a bottle, I just laughed and said if woman could do it for thousands of years without sky plus I could manage to sit and feed with a backlog of desperate housewives to watch .

After 6 weeks it settles down into a clearer more predictable pattern and then becomes very easy, I had a bedside cot and barely opened my eyes to latch DD on for a BF in the night, bliss. Take it a day or a week at a time, see how it goes.

Another tip, I too had a 22 month old when DD born so always had a pile of books handy we could look at when BF he was never jealous and I loved us all snuggly together, good luck x

I found it helpful with dd2 if dp took dd1 off to play so we could feed in peace every so often. I'd also give dd2 a long evening feed when dd1 was gone to bed. dd1 was a bit older - nearly 3 - when dd2 was born, but this might also work - she (dd1) loves being helpful and feeling part of things, so I would do things like leaving a couple of biscuits or apples in the kitchen which she would fetch helpfully so we could have a snack while dd2 was having hers, also dd1 would "read" us both stories - and obviously things like having a dvd at the ready etc. Just so I could give dd2 a clear 20 minutes without having to get up!

As to latch etc, i think i was lucky in having an old fashioned no nonsense Irish midwife who just swaddled dd1 up and stuck her on... we never had any problems that way and it never occurred to me to worry about it. DP was always very supportive and would frequently tell me how wonderful I was at it (to the extent that I felt I was winning some secret bfing competition at times!) and certainly wouldn;t let anyone make any stupid comments. This all helped a lot!

LissyGlitter, sorry to hear about your PND/PNP, that's truly awful. I take it you're expecting again? I'm trying to be more proactive this time and am going to start meds before the baby arrives in the hope that it lessens the PND 'crash'.

Great ideas re keeping the older one amused, DD loves books and also loves 'Something Special'

It does sadden me how insensitive people can be at a time when you're most vulverable/sensitive. Quite often they mean well, but some comments can have a dramatic effect when you're hormonal and tired.

Re the OP, for me it's both - I need the support to get bfing going, but once I'm up and running it's far easier than ff. TBH, even during the early weeks, when I need lots of support and help, most of the time I still find it easier to bf.

thanks PrettyCandles

Something else occurred to me today. I found that FF made me far more inclined to get stressed about getting into a routine of regular spaced out feeds. I would try everything possible to lengthen the time between bottles. Partly because of worrying about the baby just taking tiny amounts at a time and partly because of the logistics of having to keep washing and sterilising bottles each time the baby wanted a small amount of milk.

This obviously isn't a problem with BF.

Job for tomorrow is to write a list of tangable reasons (or mantras even) for me to BF. This I will whip out at times of need