I expected this from biddies in the street but not.......

[staylucky]

My mother!

Didn't manage to bf past a week with dd (now 5) as there was justno support from my useless partner & midwife. This time round new partner (who is lovely!) and much nicer midwife have made things much easier. My son is 4 weeks old and apart from the shock of near constant feeding and sleep depravation All over again we're getting there.

My mum however is horrified by my bf my son. I just can't explain why she hasn't exactly been nasty about it but will leave the room if I start to feed him and just gets all embarressed and wierd. I could really do with her support right now I would kill for someone at the end of the phone to talk to but she's clearlynot going to be that person.

To be honest it starting to make me feel a bit shy about feeding in front of people I mean I've only had visitors at the house so far but really want to make a go of this so will need to bite the bullet and do it in public at sone point. If my own mums wierded out by it how on earth can I sit in the local park or go roun the shops bf?!

For the record she's 50 and of course bottle fed me and my brother.

Thanks fr this board by the way is great am getting loads of tips just lurking. X x x x

Wow, so many lovely messages! Thank you x and gosh so many horror stories too!

My dh said something the other day that's totally stuck with me, he said it must be wonderful having one tool that will just pacify baby immediatly. Boobies!! Honestly i could bang on all day about how great I think bf is. I remember feeling so helpless with dd sometimes (reflux, colic, million diff brands of formula. Antacids, thickeners, constant projectile vomiting) ds is a totally diff baby of course but feeding him is a joy rather than the chore (sadly) it was with her.

I love Reading about all you brave tigresses out feeding anywhere and everywhere! Hope I sort myself out and drop the silly self conciousness soon. This starts as my perception of what others are thinking and I need to work on letting that go pronto. Best thing is my dd and dh have been totally ace beautiful innocence all way from dd and total admiration from dh. We all shout booooby when ds cries now!

Thankyou again from the bottom of my heart, it's reassuring to hear that some of you have had the
same initial reaction from family and really heartning to see you've stuck at it and got through.

On the service my mum is really supportive. Always telling me how proud she is of me, sending me little skype messages telling me I'm a star mum. But I still get the little comments, I'm sure one bottle of formula won't hurt. If it's getting too much for you formula is fine etc etc.

I think it is because she only bf for a few weeks herself for both me and my sister.

I agree, I happily bf in public, but not in-front of my Dad. I did feel sorry for him as I think I made him feel uncomfortable.

Sorry that should have read surface.

I'll blame sleep depravation. DD is 9 weeks old and going through a growth spurt at the moment!

I agree, try to speak to you MIL. Normally my mil drives me mad, but she was so supportive when she came to stay. I had bad thrush at the time. Mum kept telling me to stop, but my MIL held my hand while I was feeding because it hurt so much. If it wasn't for her and a very supportive DH I would have given up.

Thankfully both my parents are supportive of bfing. A friend of mine, however, recently told me she 'didn't like it', it makes her feel 'squeamish' apparently. She was then shocked when I went to another room to feed dd. It just made me feel so uncomfortable. I naively thought everyone was fine with it these days-unfortunately I was wrong! Well done for sticking to it. Hope your ma will come round eventually.

Hi
I have just been reading all your messages and can't quite beileve some of them!! I have bf all four of my children up to a year, they are strong healthy, happy children, my fifth is 8 months old and is still bf quite happily. I have never really had a problem bf in public and quite happily do it at my husbands rugby club and believe me 24 rugby players don't even bat an eyelid, so please staylucky don't be embarrassed, if public feeding is really an issue there is a great gadget called a nursing conver that is fantastic for feeding can give you more details if you want.

sorry meant nursing cover

Staylucky, one of the best things for bf in public is to go out to places with other mums who also are. I don't know if you have a local bf group, you can go along even if you just want to talk to other bf mums, or you can try mother and baby groups, or see if anyone on here lives near to you.

staylucky, I really would wonder if your mother feels like you're criticising her, as some other posters have suggested. My mother was quite open that she felt sad she hadn't tried to bfeed any of her children (complicated story also tied up with ff being seen as the 'norm' at the time) but at least she could manage to be open about it. She said it also bothered her that she couldn't help me when I was really struggling to bfeed DD1, but she didn't have any advice or experience to offer.

I'm glad it's going so well for you this time, and your DD's getting to see bfeeding as nothing out of the ordinary.

I got over the shyness very quickly - have bfed 3 children anywhere and everywhere. I was worried about feeding in front of my FIL, but he couldn't care less and certainly never made me feel uncomfortable about it.

Just bought a couple of nursing tops from Mamaway - in my case it's to make sure my jelly belly is covered whilst feeding, but they're equally handy if you're a bit shy about public feeding. And the good old muslin over the shoulder is always worth a go.

My parents could never understand my insistence to BF (I BF DS1 & 2 for 3 minths each, DS3 for 1 year).
I remember feeding my 3rd son at my parents house, almost apologising for the fact that he was feeding every two hours, I realised later that it was the 6 week growth spurt. I could feel my Dad wanting to say that I should give him a bottle and that would sort him out.
My Mum did say that maybe I wasn't producing enough milk-I wish I'd realised at that point that it was the growth spurt!
My Dad couldn't understand my need to make baby food for my son either, he kept saying how cheap jars were whilst I kept pointing out how cheap real carrots were!
For the record, all of my sons have a fantastic appetite for a very wide range of (healthy) foods-I must have been doing something right

pookamoo that leaflet is great, I have been looking for something like that for ages. My MIL bottle fed her dc and weaned at 6 weeks so she really struggles to understand me. She thinks dd feeds too often (I obviously have the quantity but the quality isn't there - apparently).

She is genuinely amazed that my dd had such "chubby" legs at 6 months on bm alone (except for some formula in early weeks -see below). She often just stares at her and makes baffling comments about bf/dds size. But not in a smiley-isn't-my-granddaughter-fab kind of way, with a really serious face. She bought us some bottles because we'd need to get dd on a bottle soon. I told her she wouldn't need a bottle and she said "how will you settle her at night?". I don't think she does it out of nastiness, she just doesn't understand it.

At the same time she makes little sniping comments about if dd needs to feed as often as she does then she should be on solids. I am sure I posted on here about the comment she made to dd a few weeks ago. It was along the lines of "You'd love some mash wouldn't you, your grandma would let you have some but your mum says you can't have it". I pointed out that it was DoH policy and not mine and she snapped back "would three weeks really make that much difference?".

My mum on the other hand was supportive to a point but (and some of you may remember my first pleading post on here) whilst staying with her after dd's birth, she decided, without telling me, to bottle feed dd overnight so that I could get a good stretch of sleep. I woke up distraught, my breasts were really full and sore and I was in full panic that dd wasn't in with me (I'd gone to bed and my mum was going to bring dd in when she'd settled to sleep to let me get a head start). She spent weeks trying to encourage me to ff because I was so tired and she wanted to help out. She also talked me out of co-sleeping (I'd heard that it helped) saying that as dd was sleeping in her moses basket it didn't make sense to undo all that (she thought I was storing problems for myself).

I wish now I'd followed my instincts and co-slept from day one. We started it at 4 months and not only do I feel as though I am getting enough sleep, I no longer wake up engorged. This was still happening on and off before we co-slept.

Anyway, this was a long way of saying that I am going to share the leaflet with my MIL and my mum. Thanks!

Amazing stories - really interesting some of them. But cannot get my head round some of the mothers being so unsupportive.
I've said it before, if DD ever has babies of her own (long way off, she's 10m!) and chooses to bf, I think it'll be one of the most wonderful sights I'll ever see. My own baby feeding her baby with the body I grew inside me.

Not that I want her growing up to move so fast of course

Oh staylucky I meant to add, my own mum now watches me feed dd and smiles, she told me I did the right thing sticking with it and sometimes says "ah, I wish I could feed you" to my dd and I don't think she means bottles (hope that doesn't sound creepy). She just finds it so lovely now and doesn't see it as being just about food, I hope your mum comes round too.

Hulla I've been struggling with the idea of cosleeping for a couple of weeks and absolutely daren't mention it to mum glad to hear it's working for you. I've rarely heard anything positive about it in RL. The last few nights I've gone with it and have def been less stressed and had more sleep. How does it work long term?

Oscarsmum, I agree about supporting our own dd's. I've been amazed how natural it's been for my dd to watch she asks loads of questions and likes telling her dad and all his extended family all about it I do try get out the way to express just cause I feel
a bit like a Cow but she walked in the bedroom last week and asked if I was putting milk in my boobies haha x

My parents were really weird with me about bf even though my mum bf two of us. Wouldn't be in the same room as me. Of course she was shut away from everyone to feed and NEVER talked about it and gave me no support when I needed it. My mum wasn't proud of bf, it was just something she did.

The In laws were far more accepting even though dh was ff (due to MIL on warfarin after birth). However MIL couldn't wait to get a bottle down dd when I was mixed feeding later on even though dd was quite capable of holding the bottle herself.

Strangers are far easier to bf in front of than family. Breastfeeding support groups, called Latch-On here but cafes in other places I think, are great places to learn confidence in feeding and get tips on what to wear.

Wonder what your MIL would say if she knew that warfarin certainly does not mean no breastfeeding, allegrogirl? I needed to put that in, in case someone sometime searches on this in mumsnet archives and thinks they cannot bf!

Reading about mums in mid-20thcentury being told bottle was better reminded me of Baby Milk Action site I was looking at the other day www.babymilkaction.org They're campaigning to get formula companies to label and market their products clearly, truthfully and fairly all over the world. (They organise the famous Nestle boycott as part of campaign). We are so lucky to have full info available to us on breast/ff here, what made me actually cry on milk action website was sentence 'an illiterate mother may give their baby formula for an older aged baby by looking at the picture of healthy newborn on the tin'. Sorry, not really answer to OP but OP shows how all that marketing/freebies in 50s/60s were money well spent by formula companies and now UK govt struggling to change culture back towards bf. Now same companies playing same dirty tricks in poorer countries of Africa/Asia.

I'm sorry you don't have your mother's support. That must make you feel quite isolated from her. I hope she comes round and can see how you and your baby enjoy it and what a benefit it is to both of you.

As for feeding out and about, you might try a mother and baby room (John Lewis, etc) and then venture further a field. I found just getting comfortable in various chairs was difficult when DS was very small. And not having my cushion and comfy spot on the sofa, etc. So having a little privacy while still being in public was a good transition. You aren't hiding away, but rather getting some confidence about feeding when you aren't at home.

After that, I jumped into the fish bowl that is the front window at the King's Road Starbucks! And never looked back. I fed DS on cathedral steps in Spain.

staylucky we've only been doing it for 2 months now but I have to say its one of the best decisions I have ever made. I can function in the day, dd is a lot easier to settle and I am no longer wishing she'd sleep through! It's a lot less stressful.

DH and I have said we wouldn't bother with a moses basket etc with any future dcs.

We tell my mum and dh's mum that we're just doing what gets us all the most sleep for now and we'll get dd into her own bed when she's more settled. Funnily enough my mum has stopped saying its a bad idea since I stopped crying with exhaution on the phone to her!

Mumsnet has a media requests section. they charge about £30 a go.

Sorry Tiktok, I didn't know you could bf on warfarin. There was other stuff like MIL was in with a DVT and dh had a minor op and it was all a bit stressful for them. I'm assuming in 1970 no one would have tried to help MIL bf under theses circs.

Nameiwanted i remember seeing the whole nestle thing and being just horrified it's appalling how much control these companies have.

jfly I think I will try your suggestion of a mothers room, I had thought it might be a bit poky but noticed when I was changing ds in mothercare last weekend that they can be quite nice. I think once dd goes back to school after hols I might start looking at a mums group of some kind.

hulla sleep makes everything so much better!! I reckon there's nothing more natural than being close to babba glad it's working for you.

you have to do it for your child, dont worry about your mum.

How rubbish to not have your mum's support. Unfortunately I doubt there's much you could do to change her opinions. Maybe you could just have a conversation that goes along the lines of - "lets agree to disagree about our own choices, you are my mum and I need your support"

I have fed my two all over the place. I found it useful to carry my second in one of those upright pouches. If you get one with a hole in between the straps you can wiggle it to the side a bit and poke your nipple through the gap so the baby can feed without anybody noticing. I did this ALL the time, my close friends only realised I'd been feeding when I told them. If you wear a feeding top or lift your top up and your bra down it is even harder to notice. I have also fed everywhere without the pouch but you do feel quite exposed at first even if no-one can see or notices. I think you just need to do it often so you're not as worried.