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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Advert with 'I will do my share of the night feeding'

110 replies

becstarlitsea · 01/08/2009 11:48

Okay, I'm still smarting from complaining about the last set of formula ads on TV and all the flippin letters from the ASA to patronise me explain why my complaint wasn't valid.

But has anyone else picked up on this TV ad with the Dad standing in the kitchen heating up a bottle saying 'I will do my share of the night feeding' (or somesuch words - they probably worded it more carefully than that...)

My gripe is - although they show follow-on formula at the end and have the teeny tiny writing at the bottom as required by law... Aren't most babies over 12 months sleeping through the night without needing a night feed? I know some babies over 12 months have a night feed, but surely they are implying a younger baby here?

What do you think?

OP posts:
turtle23 · 01/08/2009 15:13

The bit that gets me is the last bit. "For infant nutrition...TRUST THE EXPERTS...trust SMA." DO not trust yourself, trust US.

oneopinionatedmother · 01/08/2009 15:19

@turtle23
especially as every real expert recommends #bf in almost every instance...

ellagrace · 01/08/2009 15:28

tell you what people do tend to be totally unaware of - there is way more calcium in cows milk than in formula be it follow on or normal. so regardless of whether you've bf or ff up to 12 months after that (if you're no longer bf'ing or if you're talking about adding to cereal or giving a drink in a glass or whatever) you're better off giving them cow's milk instead of any of that stuff.

who'd rely on dairy as their source of iron anyway? iron - meat, dried fruit, green veg, peanut butter etc always served with some vitamin C to help absorption.

i was stunned by the dumb ass nutritional advice or lack of given out by HV's and baby clinics.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 15:47

He he kinda, my dd (now 2.5)at 1 year was not sleeping through the night, and demanding milk every 3 hours in the night and did so right until 2, i put a stop to it. Not all babies sleep through the night its a myth, and also a myth that all ff fed babies sleep better in the night than bf babies, mine is ff and never ever does.

Also, my dd did not do his fair share of night feeds, always moi so thats totally wrong lol

oneopinionatedmother · 01/08/2009 15:52

re:night feeds

if your DH is at work and you're on maternity leave, it seems a bit unfair on him anyway, as he has work in the morning, wheras i had another date with 'property ladder' and could lie in (presuming baby also wanted to lie in).

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 15:58

IMPO a woman who has decided to bf wont take notice of these adverst only those who have chosen to ff. When bf wasent working and my dd was loosing weight formula was formula whatever the brand, i just grabbed it. I used Aptilmil, it did soften the blow that it had immunofortis and was described as being'closest to breastmilk' when i clearly was not producing much. My choice of formula was not influenced by advertising, never heard of Aptimil or seen it, but used it as my SIL was using it too.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 16:00

Yes i guess so oneopnionatedmother, not fair really as dh has to go to work and has a job that requires a lot of concentration for long periods of time.

mixandmatch · 01/08/2009 16:30

Er.. okay this is probably going to kick off but:

The fact that Dads can share night feeds if you bottlefeed is one (probably the only) major advantage of bottle-feeding. It's certainly the reason I chose to mixed feed my baby, and it's the reason I know many other women chose to exclusively formula feed.

So an advert that makes out this is the case is only accurate. It's very different from pretending that formula milk has health benefits, which obviously would be misleading and wrong.

So if a woman sees the ad, and decides she'd like to switch to formula so her partner can share the night feeds, it's a free country. I can't believe it would seriously swing anyone who was fully committed to breastfeeding.

I mean really - in a few years our children will be seeing advertisements for chocolate, not to mention alcohol.

SoupDragon · 01/08/2009 16:38

But mixandmatch, it doesn't have to be formula milk in the bottle for a dad to feed the baby.

"So if a woman sees the ad, and decides she'd like to switch to formula so her partner can share the night feeds, it's a free country."

Except it's misleading because nowhere does it spell out the implications of doing this.

It's not the committed breastfeeder they are targetting, it's the struggling one, the one who wants to succeed but is lacking the proper support to do so.

SoupDragon · 01/08/2009 16:39

"in a few years our children will be seeing advertisements for chocolate, not to mention alcohol"

Not sure what your point is with this at all TBH. It doesn't make any sense in the context of this thread.

mixandmatch · 01/08/2009 16:42

Agreed, Dads can share some feeding with expressed breast milk, but in my experience if a woman is exclusively breastfeeding it is hard for Dads to do much more than the 'odd feed' and certainly nothing like approaching 50% of the feeding work.

And of course the ad doesn't spell out the negative implications of bottle-feeding. But since when do advertisements spell out the negative implications of their products? How many chocolate ads do you see warning people that they may become obese/diabetic? Unless you take an incredibly authoritarian view on this - ie. no products that are bad for children in any way should be advertised - I think you're on shaky ground here.

SoupDragon · 01/08/2009 16:43

How many chocolate adverts do you get claiming to be good for your immune system?

chegirl · 01/08/2009 16:46

They also have a baby gym on the floor dont they that would imply baby is less than about 3 mths old.
What about the kettle?

Who waits to boil the kettle in the middle of the night?

I had to ff my DS2 (adopted) I mixed the feeds before bedtime. Bugger getting up and doing all that faffing about at 3am (and 1am, 2am, 4am - you get the picture).

So if its nothing else - its SILLY.

mixandmatch · 01/08/2009 16:47

'A Mars a day helps you work, rest and play' springs to mind. Not claiming to boost your immune system, but certainly sending a not-so-subliminal message that chocolate is good for you.

I said in my first post in any case: I don't think formula ads should be able to make health claims. But I do think it's acceptable for them to make the 'sharing the workload with partner' point because that genuinely is a benefit of formula feeding.

SoupDragon · 01/08/2009 16:49

Don't get me wrong, I'm not anti formula, but the adverts are deliberately designed to be misleading. Apart from the "lifestyle" stuff like the night feeds, they use meaningless words like "immunofortis", make unsubstantiated claims about being close(est) to breastmilk and make daft comparisons with a naturally iron-low food product. They also sell their product by making negative remarks about the benefits of bf-ing (does that make sense??!) The "Do I look as if..." ads.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 17:23

I think that mixandmatch meant that even if you bf your lo, their health may also be influenced to their diet later on so it cancels that out. I know someone who was bf, but has a dreadful diet now in adulthood, they have diabetes and are obese

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 17:28

Yes the only advantage of ff that i could think of was that you could let others take over the feeding if mum wanted a rest or was not very well or just wanted to go shopping. I really appreciated giving muy lo to her godmother when i was struggling with PND, dd was colicy, crying morning,noon and night and i was struggling to cope. Her godmother was a godsend, she would take her to her house and look after her whilst i got some rest or could do some shopping. Helped so much to be able to do that, i dont know how i would have managed if i was exclusively bf.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 17:30

Guess i would have expressed or if not used formula for those occasions.

verylittlecarrot · 01/08/2009 17:41

To all those people who believe advertising is utterly ineffective

Why don't you lobby the formula companies to immediately cease all advertising expenditure so that the £millions recouped can be reallocated to reduce the cost of the product to you, the customer?

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 17:56

If I did that, the formula companies would not agree of course as its a way of them making money, they are a business they want to make money off the person, not give it to them

verylittlecarrot · 01/08/2009 18:02

"as its a way of them making money"

well, exactly piglet, that's my point. Advertising makes money. Because advertising increases sales. Even if the people who buy the products insist until they are blue in the face that they are immune to the adverts, the advertisers know better. We all like to think that we are immune to such transparent manipulation. But we aren't, obviously.

verylittlecarrot · 01/08/2009 18:08

My particular unfavourite formula ad is the (recently chastised) aptamil one.

"If you decide to move on from breastfeeding...blah blah (use aptamil instead)

Followed by the legalese "Aptamil is not a breastmilk substitute"

If it's not a breastmilk substitute then you should bloody well be prevented from blatantly suggesting that women substitute breastmilk for aptamil then, as you clearly do in this advert.

I can't believe the overt hypocrisy and codebreaking was ever allowed with this advert.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 18:55

Well at the end of the day i had no choice, i had to use formula,but a lot of people are and they will take an advert like Aptimil seriously, and think that it is like breastmilk, i know i did at first. If the bf support in my area was better I wouldnt have to use formula and next time if we are lucky with a dc2 i hope to bf more successfully.

TheCrackFox · 01/08/2009 19:04

Piglet - i had a crap time BF DS1 - and I blame it on the "support" at the hospital. It took me about 3 years to stop blaming myself.

I used SMA, only because that is what they used at the hospital.

Anyway, I had absolutely no problems BF DS2. Give it your best shot. Remember, there is a lot of support on Mumsnet.

pigletmania · 01/08/2009 19:08

Aww Crackfox, i know the feeling, my goodness Mumsnet so good, i wish that i had seen Mumsnet when I was pregnant with dd and known what to do. I think that a peer support coming in to help would have craked it