Do we set new mums up for bf failure?

[GreenMonkies]

Bear with me, I fear this may be as much a rant than a genuine question.

I see so many threads about tiny babies wanting to feed all the time, wanting to be held all the time, being "high needs" and velcro-babies or cling-ons. Yet this is perfectly natural baby behaviour!!

Why don't ante-natal classes actually tell mums what to really expect? Why do so many say in total shock "when I put little Johnny down he cries!!" and "s/he falls asleep in my arms but wakes when I put him/her down". Why do so many think they should be able to feed their tiny baby every three or four hours and then put them down and "get on with things" in between?

When are we going to give women the information they really need?

I was talking to a colleague this week ad she was telling me about her first 6-12 weeks of motherhood. A classic tale of constant feeding, crying when put in the moses basket/cot, being a "hungry baby" who wasn't "satisfied" by her milk alone and so on. We chatted and compared experiences and at one point I said to her "if your midwife/healthvisitor had said to you 'your baby will want to be held 24 hours a day and feed every hour or so for the first 6-12 weeks, it's totally normal' would you have worried so much about the way he was behaving?" And she said no, of course not.

And she then said "isn't it a shame that the first couple of months with our new babies were spoiled by so much stress when if we'd known what to really expect it could have been so much nicer"

It just seems to me that by giving new mums false expectations and not telling them the truth about normal, natural baby behaviour that we set them up for breastfeeding failure. Or am I just banging my head against a brick wall here?

Love this thread. I think that some of the pressure that is piled on to women (by themselves and by others) stems from the fact that many (most?) women now go back to work after having a baby.

It means there is an added pressure to have baby sleeping through/on to a bottle before we go back to work. I can remember my Nan telling me that 'in her day' as women would lose their jobs if they got married, when you had your first baby there would be lots of women family/friends to help and guide you, because none of them worked anymore. I think now, unless you have a lot of friends also on maternity leave, it can be quite an isolating time.

Whilst I love that as a woman I had the choice and went to university (was one of only 4 girls on my male-dominated degree course) and went on into a profession, I can't help but think that we've been mis-sold a dream. The dream is to have a high flying career, then once established in a job have a baby, the baby will be a gorgeous bundle of cuteness that will blissfully feed and then sleep, that in no time at all we'll be able to 'get our lives back', we'll go back to work, we'll be able to be a wonderwoman who can juggle being the perfect mummy and being a successful professional.

I know that there are women out there who achieve this, but I think there are far more out there that are constantly struggling to keep all the balls up in the air.

So.. after my little rant - I'm not saying women shouldn't work (before I get flamed) but that its not just BF that women get unrealistic expectations of. I think we are mis-sold the whole package, and when things don't go to 'plan' we feel like failures. A woman I know 'admitted' last week that her 7 month old had 'never managed yet to sleep through the night', she said it as if it was her fault, she had failed as a mum, she had let her baby down. What was worse was that she was going back to work and felt that she had failed to 'sort the baby out with feeds and sleeping' before having to go back to work. Its so sad. We're not wonderwoman, and we need realistic expectations.

I know another friend who really wanted to BF, but because she had to go back to work quite quickly, she started to do mixed feeding quite early on. The baby preferred the bottle and would then refuse boob, both found it distressing as my friend tried to continue with boob as long as possible. Even now, about 4 years on, my friend will cry if if talking about it. She desperately wanted to succeed with BF but felt like it was out of her hands.

(Again, I'm not against women working - please don't flame me - its just not fair that we have things stacked against us from the outset)

Right...rant over, as you were!

Beautifully put makemineamagnum all of it very true!! (and I speak as an AP, tandem toddler/child nursing co-sleeping, WOH mother.)

"and I speak as an AP, tandem toddler/child nursing co-sleeping, WOH mother."
Pretty impressive!

LOL it sounds it doesn't it? But my house is a tip and I would cry more if my cleaner left than if DP did!! (only partly joking there!) and I only work three days a week, but that's enough for me!

Babieseverywhere, I think some has to be the child's temperament, some other circumstances, and some parenting style. Have you read William Sears' The Baby Book? I actually don't recommend it, but something I thought was interesting from it is how he described how his 4th (I think) child was a really high-needs baby, despite him and his wife having (they thought) got the whole co-sleeping, slinging, breastfeeding-on-cue thing down to a fine art.

NoHotAshes, I do think my DD (first child) is a high needs child. I carried her everywhere in a sling, she hated prams and moses basket. She needs a lot of loving attention and to be held a lot.

However I thing I could of made things easier on me, by not worrying about the frequency of feeds, how and were she slept. (my mother telling me my DD fed too often, too little, was held too much etc etc)

With my second I never clock watched for feeds and co-slept from the start and I felt much happier, whereas I spent a lot of time worrying that I was creating a 'rod for my own back' with DD. Now with DS I don't care, I just enjoy him.

I see what you're saying Babies - I agree it is much pleasanter you don't second guess yourself as much. I think the thing that helped me with my second DC was knowing how quickly the frequent feeding stage passes. Though mind you my 9-month-old doesn't seem to have read the memo about waking less frequently at night.

My mum called me not long before I gave birth to my first and said not to be sad if breast feeding didn't work out, it's not as easy as it looks. That was the only thing she had phoned to say and I just thought she was being a bit weird, she didn't give any more detail, but then, my mum isn't the kind to. I didn't pay much attention.

At my antenatal classes they painted a rosy view of life breastfeeding a new born. I asked at the 6 week reunion why they did and the teacher said the rationale was that they didn't want to put people off trying, but we were all going to try anyway. A bfc came in to do the talk and the teacher was absent. I got the impression that was becasue she didn't agree with how bf was presented.

In general there needs to be more sharing of knowledge between women. My sisters live locally and I hope when it's their turn to have kids I can help if needed.

I keep coming back to this thread, 'tis brilliant! I wish I had had a resource like MN when I was struggling to cope with "high-need" DS1 (there was a time I could recite whole sections of Dr Sears "The Fussy Baby Book" verbatim).
I do believe now I have been "missold a dream" ie demanding professional career and motherhood can be combined to everybodies satisfaction: mine, DCs's, DH's, colleagues' etc. - NOT!
My mum who had vague notions of wanting to BF her kids but was told within 24 hrs of delivery that "she did not have the milk" (this was the 60s of course) wanted to be supportive of me Bfing but sadly lacked knowledge/experience. So everytime DS1 cried the war cry "He cannot be hungry again" went up, he was put in the pram and taken for a walk with the aim to achieve the mystical 3-4 hrs between feeds.
I think we should be given more credit regarding our ability to make informed choices: I was keen to BF, I wanted to BF, it would have helped if somebody had told me it could be hard and to just take it day by day or even feed by feed.

It is phantastic to read other's experiences. I certainly improved with practice though and am optimistic I might manage this "exclusive Bfing" malarky that I hear so much about with expected DS4.

I agree with OP. I have 2dc, ds1 is 3 and dd2 is 8m. I know I only managed to BF Ds to 11m (when he abandoned it, not me), because I had a very good friend who was bF her ds2 and so could talk me through the reality of it (and also because i am VERY stubborn and refused to accept that i couldn't do it). But my sister-in-law, who has just had DS1, BF for 2w only, and I'm sure gave up because no-one in her support network has BF (we live some distance away and are not close).
With DS1, in my postnatal group, i was the only 1 (of 16) breastfeeding at 6w post natal and I felt like the weird one having to whip out a boob during the session (unpredictably, when DS1 neded it). With DD of course, I'm blase and just get on with it, but some kind of leaflet (we got one from hospital, saying such useless platitudes as breastfeeding is best, Bf is natural, every mother can BF) saying BF hurts, sometimes your little monkey will want to do it all day and all night and this is normal and you will be hungry, hungry, hungry and a hormonal mess and this is normal, would prob be more useful.
Oh and please remember that babies can't read, so books may be helpful, but they will neer ever tell you about your baby!

Greenmonkies: You say 'we need to shift cultural expectations'. But sorry, to me that simply sounds way too vague. The reality is that- especially for first time mothers living in urban centres with no family support around- things can be really really tough with a newborn. I'm not saying by any means that things are always tough. I'm just saying they very often are. My sense is that that is one of the main reasons mums quit bf so quickly. Rarely do we hear mums who don't even try bf. Very very often we hear of mums who try but fail & feel inadequate & guilty & whatever else.

But why should they be made to be feel guilty? This is the life we live in & it's pretty tough. Women who try to bf unfortunately don't have many experiences of bf relatives (lets not forget that the previous generation- our mums- mostly bottle fed as it was the 'modern' thing to do). My mum was a good example: she simply did not understand that the baby was supposed to be feeding that often those first days/weeks/months. I suppose she was supportive in her own way, but certainly couldn't help me at all with any of the mechanics of it, and by 6 months into bf she really wanted me to stop.

I think also that it's very patronising and, frankly, anti-feminist to the extreme (and backward looking) to be saying that 'we have been mis-sold a dream'. So what about our partners & husbands? What about the support they should be giving us (when wider family most often is not around?) Why should women give up their dreams of a decent job which they love because they're not getting enough support from their husbands? So should women be the ones to change everything about themselves- their aspirations, their dreams, their goals- in order to do proper attachment parenting, while dads do little or nothing? Have dads been mis-sold a dream too? And in any case, when conditions are so difficult at the moment for modern mums (I mean support-wise) why should they be pressured into 'getting more info' about 'how hard bf' is, accepting it and carrying on? Should they also not be supported in making compromise choices that are best for their particular families? I could bet my right arm that loads of women in so called 'traditional' societies who bf as a matter of course have much less ideology stuck to it (and guilt and all that) than we do. And that if they weren't getting the support they are, and if it wasn't a 'natural' thing that everyone does in their community, they would go for the bottle anytime. There's nothing 'natural' or 'instinctive' or even 'right for each family' in all this. It really all depends on different cultures & communities which demand different things for mothers & which enable (or don't enable) these different things.

To be very honest, although initially I agreed with the OP (and yes of course I agree with the fact that bf can be hard) now I'm thinking that the way the thread has gone, nice & polite & kind as it seems to be, is frankly patronizing to those who choose different routes, different ways of parenting.

Oh and by the way. I just reread the OP. My body may be 'able' to go through childbirth 'naturally' (with no pain relief). But 'natural things' can be very very harsh & difficult- childbirth being just one example. Women always, in all history, searched & searched for pain relief options for childbirth. Lets not idealize 'nature' shall we. I read recently in a wonderful book that what us human beings do & think is also natural. We- with all our technology & science- are also part of nature. (Including our wonderful inventions of pain-relief during labour ).

Don't underestimate the physical and psychological impact of the birth on bfing.

Also don't underestimate the impact of those early hcps.

And don't underestimate the impact of consumerism.

Contributing to the very good reasons I gave my baby his first bottle of formula was the less good reason of not feeling like a real mum with a real baby until I had. Feeding a baby with a bottle is a very powerful image and ideology that most of us grew up with.

Maria - To start off, I agree with everything you said in your Sat 22-Aug-09 20:08:45
post, no woman should ever be made to feel guilty about how she feeds her baby. In fact, ideally a woman should have to give no thought about how her choice will be perceived and just make the best choice for her and her baby.

I actually hate the phrase ?mis-sold a dream?, but it?s the only way I can explain my experiences. I don?t think its patronising or anti-feminist at all, I think its sadly realistic. At school I was pushed into various initiatives aimed at ?getting girls into science? and even had special presentations on what we girls could achieve if we tried. Well, I achieved but fast forward years and I find myself realising that I can?t have it all. Not and continue to achieve in every area of my life, something has to give.

I am not going to be able to juggle being the perfect mummy and being a successful professional. As I said before, I know that there are women out there who achieve this and I take my hat off to them, but I think there are far more out there that are constantly struggling to keep all the balls up in the air. It?s not anti-feminist to admit that you can?t cope with everything and you can?t do everything.
I think the main problem that adds stress to the modern woman's life is that whilst the 'womans role' has expanded over the generations to include education and careers, the 'mans role' hasn't expanded to fill in the gap, as it were. This leaves women doing more than ever before. Its not how it should be, but in many households men still have the traditional male role - they go out to work and then come home. They might help with the dishes, maybe put the bins out, but the lion-share of the housework and childcare still rests with the woman.
(Disclaimer - I, of course, know that there are some fabulous men out there that are not like this at all and are amazing family men who help in all areas)

Going back to the BF though, I was just trying to highlight that its not just others opinions, lack of BF support or info etc that means that many women don?t BF. There are more demands on our time now, less of a support network of experienced women around us and back to work deadlines which build pressure. This will, of course, lead to fewer women BFeeding ? either by choice or by circumstance.

greenmonkies, liked your OP and think you are right about it completely normal for babies to want to be held and fed lots for first 6-12 weeks (is a survival instinct isnt it?).

Maria, I take your point and I do (mostly ) agree with it.
However, priorities shift, life changes, and what seemed like a rewarding career can lose its luster.
Also, like it or lump it, biology is what it is: (sof far) only woman can be pregnant, have babies and BF them. IMO this does mean that in the vast majority of families infants and v young children will have a closer bond to mummy, much as it might hurt daddy to be rejected when a skint knee needs to be kissed.
Feeling sl that I used the dreaded "missold a dream" phrase I nonetheless stand by that: I was encouraged into a long science based training, I have worked in the profession I was trained for for 15+ years, but I have come to realise that I cannot be everything to everybody and retain a sense of self.
Coming back to BFing, I had brilliant support, cannot fault it, but everything was so touchy-feely as to not upset me (?), when it would have helped me if somebody had said: "yes, this is hard, if you want to continue Bfing you have to find a way through it, it will not go on forever".
Re lack of role models: Both DS1 and 2 took to BFing their teddies whilst I fed DS3 so who knows, there may be a whole new generation of BF aware and supportive future parents out there...

The economy and people's lifestyles are mainly based on a 2-income household. Most people have to make quite big sacrficies, particularly wrt comparison with their peers in order to have the time and energy for childcare and 'home-making' which I include things like gardening, DIY, paying bills as well as cleaning and breastfeeding!

Time and pressure are issues like never before for many women.

I vote for a 'ONE' income per household economy which can be shared between the occupants, - but I would be pretty much alone in my vote alas!

MakeMineAMagnum: yes, of course you're right that no woman should be made to feel guilty about her choices... but that's just words we say, they don't mean much when at the same time there's such an emphasis (on this thread) on a more 'natural', more 'correct' style of parenting which is presented as the ideal which then mums feel they can't quite achieve. And this is not a small problem; mums do feel desperately guilty for all sorts of reasons lots of the time. What I was trying to say is that it would be better to accept & embrace the current world with its real-life problems & challenges, and help ourselves as mums in the context of this real world (which includes little family support, and it also includes the fact that most women choose & want to work at least part time after their children are born). I don't want to sound too vague. Let me spell it out. Instead of saying 'we should inform new mums that bf is HARD so that we know what's coming' we could instead say. 'Right, there's a friend / acquaintance I have about to have a baby. Lets arrange, with other friends, a system of all of us helping her- a couple of hours a week each- so that she doesn't feel so alone. Lets arrange to cook one meal for her a week & alternate. Lets keep this up not for just the first week, but for the first 3 months'. That would be the kind of real-life problem solving I'm talking about which might actually make a difference.

And as for women being the ones being more 'bonded' with their babies etc. I simply don't buy that, apart from the first few months. My DP happened to be only working part-time & around a lot when we had our boy. Despite the fact that I bf DS, I strongly feel that DP is equally bonded with DS, just because he had the chance to do loads of stuff for him from the start. There is no particular woman 'gene' that makes only us mums able to look after children long-term. Men are perfectly capable too. That said, of course priorities change and OF COURSE mums & dads need to & have to change things regarding work arrangements etc in order to be able to see their kids enough. Lots of people- men & women- choose to go part-time. That's a good compromise, I feel. Others choose to SAH. It would be ideal if this could be done equally by women & men, depending on how things work in particular relationships.... I'm sure lots of men would actually love it if they were freed from this idea that they need to be the sole providers. Sigh. Oh well. One can dream & hope.

What I'm trying to say in a nutshell is that I think it's more important for the parental couple to be balanced & happy & fulfilled & supported (and then they can be better parents), than it is for the baby to be looked after in the 'ideal' way (whatever that may be, lets remember this changes in each culture).

Maria I think we actually agree on most things but we expressed it in different ways.

And you don't need to convince me that men can be just as bonded to children as women. I was brought up by my dad on his own (mum died) so I know that men can give everything a child needs and more.

It is a shame that there isn't more hands on help for women. I was very lucky, for the first few weeks after having DC, I had a different friend bring dinner around for us each night so we didn't have to cook. It was amazing. I've been able to repay some of them by doing the same or with the odd bit of babysitting. Its something that there really should be more of, and I'm sure there used to be years ago.

When people ask me if I am a "full-time mum" or if I work, I say both, I am a full-time mum, and I also work three days a week.

Maria please could you show me where I say anyone should feel guilty?

In fact Maria, re-reading your messages, I'm not even sure you're posting on the same thread as the rest of us. No-one is saying Dads aren't bonded, or that there is an ideal way to care for a baby, this thread is actually about how unprepared we are for motherhood and how it sets us up for bf "failure" and a possibly PND. It is asking why we are not given good honest advice and support instead of platitudes and vague notions of parenthood.

Let's not accept and embrace the current world if it is harsh and potentially damaging, let's try to make it better, from the ground up. Lets raise a generation of nurtured babies that have had their emotional needs met the way nature intended, that will grow up happy and healthy and balanced, and not riddled with insecurity and uncertainty, like so many of us are. If the Status Quo is not a good one, lets challenge it, and make it better. Imagine if Emmeline Pankhurst had said "this is the world we live in, lets just accept it"????

I think that "women's work" has been dismissed and devalued. The labour involved in the daily grind of laundry, cleaning, childcare etc is underestimated in popular discourse to the extent that it is assumed that it can all fit around the long hours of demanding jobs.

Our generation are, in general, less supported than before. We mostly can't afford to live in the communities we grew up in, so are far from extended family. In any case, most grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, friends etc all work long hours too, and don't have the spare time to help out. We need two incomes to pay the mortgage/ private rent and have no time to give ourselves.

And then there is this scientific evidence behind breastfeeding and it just does not fit into disciplined routines and keeping on top of everything without breaks or help. Nobody tells you that breastfed newborns often want to be constantly fed and held for the first 6-12 weeks. It is impossible to fulfill all our obligations.

I think the distribution of labour within a household is less important - insisting that Dads do more is well and good, but distracts from the extra pressure on modern nuclear families.

Dear all, I am trying to hang in there after a long dark night of feeding my DD1 (3 weeks tomorrow); further feelings of guilt, inadequacy, worry, disappointment etc.

Managed a re-think this am and discovered this thread. Thank goodness.

My hormonal, sleep deprived thoughts are as follows:

1. As a professional who works in labour ward my worries were defo more re coming home than delivery. But from listening to what moms2b are told I suspected there to be a lot of fluffiness and not enough fact/ reality. I tried to prep for bf-ing and read everything from hippy/mother earth to CLB books. Nothing prepared me for this. Friends have been a godsend of support though I feel let down that neither told me about the reality beforehand. Mom (folks far away) bottlefed me after near starvation and all I' m hearing down the phone is 'get-a-grip (dad), 'get formula' (mom). Our local unit's bf-ing rate is 5%. I am not surprised. I believe information is power without scaring people witless. There is a middle ground and I would never embark on a procedure without giving a patient the honest facts. Why can ante natal classes get away with misrepresentation of labour/ analgesia/ bf ing etc?

1. Having been to a girls' school, always encouraged that financial independance is absolute priority, embarked on successful career, I agree with sentiments of 'mis-sold' dream. We can' t have it all. You only need to look at employers' response when told of pregnancy/ mat leave to realise that little has changed in '09 an women still have to make the bigger sacrifices.Sad but true.

1. As for personal scenario: DD was slow to regain last couple of gms to birth weight, seen by bfc and attachment is fine thus must be supply issue. How in the name of * am I supposed to express after feeds if she is feeding hourly?? Have chucked it and now putting her on as often as possible. She gets weighed tomorrow; my anxiety levels are sky high. Hey ho.

1. As for the emotions listed in my intro- that probably comes from having been in control all my life, setting goals& achieving them. Whereas I have struggled to find any enjoyment the past 3 weeks and seem to be an accidental parent plodding along.

Had to get that off my chest.

Cheers for the thread. It has dawned on me: Maybe she' s just a normal baby, and I am the one who had abnormal expectations/ hopes. In that case: here comes another guilt trip.

Congrats if you managed to read this far!

hermomminess I couldn't agree with you more. I hope you start to enjoy momminess more soon. The feeding all the time stage is misery but it does pass, honest. I found that once I gave in and accepted that I was just going to feed ALL THE TIME, it made life better. Its a matter of adjusting your expectations in those early days, nothing really prepares you. Goodluck, hope it gets better soon.