Why do people (usually the older generation) say that your breast milk might not be good enough?

[suwoo]

It is bollocks isn't it?

My DS is really slow to gain and a few older people have asked if my milk is strong enough.

I just give the example of malnourished african women feeding their babies but that didn't work with my 83 year old DM reading Nan .

Does my bloody head in. Grrrrrrrrr

THat's great

that's brilliant - both about the weight gain but more importantly about the "medical advice" you can now counter the "watery milkers" with

Fantastic
Anyone who asks, you can tell them the advice you were given
(Feel free to follow it too!)

Yeah, suwoo, well done! And well done to persevering.
I remember how souldestroying "well meaning" wrong advice can be...

Hana, re storage, there is good advice on kellymom (as ever ) about this. Breast milk that has gone off smells so awful that it is really easy to spot IMO.

That's excellent news Suwoo

Oh well done suwoo.

Oh good, and a nice HV as well - bonus

Oh good, and a nice HV as well - bonus

Oh good, and a nice HV as well - bonus

oops. Internet connection issues.

Glad you are so pleased for me mango

If i knew then what i knew now from reading MN i would have told the midwives and their charts to sod off and leave us alone. i hate the way that most of them ignore the overall wellbeing of the baby being bf and just concentrate on the charts. i think that i would have done just fine whithout them really.

Thats how I feel piglet, a couple of weeks ago I just wanted to run away with DS2 to a desert island and we would have been fine without the intervention.

I welled up this weekend when 2 elderly female relatives came to visit and were marvelling at my newborn breastfeeding - they got talking and it came out that they were both told some variation of the line that their milk wasn't good enough. One managed 3 weeks, the other only a couple of days. They were having their kids in the 50s.

Made me very to see that they clearly still believe what they were told. What a dreadful shame.

my mum said, 'some cows have weaker / less milk than others. your milk isjust like a not very good cow. .'
i ignored her and breastfed DS for 14 months (even though he was, and still is very small for his age 1st percentile or thereabouts, born at 50th)
still breastfeeding DD at 12 months.

Thats reassuring concordia, DS2 is just below 9th centile now as is DD. DS1 is below 25th. I think DS2 might be on the 2nd shortly.

Did you ever get any pressure to supplement?

mil (grrrrr) thought I should be ffing, offered to buy Carnation!!! Plus orange juice for a newborn, probably to counteract the constipation. That's how she did it, back in the 50s, in the US. Her way was the only way, as far as she was concerned. She thought bfing was self indulgent nonsense, harmful to a baby's personality and moral development, plus, how could you ever get any (much more important) housework done? How could you ensure a proper meal on time every evening for the number one in your life, your DH, if you were sitting around bfing all day. My mum was very supportive, despite having had her babies at a time when bfing was considered an odd personal quirk. When I had my youngest, I was advised to supplement as she had quite drastic weight loss in the first 10 days. I complied, she gained weight, and I weaned her off the ffing and started bfing full time after a few weeks. She kept going until nearly 4.

Brilliant Suwoo.

The point you raise is a powerful example opf commercial interests riding roughshod over a babies' needs and disempowering women at the smae time.

Very very sinister.

My mum said that she ran out of milk with both me and my sister at 4 months. She'd never heard of growth spurts, despite training as a nursery nurse (which was birth to 7 at the time of her training). I haven't really talked about it much to her, as she's been v supportive, and so I don't want to seem to "know better" iyswim - but I just keep thinking it was most likely a pretty bonkers 16 week growth spurt in each case - remember it clearly with dd, and think it's a bit sad that no-one told her.

Hi suwoo,

Just wanted to add my support. My DD was between the 2nd and 9th centile while i was BF her and I had HVs on my back to get her weighed every week too. Bear in mind that any measurement on the charts is still within the 'normal' range - that's if you want to take any notice of them at all - and some people are just smaller than others.

My Mum was like yours - she BF me in 72 and my sister in 75 and was considered rather odd. It was good to have her support though. My DHs family were a whole different matter - his Nan told me to give DD solids as she had all three of hers on solids from a week old! Having met two of them, I don't think they benefited from it.

My mother told me that as my Gran had had 6 children and told her to "get them on a bottle, only poor people who have babies in fields breastfeed" that I wouldn't be able to BF either. She had a pill to "scatter" her milk when I was born, best thing ever apparently. I was a 34 weeker and was weaned at (wait for this) 6 weeks onto potatoes and mince, not gravy proper mince mind and I loved it and it didn't do me any harm. I also apparently slept for 18 hours at a time (probably as I couldn't move from the mince).

Was also told that there was no way I would ever be able to feed a 9lbs 3 ozs baby by myself and I would get "told off" when that baby started to put on weight I was told I would get "told off" as she would get too fat as my milk was too rich.

I have never listened to a word she said thankfully but as a first time mum struggling with BFing you can see where a "well meaning" mother or aunt etc might persuade her to give a bottle.

Bloody hell SK.
Astounding what crap people talk, even those we love eh?

My mum told me that I used to latch on by myself from birth!

She never had to do any of this wapping boobs out and maneuvering that I do.