Friend with 4 day old baby is getting shite advice and I can see it all going horribly wrong and it p*es me right off, and I'm trying to help her but she won't believe me fully

[emkana]

because after all I'm only a mum and friend and she has all these so called professionals giving her advice and I just want to SCREAM really

don't get me wrong, nothing against bottlefeeding etc, but not if it happens just because the mum has been given wrong advice and so the choice is being taken away from her

and again

What advice is she being given?

At 4 days her milk might not even have come in yet.

Can you point her in the direction of some good sites.. eg www.drjacknewman.com (great video links) www.kelly.mom.org ?Then she can see how common a lot of what she is probably going through is. And there's so much advice from other mums here.

It's really rather heartbreaking that real choice isn't being promoted, but the fact that you are there for her is a good thing.

I know EXACTLY what you mean and it makes me too.

She's been advised to feed for a certain amount of time, then pump and feed the rest via bottle. I mean wtf???? And she's been told to give water regularly. To a 4 day old?

Her milk has come in. It just frustrates me because with 3 children that I b/fed for 7.5 yyears altogether I know a lot about it but she's inclined to believe people with medical training more.

Oh Lord, sounds frighteningly similar to the appalling 'advice' (more like orders) given to my sister by midwives on the post-natal ward. Sister gave up attempting to b/f on day four thanks to those bullies.

Hope by some miracle your friend manages to find a way through this.

Is this in the UK?

no Germany

I think in that case the only thing to do is keep mentioning the supply and demand info and about building up and protecting her supply. Either she'll listen to you and drop the pump/bottle/water thing or she won't. Not a lot else you can do. The websites are a good idea if you can get her to look at them. Do you know what breastfeeding rates are like in general in Germany?

I think breastfeeding rates are higher than in the UK, but I've often heard of hospitals giving very bad advice initially, which seems to be the case here. What she finds so hard to understand is that in this instance doctors and nurses and midwives are not necessarily the best advice givers, but she says "but they are trained and experienced"

I'll have to do what you say northernlurker and hope for the best.

She will be feeling very vulnerable right now though and in that state you are more inclined to cling to the firm professionals - it's just easier to feel you are doing 'right'. As she gets further in to the post natal period her confidence and resiliance will bounce back a bit and she may then be more inclined to listen to your experience. Just hang in there.

Yes, they are trained, but not about breast feeding.

She sounds as if she's a bit intimidated by the medical profession, but I was asking a medical student when DS was in Children's Hospital how much training they get about breast feeding and he thought about it and said, 'um, none..'

They are doctors and know about medical intervention. I remember one of the (young) doctors when I was having DS. She was on call and was telling me that she hadn't ever seen an uncomplicated birth. But that's because she worked in a hospital!!

I will, hoping it's not too late by then. I doesn't help that she feels rather overwhelmed by the constant feeding thing, and she was a bit today when I told her it's totally normal.

It's difficult because I want to help her but I feel if I call her with advice too often she'll just think I'm a pain.

you may find if it's anything like my experience, that the advice from doctors / midwives ends up being quite contradictory anyway. once she's had a few pieces of medical advice which go against what she's already been told, she may be more receptive.

I was speaking to a good friend yesterday (she has a one year old,I am expecting twins in 2 weeks) and I asked her what she wished she's known in those first days.

She said she had asked when in hospital about how often she should feed LO, and been told by a MW 'every 3-4 hrs, to help him get into a routine'

Fortunately, she did her own research once out of hospital and bf till 8 months.

Just been through the same thing with a friend who now has a 4 week old. Agree, that it makes me very .

After a hideous 54 hour labour, she and the baby were left and allowed to sleep for 8 hours without feeding. MW turns up asks her why she's been sleeping (friend didn't know any better). By this stage her DS's blood sugar has dropped and he wont suck. They give formula via a syringe, and after that they were able to start BF. When I caught up with her on about day 5 and she was just shell shocked by the amount and frequency that the baby was feeding and worried that something was wrong. I sent her the links on kellymom and told about my DS's marathon feeds. It seems to have helped and they are still mixed feeding which is something.

It makes me because it shouldn't be the case that me who has only BF one child can provide better advice and more realistic expectations than the professionals. It is enough to make me consider becoming a BF councillor.

The other thing that makes me angry is that her whole labour and delivery are a catalogue of neglect due to the hospital being over stretched. This is a major London teaching hospital. It's enough to make me want to go into politics

Why not AlliPalli? We need more "real" people in Parliamant.

I so know how you feel, my BF was pregnant and asked me all about BFing, I wrote a very lengthy e-mail about all my experiences, i.e cluster feeding, tha danger of giving one bottle etc

she came out of hospital BFing but giving bottles too, the MWs told her the baby was hungry and needed more formula, I said you need to be very careful and pointed her to the kellymom site, in less than a week she was fully bottle feeding and said to me "you were right"

It is infuriating isn't it when this happens and you end up biting your tongue and watching as ignorant 'professionals' trash a friend and her baby's BF relationship.

LOL Idont. Apart from not having any affiliation with a political party, I am really bad in debates/arguments and just get upset when I feel strongly about something. Can't see blubbing in the Commons being that credible. . This is also why I tend not to post on MN threads very much apart from my nice safe post natal thread.