No wish to breastfeed - partner putting me under pressure to give breastmilk

[AuntyFlo]

Hi everyone. I'm a first time Mum and am 38 weeks pregnant. Apart from the hormones and normal first time Mum jitters I've hit a stumbling block with my partner who wants me to express.
I have no wish or desire to and will be happy to give formula milk.
He made me feel like a terrible person when he knew I didn't want to express and was questioning my decision.
I got very emotional, felt like he was trying to over shadow me and ended up having to justify my reasons amongst the tears.
I reminded him that it's my body that's going through pregnancy and the after bits and that the pressure I felt to 'be the best' and 'give the best' whether it be washing powder, travel system etc was getting too much as it was.
I said that I needed to feel supported in my decision not made to feel like an awful person because of my choices of how to feed.
I've noticed in books it's shoved down your necks that breastfeeeding can be successful if you have a supportive partner, family etc but surely that goes for any method of feeding????????? My family and friend by the way have been great
Please give me your feedback - any would be really helpful when feeling like this

Sandcastles - I'm not saying that she shouldn't get support to FF on this forum, only that she's more likely to get the kind of responses she already has ("at least give BF-ing a try") when she's already made it clear she doesn't want to try, for her own reasons (which, even though we don't know what they are, are valid and right for her).

The breast and bottle section of mumsnet, rightly or wrongly, tends to skew towards the breast is best argument and posters who come on here saying I'm going to FF from the start and not even give BF-ing a go will usually end up receiving loads of advice and help to start BF-ing, rather than just accepting the OP has already made up her mind. That's all I was saying - not that FF is wrong or not valid as a choice, just that MN is not going to be the place for the kind of support she wants and I'm surprised she doesn't already know that before she posts.

ErikaMaye - I'm a little that you say she especially doesn't have to justify herself to her partner. Of course she does! The baby is his too and he has every right to express his wants and needs, and expect them to be seriously considered.

And if it was about something that he could provide as well, then he would be perfectly justified. But its her body - he has no right to pressure her into using it in ways that she doesn't feel comfortable with. As her partner, he should support her decisions.

In the end, yes it is her decision, and he should accept it. But that doesn't mean he shouldn't expect his opinion to count for something.

This really is a decision which has to be made together. I had the opposite - I was desperate to BF my DTs, and had real difficulties, but was determined to persevere. I never really produced enough, so we had to suppliment with formula from pretty early on. However, I doggedly insisted on BFing for each feed, and then only topped up if I felt it totally necessary - usually when DH was at home -during the day, I'd rather BF constantly than be (in my own stupid opinion) a "failure". My DH could see, far more than I could, what a horrific state I was getting into over it, and was adamant that I should mix-feed more or even give up BFing. The arguing made the whole situation a hell of a lot worse. In the end, I stuck to my guns for two months, and then moved more onto FF before giving up BFing completely. My (long-winded) point though, to the OP, if you're still around, is that, in the last couple of weeks before your baby arrives, try to come to a decision that you're both comfortable with - the stresses of having a baby, not having enough sleep, feeding (however you decide to do it) and coping with the massive change in your life is enough without having to deal with a serious difference of opinion like this.

IMO, where it comes to feeding, do whatever you (and he) feel most comfortable with. I agree with posters who have said that a feeding forum on MN is not likely to give the most balanced view, and whilst the benefits of BFing have been proved and proved again, FFing is not going to kill the baby. It really is YOUR decision as parents.

But in the OP she says she being made to feel like a terrible person for it - that's not him expressing his opinion, its pressuring her, and that is not fair.

Erikamaye- so he has no right to wan the best for his baby [hmm} This its my body is a cop out tbh- you have a baby, you should try to do your best for the baby, its what parenting is all about. BF does nothing negative to ones body and a whole lot of positives.

Putting pressure of his parnter to do something she is not comfortable with, for whatever reason, is not doing what is best for the family unit.

Well, if I were a man, and my DP was refusing to even try to bf our children, I would certainly pressure her to change her mind. But I hope that I would apply that pressure in a positive way, by finding support groups, doing research, reading literature with her etc. But it would be very frustrating and I would probably end up getting quite nasty about it if she resolutely refused to engage in debate on the subject and didn't have an incredibly good reason for not even trying. And the OP still hasn't shared with us what her reasons are.

The OP's DP makes a nice change from the men who don't want their DP's to breastfeed though.

Not true, ErikaMaye.

The OP has disappeared so it is hard to know exactly what her DH is doing but in the OP all she says is that he was "questioning my decision" which made her feel like a terrible person and that he was overshadowing her. It doesn't say that he was saying that she was a terrible person etc.

If there is any strong-arming I would agree but the father of a child certainly has the right (I would say duty) to question decisions that affect his child.

Mothers are not infallible and sometimes a bit of pressure (the right kind of pressure obviously) to do something might be a very good thing.

I strongly believe that this is something the OP and her DH need to have a long hard - and informed - discussion on before she makes a decision.

OP could you compromise and give the baby a feed post birth so that it gets the colostrum and then move to FF if you feel like it?

Would your husband be happy with that? The first few feeds really are very quick and easy and you may not feel under so much pressure if you know he will support you formula feeding afterwards.

Frankly I would think far less of my husband if he were not the least bit concerned how I fed our children.

My Mother told me I wasnt allowed to stop b feeding my dd, but shes a nutter!

I dont know what your reasons are but as long as you make an informed decision, and even knowing the facts you still feel the same then people should support you in that.

KembleTwins - you say (rightly, I think) that mumsnet is unlikely to say to the OP that it doesn't matter if she breastfeeds or formula feeds and to go for formula without a second thought (I'm paraphrasing a bit...). Why is this considered to be a 'balanced view', though .

The 'balanced view' - that is, the one that is not extreme and uses facts rather than knee-jerk judgements - is surely the one that's been most prevalent: that the decision is an important one, that infant feeding does matter, and any decision to ff with no bf at all deserves careful consideration. There should be no pressure, and no criticism, but grown up people on a grown up forum can be encouraged to get more information and to have a discussion, and to take into account the views of their partner as part of the decision.

That, I think, is balance

tiktok - not entirely sure what you're getting at. By "balanced" view, I meant the ability to see that there are two sides to the issue - on MN feeding forums, any poster is highly unlikely to come across any positives about formula feeding. It was, unfortunately, my experience to find BFing very difficult, to the point that it tipped me into PND. Whilst the views on this board do indeed present the collective opinion that a decision about feeding a newborn must be taken after a large amount of careful consideration, most then go on to imply that the "correct" decision is to BF. This may not be what the OP decides, for whatever reason, and she should therefore be supported in that. The pressure I felt to "succeed" at BFing my twins was immense, and came from everywhere. Telling someone who hasn't even given birth yet, that not BFing her baby will almost certainly have a serious and detrimental affect on its health is NOT balanced. After all, if you go back a few years, BFing was discouraged by health professionals, and yet we've all managed to be here, which means that our mothers/grandmothers also managed to survive, even if they weren't BF.

I don't think many of the posts on here offer a balanced view, given the OP.

KembleTwins, I understand what you mean. I think most of the posts here do acknowledge there are two sides to the issue - in fact, the concern is the OP is only seeing one Most posts accept it is her decision, that she is entitled to have the trump card, but the concern is that she is not taking a 'balanced' view and there are some attempts to put one...and some suggesting a 'compromise' of 'try it and see what happens' or 'try it once' etc.

Haven't seen any posts which say ff will 'almost certainly have a serious and detrimental affect on the baby's health' ...no one is saying that, are they?

I would agree that would be unbalanced!

"thisisyesterday Mon 07-Sep-09 18:51:36

many people seem to view it as being that artificial feeding is fine, but breastfeeding is better.

that isn't the case. breastfeeding is the norm, and artificial feeding carries many risks

The health consequences - twice the risk of dying in the first six weeks of life, five times the risk of gastroenteritis, twice the risk of developing eczema and diabetes and up to eight times the risk of developing lymphatic cancer ? are staggering."

and don't be fooled into thinking that this is just in developing countries because it isn;t. the risks of formula feeding are the same in the developed world. (the risks in third world countries are worse due to water issues etc)"

This isn't balanced. This is the kind of thing I was told when I was pregnant. I couldn't move in hospital without seeing a "Breast is Best" poster, and so it was pretty inevitable that when I had problems feeding my twins, I felt an enormous amount of pressure NOT to FF. As a consequence, I missed out on a great deal in the first few months, due to PND.

But its true.

I appreciate what you mean but it would be deeply patronising and insulting to women's intelligence to fail to present the facts, just to even out the pros/cons list. Don't you agree?

KembleTwins - you had a rotten experience and I am sad for you

The facts are as in your quote from thisisyesterday, though. The quote does not say formula is 'almost certain to have a serious and detrimental affect on health'. It lists the comparison stats of bf and ff and they are correct.

My personal feeling, however, is we need to be careful about reeling off the health stats about infant feeding, and to be sensitive about it. For example, a baby may well increase his risk of having serious condition/illness X by being formula fed. But if serious condition X is rare in the first place, he will almost certainly not experience it. So that prob needs to be made clear.

The mainstream view is that in the West, infant health and well-being is only very marginally affected, if at all, by feeding. Not true. It's a hard message to hear when you have wanted to bf, I know

I mean, the facts don't change. They are still true even if we are unaware of them.

I think it does women and babies an enormous disservice to ignore the facts because to present them is seen as somehow not 'balanced'.

I think breastfeeding is a small thing to do that makes such a difference to your child's welfare and I think people who won't even try are selfish. Buying a pushchair or using a certain washing powder is not doing the best for your baby, it is just making an informed choice that really requires naff all effort on your part. You make baby milk naturally! Why in God's name would you want to give your precious child milk made for baby cows and then modified into something for a human?

You should be thrilled that your partner is taking such and interest and is so concerned.

I can understand your partners desire to try to encourage you to change your mind. I would do the same in his shoes.

You do have the final say-so ultimately as to whether you want to feed your baby, which is what it is supposed to be fed.

I personally don't agree with your choice and think you are being selfish by making your decision before your baby arrives and you've even tried it, but there you go, just my opinion.
If once you've tried it, you still think you'd rather not, then that's your choice, but to not even try....

Just to remind people - there are sometimes very deep reasons why someone really does not want to bf.

I have come across women who were sexually abused, and for whom any breast contact is horribly frightening and stress making. Or there are women with such powerful 'body issues' for other reasons, they cannot cope with the idea of anyone seeing them use their body, even to bf.

We can't see inside someone's head or know their history. So calling women 'selfish' without knowing this background is unfair and unkind.

Happy breastfeeding can be very healing of body issues, of course, and help women become confident and strong. Women who fear bf need to know this, too.

But enough with the 'selfish' stuff already, eh?

AuntyFlo, you poor, poor thing. The very last thing you need is pressure from anyone. The very fact that you're posting about it shows that you will be a loving, caring mother - and that matters a gazillion times more than breastfeeding or not breastfeeding. Feed your baby in the way you choose and in the way that makes you comfortable and happy. Having a baby is difficult enough without people pressurising you, however good their motives!

Good luck...