How did you make your decision?

[CrosswordGeek]

Why did you choose breast or bottle feeding?
Why didn't you choose the alternative?
Do you have any regrets?

Genuine intrigue!

Sleep is very very good. I don't think I really even wake up anymore when DD is hungry in the night, it's so natural and easy to just lift her from her moses basket into my bed and then whip a boob out. I'm literally straight off as soon as she is and generally wake up when she gives me a "huhaaaaaaaaaaaa" when she's finished.

sparklycheerymummy - Totally understand the feeling necessary thing. I suffer with depression and have done for years, and think that BF helped because for once I felt useful. Noone else can do my job for me, for I am Mother, milk machine!

needed, not necessary.... d'oh.

I'd known roughly equal bf and ff mothers - all people whose parenting I admire - so I genuinely thought this through. I was very concerned that DH wouldn't get to share feeding if I bf, but was persuaded by the health benefits. One friend said bf made night feeds much easier and boobs were harder to leave at home than bottles. In the end I resolved to try and for the first few weeks I thought I was doing fine. Unfortunately , DS didn't gain weight and I had to start mix feeding. Any guilt or feelings of failure were quickly outweighed by how much happier and healthier DS was once I started ff.

I've now started dropping bf, down to just a morning feed and that did feel a bit sad, but it has to stop sometime, I suppose.

And, actually, it's still lovely to hug while bottlefeeding.

poinsettydawg my post was sort of in response to CuppaTeaJanice saying that most babies she knows who were exclusively BF have allergies or intolerances. Just saying that's not my personal experience.

hugging while bottle feeding is lovely too.... my dd and i are incredibly close and she was ff. its just down to how you do it and how much attention you give them. for me, just at this moment in time bf is working well and i am enjoying it.... but was gorgeous to see dp giving our little boy a bottle of ebm earlier!!!!

might i just say this is a great post ..... for once noone is ranting about how awful you are if you ff..... we are all being civilised adn friendly.... too often it becomes a barrage of insults if you dare to suggest ff is better for you. I admore us all for being mothers ...... however our babes are fed..... being a parent is about so much more than just that. xxxxxxxxx

For me Breastfeeding was just the normal way to do things, it never really occured to me that i'd do anything else.

but...I expressed for dd for 6 weeks, she was born and 32 weeks and no-one ever really told me I could sucessfully BF her so I didn't really try. Nurses going being my back and giving bottles coupled with disgusting 'support' from the scbu she was in ruined it for us and caused me to feel completly inadequate for 4 years.

With DS ( who was born at 27 weeks ) the support was brilliant, no one ever let on that they thought I wouldn't be able to breastfeed him and oh my God I was determined. It was hard to get it going, really hard but so worth it. It's his birthday today so i have been breastfeeding for a year exactly... I cant see me stopping any time soon, my boy loves his booboo

Its so lovely and i have found the whole bonding experience completly different with DS, i am sure it has something to do with oxytocin.

I wanted the best start for both my children and not bf was never an option.

i wanted to bf and a lot was to to do with mumsnet, especially hunkermunker, and tiktok, and other posters who talked about all things relating to the politics of breastfeeding as well as it providing the best start for a baby.

i also had an excellent midwife who recommended me the 'bestfeeding' book, which was a godsend.

another influence was my degree in which i did my dissertation on the medicalisation of women's bodies, and read a lot of sheila kitzinger's work.

then finally (!) i lost my mum when i was very little, but i read in my baby book that she had breastfed me to a year. that was an extra spur for me to do it somehow.

so i breastfed dd to just over 8 months and am now feeding ds who's 5 weeks. i would like to go to a year with him as i have longer off work this time. i now can't imagine formula feeding or the faff (as i see it) involved, compared to just lobbing a boob out.

I breastfed because there are a lot of allergies and asthma in my family and I hoped to prevent these in my DCs. (Partially successful as I watched my diet too). I also believed it would bring me and babies closer (very true as it turned out), enable us to get out and about and not worry about sterilising bottles, formula going off, stomach problems -- sheer convenience of bfing was a factor. And night feeds were easier with bfing than with faffing around with bottles in the dark. Plus I was a sahm and felt I could commit to it for a long haul, which I did (all were extended bfers). Only two out of five of them ever got an ear infection (and that was one infection for one and two for another, so three ear infections total over the early childhood of five children is not bad) Fifth baby was supplemented for the first few weeks because she seemed to prefer sleeping to feeding, almost got jaundiced, and lost over 10% of her birth weight in the first two weeks. She went on to bfing exclusively after she got the hang of waking up for a feeding and kept bfing until almost 4 yo.

WOW WorszelMummage. I am in awe of you and your efforts. Well done.

I'm far to lazy and cheap to make bottles and it's the best for my baby. I regret not knowing what hell 6 weeks is like but no, I have no regrets I love the fact he's my angel and has a special bond with his momma.

LoveFeedingNowWouldHaveGivenADifferentAsnwerAt6WeeksTiggaxx

Never occurred to me not to bf.Even though my doctors told me I probably wouldn't manage it due to fatigue (have got M.S. which is at peak point for relapse following childbirth)

Fast forward 2 weeks after dd1 had chewed my nipples up, refused to feed,lost weight and I dreaded every feed.

Dh gave her formula whilst I cried on the bathroom floor.

Dd2- had blood transfusion after MROP and was in hospital 5 days. Her first feed was formula from a cup (I had given permission for my sister to bf her but the midwife said No)

Everytime I bf ed my iron levels dropped again and it was longer and longer in hospital. Shame cos she was a good feeder.

Haven't read the whole thread but in response to the OP:

1. I wanted to bottle feed because I thought I would feel like a cow + I always got embarassed seeing women breastfeeding.

I did however end up breastfeeding because my NCT course included a breastfeeding class so I thought let's give it a go, there's no harm in trying.

1. I did keep bottle feeding in mind but once I started breastfeeding I didn't want to stop. I was lucky in my DS knew exactly what to do.

1. No never regretted it. Consider it one of the best things I have ever done. I have never felt the same sort of serenity as when giving a good feed.

I bf because I do believe its the natural thing to do and also the easiest.

DS1 was hard and I stopped at 4 months as basically wanted my body back - so I do understand that feeling.

DS2 bf for a year.

DD am still bf her at 5 months but will stop at a year.

I do it because its natural and easy especially at night but in all honesty I do find it constraining. I'd like to be able to take DS1 out without DD but thats not an option at the moment. But in the scheme of things its not a huge chunk of my life and her feeding should hopefully lessen once we start weaning in 3 weeks.

I intended to bf DD but was a bit anxious about it - I had a sister who died aged 6 weeks and my mum had always been angry that the dr said DSis was fine on the basis that mum couldn't tell she wasn't eating so I was a bit alarmed about quantities etc and how you tell a baby is healthy.

When DD was born I had difficulty latching her on and was told by the mw that i wasn't making colostrum so needed to ff. I carried on trying to bf for another week but got increasingly miserable and support was non-existent. I asked the mw for help, shr visited 3 days later and said i needed to feed more while watching my nipples bleed. We mixed fed from 1 week but mostly ff, ff only from 4 months.

DS, we had some early hurdles but the support has been amazing (we've moved area). I wish he would occasionally agree to be more than 1ft from the boob at any time but has been ebf for 11.5 weeks now and is fat. I'm losing weight while eating cake and getting sleep. Yum

Bf just seemed obvious to me with DD1, although I was very much "we'll see how it goes" with everything to do with her. I was advised to mix feed from 6 weeks "so she would be used to bottles when I went back to work at 6 months" ( @ that advise now, but it was my only experience with a child, so I listened)... she rejected me fairly soon after and I was onto full bottle by 12 weeks.

DS it just seemed easier. I wasn't going back to work, so no washing bottles, making up feeds etc seemed the logical lazy way (same with blw)

DD2 - again, DS worked out so well, seems silly not to do it again.

No regrets - I wouldn't have done it the same with DD1 knowing what I know now, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

DD1 I bf for four months, but gave up due to crippling Postnatal psychosis and all the associated medication and so on. She had a traumatic birth and we had problems getting her going, with the doctors constantly trying to whisk her off to SCBU for a drip, but the midwives stood up for us and she was allowed to have an incubator next to my bed in the ward and just have the canuala in her hand ready for the drip (which she never needed in the end). I pumped and she had expressed milk from a cup for a couple of days, then a lovely midwife sat with us and basically told the baby to stop messing

DD2 is now six weeks and feeding beautifully When I "wap them out" I think of all the messing about when DD1 was FF and feel so glad. No trace of mental health problems this time, and am determined to make it to a year at least, if only to wind up people by feeding in public

The best bit of advice I was given was to take it a day at a time, and be pleased with whatever I managed.

So I don't feel that I ever made the decision to bf, I just kept giving it another day (apart from the second week mastitis ) and Tupperbaby is still on the boob at nearly 11 months.

Having seen the hassle that DH goes through with preparation of bottle feeds for Tupperbaby, I'm convinced that I wouldn't have had the patience to go through all that palaver. And it's much more expensive.

The only down side is that nursing underwear looks horrible, even through clothes.

Too much lurking on this board when I was pregnant with DS helped me understand the politics of breastfeeding and I was determined that I would breastfeed.

DS was low birth weight (4lbs 6ozs) and the reason was not clear, establishing feeding was tough, but knowing I was fattening him up when I hadn't grown him properly on the inside felt good.

As we went along there were obviously plenty of other benefits, particularly convenience.

I have just stopped feeding DS at 12 months and have loved feeding him over the last year.

My family all breastfed, my friends I met antenatally all BF so it never really occurred to me not to with DS1.
With the other 2 my innate laziness came into play and having done a peer support course I knew more about the health/bonding and had enjoyed BF so no question.

oh and no. No Regrets.
My only regret is only nursing DS1 to 12months. The other two are still going.

They have changed the rules now with ff haven't they? I can't imagine getting up several times a night to make up a bottle, so I don't understand people saying ff is lazy - it looks loads harder! Also what do you do if the baby looks like they are hungry, so you make a feed, then they have two sucks and fall asleep or just refuse more? I have a very indecisive DD2, if I had got up in the night to boil a kettle, cool it, make up the feed and then gave it to her and she had two sucks I would be having words

One of my main reasons for deciding to BF DD2 was that I have a nearly 3 year old girl who is just learning about differences between men and women, and I wanted her to learn that boobs are for feeding, not for men. She was only fed to 4 months, so she won't remember. Also I had sections with both kids and BF makes me feel back in control, if that makes sense.

I have an electric breast pump this time, which is ace. 10 minutes or so pumping and I have enough for two feeds or so, which can give me a good amount of time to leave the baby with grandparents while I do tidying or have a nap or whatever, but I find the sterilising a ballache so I wouldn't do well FF!