Do you judge mums who bottle feed?

[babybrian]

I tried to breastfeed, for one reason and another I failed. I am about to start going to baby groups and have worked myself into a bit of a neurotic state.

Tell me, honestly , do you judge mums who bottle feed? My dd is only 8 weeks and I worry people will think I don't love her.

currycrazy and birdsandblossoms I'm sorry, I didn't meant the thread to cause bad feeling. The title probably doesn't help, should have made clear that I am FF and feeling guilty when out with dd.

Lutyens I wholly empathise with your post - the furtive looking around when taking the bottle out. That is how I imagine I will be at the baby group!

Babybrian no need to apologise my children are now 16 and 18 and i dont have to worry about all that stuff anyomre thank God. The cancer and FF thread was just wrong though Enjoy your lovely baby they grow up so so fast [sob]

babybrian, Congratulations on your new DD

This might not be an appropriate suggestion as I have no idea why breastfeeding didn't work out for you, so please ignore my post if this is the case.

As you are still in the early days (8 weeks in), it might be possible to turn things around and sort out the breastfeeding issues.

If this is something you are interested in doing, maybe post a new thread on this board mention Tiktok in the title, she is a proper trained breastfeeding counsellor and gives great advice. If things can be turned around, she will know how.

Whatever you decide no decent person will judge a mother for her feeding choices.

Assuming the mother has been lucky enough to have a real choice. So many mothers have been let down with poor health care professional support and been left to deal with upsetting or painful problems on their own. Hardly a real choice

"I know bottle feeding mothers don't want my pity, but that doesn't stop me feeling it (though I wouldn't express it to them)". But you just did Titty! The health benefits aside, what is it you feel ff's are missing out on?"

I meant - wouldn't say it anywhere outside an internet discussion board where my thoughts on the subject had been asked for!

"what is it you feel ff's are missing out on?"

I don't even know where to begin answering that question in some ways, because it's so complex. I can only tell you how bf affected me as a mother.

I felt that in bf my child I was putting myself physically and emotionally in tune with her in a manner that would have been difficult to achieve any other way. I think breastfeeding mothers feel different - but then you'd expect that because of constantly higher levels of oxytocin and prolactin in their bodies. I think the physical intimacy of breastfeeding affects the way you relate to your child, how you mother them.

I also feel very proud of having overcome the challenges of bf - it's helped me be more confident in myself as a mother. I also like the feeling of self-sufficiency that bf can give you!

As far as babies are concerned I think that bf is hugely pleasurable for babies and small children - probably one of the central pleasures of infancy. It's partly about bf usually being much more 'baby led' than bottle feeding, which is more likely to be done to a schedule and involve less suckling time. BF babies spend more time on the breast, and probably have more skin to skin contact with their mothers over all. I think it's interesting that there have been a few studies recently which seem to show that bf babies appear to have better mental health in childhood. I'm not sure about the quality of all of this research, but this one from the Telethon Institute in Australia recently is worth looking at:
here

LeonieDelt Sometimes women do have genuine problems and reasons they cannot BF even though they have tried. It feels as though you are trying to pick at Lutyens painful decision to stop BF.

I didn't want to go into teh reasons why it didn't work, it just didn't for me. I just wanted an honest opinion from people about judging in public, and appreciate both sides I have been given. I ididn't want an argument that woul;d make people feel bad

LeonieDelt, I understand what you are saying. I picked out some of the statements that have unfortunately stuck in my head. It may not be something that everyone experiences.

The fact is whenever anyone talks about breast-feeding and how much it meant to them, a bit of me dies inside. I wouldn't ask them to stop talking about it of course, because what I feel is my problem frankly. I just wanted to say how hard it was for me to FF and how much of a criminal I felt. This wasn't because of anything someone said to me, it was just the way I felt because of failing to do something so natural.

If I had felt that anyone I met was feeling pity for me or feeling smug because they succeeded where I didn't, I would have either just collapsed in tears or punched them in the face, depending on how sleep-deprived I felt at that particular moment

I must add here that the people who made me feel better about myself were all the professionals! My GP, HV, NCT leader, BF counsellor; they were all gems and really helped me come to terms with my failure to bf an move on.

The people who made me feel judged were ordinary women who didn't have an effing clue.

Interestingly, I felt most comfortable when men were in the room when I was ff as they are just so oblivious to the whole bf connotations, that I would forget too. Shallow or what?

babybrian....
please dont worry...the reason it makes me so so sad is because i just didnt try hard enough and im sure i couldve BF if i had.that is what depresses me..i just gave up at the first hurdle and will always regret it.
I expect you tried harder than me so please do not feel guilty

The long and short of it for me is, no, I do not judge a person who is bottle feeding. However I do judge someone who would never even try to BF at all.

IME the people who judge the worst are either women who haven't yet had children and older women who have forgotten how hard those first months are. I have very rarely felt judged by other mums with young children.

"i just gave up at the first hurdle and will always regret it"

You gave up 'at the first hurdle' because in your heart you probably felt it didn't really matter that much to your baby, and the reason you felt that is because of the culture you grew up in, in which bf is trivialised and marginalised. I can read a post like yours and think 'there for the grace of god....' because I nearly gave up when my dd was 3 weeks old - struggling with bf and surrounded by people saying 'don't beat yourself up about it'. The only reason I continued was because a) dd rejected formula after a few weeks and so forced my hand and b) my husband was hugely encouraging and supportive. There are lots of people out there who could tell the same story as you.

Lutyens - yes I remember being "one of those" before I had mine, about the subject of dummies.

"Eurgh dummies are soooo disgusting, and common! my children will never have one of those!"

Cue me, baby aged 3 weeks, sobbing to my friend "he just wants to BF/suckle all the time! My nips are falling off!" She promptly went out and got me a dummy and everything got a little bit easier to cope with. It's actually been a great self-soothing tool and life-saver at times.

Walk a mile.

Nope. Different things work for different mothers.

You know, reading this has made me feel better, even the people who say they would judge a little bit. What comes across overwhelmimgly is how every mother just wants to do the best they possibly can for their baby and that's why we agonise so much over all these decisions.

All the people who do breastfeed should feel so proud of themselves. Those who don't, but, like me, tried their best know that we still want to do their best for their babies.

Think I will stick aroun on mumsnet

Leonie - when they get their jabs in particular!

I don't judge parents who ff in general, but if they tell me they are doing it to have a routine then I do, but that is because I judge parents who put routine before bfing I guess.

Sometimes I wonder at the story behind the ff, because it is often a sad one and it is a subject I am interested in. But I usually get upset when people tell me they failed, because what they usually mean is that they have been failed but are internalising it.

"What comes across overwhelmimgly is how every mother just wants to do the best they possibly can for their baby"

That's where I start - that we all do the best we can, based on what we know and what is possible for us as individuals.

Happy mummy does = happy baby IME

I've never felt let-down either, nor did my breasts notice when I stopped feeding.

I don't know if it is relevant to this thread, but I was posted in the Asian sub-continent for many years and I noticed that attitudes to bf are much more strident there. BF is not just the norm, it is the only accepted form of feeding. If anyone chose to ff (rare) the entire society would come down on the couple like a ton of bricks.On the upside, a mum gets sooo much help and support from family, friends, doctors, especially when physical discomfort is becoming an obstacle. I don't know what women who genuinely cannot bf (like me) do; employ a wet nurse perhaps? (Am guessing, genuinely do not know)

Same in Germany. I lived in Frankfurt and one of my local contacts was so sniffy about ff, she talked about it like it was the Devil himself.

I think those very strong attitudes to bf rubbed off on me, which is why it was such a shock to me when my body didn't produce milk. I do think that if I had to fail in bf, I'm glad it was home in the UK where people are less judgemental to your face at least.