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.

OP - no way would I ever judge anyone who bottle feeds! I BF dd1 and dd2, and ff dd3. For my own personal reasons. Is there any difference in their health etc.? No, not that I can tell! Please don't worry about this one - there is SO much more to parenting than how the dc is fed.

Merle - what usualsuspect said. Get over yourself and get a life!

Thank you Titty. Perhaps bf mums do feel different, but is what they feel better? Do they relate to their child better, do they mother them better? Nah, I can't see that. My early weeks and months with dd were pretty blissful and not once did I think "if only I'd stuck with the bf I would have felt better about all this". I was proud of what I'd achieved anyway, just by having dd. I grew confident as a mum anyway, being able to bf or not wasn't something I measured my confidence as a "good mum" against.

And I was very much go with the flow and dd-led. She dictated her routine, not me and she didn't need to bf to be able to do that. Would she have found bf more pleasurable - I can't answer that, she didn't seem to in the early days. But she was certainly a very contented little girl who only cried if she were hungry and was a good sleeper.

And as for her mental health now (and I know this is anecdotal v research), she's happy, well behaved and has never had a tantrum, even as a toddler.

So while I can see what bf meant to you, I still can't see why you feel pity for me. I loved my first year with dd.

Hang on! Op asked a question. Does she only want warm and fuzzy answers or a bit of honesty.

I have given "a bit of honesty." Which is, that my FF dd is just as happy, adjusted, healthy, bonded and gorgeous as my BF dd's. I say this 9 years on so perhaps have a bit of perspective on it

Out of the 6 mums from my Antenatal group, Only 2 managed to start BF and only 1 carried on after 6 weeks - so dont be hard on yourself!

I wish it was made clearer in antenatal classes that BF is not as natural as we are led to believe & that it can be difficult to get started. It would save a lot of new Mums from self-imposed guilt & the feeling that they had (wrongly) failed their baby.

In my Fab DGM (RIP) words

"Each to their own"

"..Does she only want warm and fuzzy answers or a bit of honesty"

She's already said thanks for the comments, fuzzy, brutal or otherwise:

"But thanks for not pulling punches. That is why it's better to ask advice online sometimes as people just won't tell you in real life."

I was referring to people who were being rather rude to Merle.

She was told to "get over herself". Which is rather an objectionable thing to say on a thread that has asked a specific question.

well said yomojo i completely agree that more people would succeed if women were made more aware that it is not as natural and easy as is made out to be.
That it is normal to have problems and that perseverance is normally? the key....
Posters of smiling mummys breastfeeing content babies may be the ideal but isn´t usually the norm!! well not to start with i would say... (Feel free to flame me if i´m wrong as i don´t BF)

I have fed through mastitis which was so agonising it made me cry every feed and dealt with an oversupply so abundant my boobs were agony almost constantly as they felt they were going to explode.

I was determined to continue breastfeeding so I am afraid I do feel rather at women who "tried it" for two days and gave up "because it hurt".

Just because you decided the pain was worth it doesn't mean that everyone else has to do it.

Oh it's horrible and I don't like myself for it but if I see a baby being FF I wonder why. But now I have a baby and know how bloody hard bf is at the start for a myriad of reasons, I don't pity the babies of the mums I know who ff but pretty much all of them tried to bf but it didn't work out. I think it's bloody awful that the support needed isn't available, or even where it is (it's great where I live) women aren't advised to go for help (I've heard HV's in baby clinic advising mums to switch to ff with not a single memtion of all the services available to help them carry on BF)
I can't help but judge mums (and there are a few in my family) who just choose not to, particularly for reasons relating to boobs being for sex, and so they can palm the baby off to others to feed from the beginning (again experience from my extended family). But having been there myself if someone gives up because it's too bloody hard then that is an informed decision and as someone has already said, happy mum = happy baby.
My DS has EBM at bed time, and this will soon be a bedtime FF as he's now 6 months and I'm sick of expressing. But, although it can be easier when we go out to take a bottle of EBM do DH can feed and I can relax, I don't like doing this precisely because I think people wil assume my baby is FF. Ridiculous, but I can't help it!

Agreed I think we should be told that it's bloody hard at first, and not just the first few days like I was led to believe. Neither my son nor I got any good at BF till about 8 weeks in. Soon after, however I took a very painful decision to stop because I was spending more time in hospital than out.
At our antenatal class there was a 2nd time mum who talked about the pain she had for the first two weeks. The midwife cut her off with "if it hurts you're doing it wrong". We quietly chuckled at the know it all mum telling us first timers how it was done. But little did we know that she was more accurate than the midwife taking the class!

Yes, I very much hate the "if it hurts, you're doing it wrong" advice. It isn't constructive advice and it isn't even true. Some of my friends went through sheer hell before bf was established, and without support they would have definitely given up. Lack of support is the true culprit in many cases.

"Why shouldn't they?" Because last time I looked, parenting choices were just that. It's hardly feeding them Tizer. Not a day goes by that I don't wish I'd breastfed for longer but that was what I wanted to do. My choice. My son.

I just don't accept that because some people get through the pain/difficulties then everyone "should" be able to. There are so many factors playing a part. I had dd without any pain relief, other than a bit of gas an air in the last hour. But just because I did that I don't believe that others "should" be able to. We're all different.

And I must admit LeonieDelt, I am struggling when you say "Laziness shouldnt factor into it - they're your children, they deserve the very, very best from their mother - which includes the best food, and the hardest and best effort to achieve it." Yet you say you give your child food out of jars.

Can I have a medal for never using jarred food?

I don't want a medal, I'm just stingy (despite using ready made formula). But it's not nice being lorded over.