Would you bf if there were no proven health benefits?

[dorisbonkers]

Hypothetical question of course, but would you bf even if there was no proven health benefits.

I've been feeding on demand for 19 months and it's not all been plain sailing (by any means) but I think I would. It's shaped how I've parented my daughter in her early months, to an extent.

Sorry, I don't mean this as an insensitive question and I don't intend this to turn into a mega ff vs bf thread. I'm genuinely interested. Do we just put ourselves through this (it was mentally quite exhausting and worrying as she was prem and made me obsessional...)

Yes.
Struggled, minorly, at first. But enjoyed.

For no other reason that it made me feel lovely. I felt closer. and remmeber sitting in the rocking chair, bf at 3am thinking that i had never been so happy.

No. I have 2 DCs, failed to BF the first and moved to ff at 8 weeks. 2nd is EBF at 6 mths old. I way prefer ff and bf only for the health benefits. IME, I found ff much easier, thought it was better for bonding (looking into ds' eyes whilst feeding instead of not being able to see dd's face) and found it more liberating. But I know everyone's experience is different.

wasabipeanut are you following Gina Ford by any chance? My SIL expressed every single day so DB could do the first night feed too. I, like others on this thread, fucking hate expressing. She couldn't understand why I didn't do it every day as well, I couldn't understand why she did!

Yes to OP. It's free and you can do it while you sleep.

wasabipeanut you're very lucky if you can express 7oz in 15 minutes. I sat hooked up to the machine for an hour and produced one ounce of milk. I guess that's why a lot of people hate it - if the bottle doesn't fill up quickly then you're wasting precious time that you could be spending doing better things.

Can't remember if I've already replied but yes, I would. Quick, easy, free, great comforter to baby and me, and I'd like to think I've not lugged these great big baps around for the past 24 years for nothing!

of course - many other benefits to bf - time saving, can do whilst busy with other things, no waste....

god yeah, it was LOVELY.
I did it for five years and they were the loveliest times.

With ds1 yes even though it was bloody hard to bf him, because he was allergic to formula. If he hadn't been allergic to formula I would probably have ended up ff as it was so hard to get bf established. Cost would not have come into it as I probably spent more on establishing bf with him than I would have in a year's worth of formula!

With ds2 I would have too because it's so easy, although I might have been more likely to use formula every so often for dh to take him off me.

Absolutely yes. I can't believe how much formula costs!