Breastfeeding makes me feel depressed - am I the only person who feels like this?

[feedingfailure]

I fed my first DC til 6 months, it was a horrible struggle and I hated every minute of it tbh.

Just started feeding DC2 and already I feel the same. When I get a letdown I actually get a feeling of depression that sweeps all over me. I thought breastfeeding is supposed to release oxytocin and that's supposed to feel good? Why do I feel like this about it??

Challenges of establishing feeding aside I just actually abhor breastfeeding. I feel like it stops me bonding with the baby, because I hate it so much and dread doing it.

Am I the only person who feels like this? I talk to people who tell me how much they love breastfeeding and I have just never felt like that. I do it because I have to but in my heart it is not the way I want to feed my baby, I fantasis about formula feeding.

Hi Feedingfailure (i dont like calling you that)- I had exactly the same thing with DS1- I lasted till 6 weeks and then after a good chat with my HV made the decision to go onto formula. Felt horribly guilty as everyone I know managed to BF their DCs and I always assumed I would do the same but I have to say I felt an enormous feeling of relief once I started bottle feeding. I was happier, DS was happier because I was happier and we bonded much more when I stopped feeling a wave of dread and nausea every time he woke up.

I cant tell you what you should do but whatever you decide will be what is best for YOU and YOUR baby. And remember you also need to look after yourself!

If it reassures you, DS is now a thriving, healthy, happy 2 year old (with just the one head despite FF).

"Could you set yourself a cut-off date with DC2 if you are worried about perceived health benefits etc? You don't say how old DC2 is, but maybe saying "right, I'm stopping at 6 weeks" would give you a little light at the end of the tunnel."
BeerTricksPotter this is exactly what I did - managed to make it to 6 weeks, switched to ff and my world got brighter!
Absolutely agree with previous posts about happy mums being better than bf if that is your choice.
I made it to 6 weeks with the support of a great hv and my dh. I could only feed on one side and the other side was unbearably painful (flat nipple, not to do with latching on, to do with 'internal stretching' - TMI!!), so just made it to 6 weeks expressing on painful side. This was more bearable because I could control the force of the 'sucking' to just about what I could bear.
Absolutely recognise the sinking feeling when she woke!
All of my NCT group are still bf now (6m), and I sometimes feel the odd pang of guilt, but then I just have to look at how happy and contented my dd is.
Please don't feel you are failing, you have done so well to get this far .
Good luck!

Hey, don't struggle with BF depression, that's not a good place to be, feeling sad when feeding your baby. If it's not for you then don't feel guilty for a moment about changing to bottles. A happy mummy makes a happy baby and all that...

FF babies are just fine. Do you hear? Just Fine!

I had this with DD, plus major nipple rot which just added to my resentment.
I locked myself away, when she cried I cried knowing I would have to do it again.

I was diagnosed with PND when dd was 4 weeks. I always put my breastfeeding resentment down to PND, maybe I should have put them the other way round.

Alot of mine was down to severe pain and feeling like a failure, I went onto expressing which produced hardly any milk, and then it turned into blood. I stopped in the end as I was close to breaking point (think I may have already broken to be honest).

Dreading it this time, but will be trying again.

I blame breastfeeding for my depression.

I never felt this crap when I FF my other DC.

This is fascinating, I wonder if i had this. BFing DS made me feel anxious, irritable, sad, kind of antsy and like I was trapped. Very interesting. I made it to 6 months because I didn't fancy the guilt I would have felt at not managing till then, but I was SO glad to stop. Much happier now. I doubt I'll make it to 6 months with the next one.

And I was looking forward to it and thought I would love it, my mum did!

What an interesting thread. I do wonder if I also suffer from this to an extent as I absolutely loathe and detest breastfeeding. I know a lot of this is down to having a baby (and the previous one) that is very very difficult to feed and all the associated pain and frustrations, but I think it goes deeper tbh.

Both times now I have reached the point pretty quickly where all I want the baby to do is sleep because that way I know they don't need feeding. In both cases I knew when I reached the point when I dreaded them waking up it was time to release the pressure and stop forcing myself to b/f exclusively. Both times I have become an absolute hormonal nightmare - horrifically tired all the time and with the worst PMT symptoms in the world. I really don't think my marriage would survive me exclusively b/f for any length of time.

First of all I'm really glad you've had a nice breastfeeding experience. It's also nice to know that not all breasfeeders are so judgmental about people not breastfeeding. I'm still going at over 5 months (and have finally resorted to pumping, other than at breakfast when she's sleepy. I also recently started giving some supplementary formula milk because the baby was hungry). My baby has always been fussy and had a lot of wind. The experience is only sweet when she's drinking calmly and not fighting the breast - she really prefers drinking from the bottle and to be honest I feel more confident she's getting enough when I can see how much she's drinking.

I've read some blogs about people persisting and persisting with breastfeeding and have been appauled some have stuck with it, despite their baby's weight falling further and further down the chart. Why is it perceived to be such a healthy thing to do when the baby isn't gaining enough weight. If they get sick, they simply won't have any reserves. I resent all the pressure about breastfeeding and I personally don't enjoy it much; feeling stressed and a bit sad when doing it.

I have only persisted because it may decrease my baby's likelihood of getting allergies, otherwise she would have been on the bottle from the start. A good friend of mine practically grew up in the Swiss mountains and was breastfed for a year; she has the worst allergies of anyone I know. There's very little reliable evidence to say that it will even make a difference. I'm saying this because my friend who's a doctor told me that, not because it suits me. And by the way, she was personally pressurised to breastfeed despite the fact she had triplets. No one should be forced to become a cow(!). A happy and healthy mother is really better than someone who feels like a wrung-out dishcloth. I lost my pregnancy weight in 2 weeks and proceeded to lose another 7 kilos despite eating and drinking a lot...that sounds great, but it's absolutely not healthy.

Sara - cows are not the only mammals to make make milk - you might as well have said she was forced to become a giraffe! And, yes I completely agree no mother should be compelled to bf if they do not want to.

New to Mumsnet so only just found this thread when I searched and I'm so glad to have read it. It's great to know that there are others out there who are not loving the whole breastfeeding experience. I had a rough start with my first baby (he was poorly, jaundiced and wouldn't latch on for ages) and never got to exclusively BF and ended up combination feeding (topping up with formula) for about 4 months and felt such huge guilt and disappointment. When I finally started exclusively FFing I felt better. I have always assumed this was because this was closure and I was not being constantly reminded about how I had "failed" each time I BF him. Now I am EBF DC2 and 4.5 months in I still feel depressed and find feeding boring and stressful as I do wonder if she is getting enough especially in the evenings when I can never tell if she is overly tired or simply still hungry when she cries at the breast. Now I wonder if it is the breastfeeding itself that is making me depressed and anxious. Like others I feel pressure to BF from health professionals and media AND from my mother (though she has never directly put pressure on me) as she successfully fed all 5 of us. Yet I know that DC1 did absolutely fine on formula. I can't help comparing experiences and it does not help that DC2 is still all over the place at night sometimes feeding up to 4 times whereas, of course, DC1 slept through the night much sooner. I really don't do well on sleep deprivation. I am planning to introduce some formula at 6 months (have to return to work soon after) and have to say that I am now longing for that day and also fantasise about FF when am up all night feeding. Thanks for making me realise I am not alone.

I felt like this with DD1. I dreaded each feed and felt so depressed and sad. I stuck it out to 13 weeks and then stopped for my own sanity. Things got so much better after that! I'm planning to feed again this time around, but will stop if I feel like that again. Mind you I agonised over the decision to stop for weeks, I cried lots over it, but it had to happen.

Also meant to add, I thought what I was feeling was normal! I couldn't understand how some people fed babies to 6 months and beyond! I'm so glad to read this thread and realise that it's not supposed to be that way.

You don't have to breast feed. It's not working for you.

If you fantasise about formula, do it. There is no shame in that.

I was the same but threw the towel in at 6 weeks.

I'd got over the initial pain and intense let down that had me crying and he fed well but it was too constant and I hated it. I happily sterilized etcetera, easy in comparison.

Hi
I hated breastfeeding - almost to the point of revulsion. I did it for 3 weeks with my first DS , hated every moment. In the end I stopped as it was making me miserable and , as my husband pointed out, 'we didn't have a child to make you cry '
My second DS was bottle fed from the beginning.
I didn't have a problem with this as my mental health was my main priority - far better for a baby to be bottle fed and have a happy mother than a breast fed baby and a totally miserable mother .
I was much happier when I made the decision to stop , and it did not stop me bonding with my children.
Both my sons are healthy teenagers now and we are very close. I made the right decision for me.

Though it's sad to read about so many people out there having such a negative experience it is also reassuring to know this is not so uncommon after all. Every woman's experience is different. I have kept on going thinking there would be a point where it would suddenly become a pleasurable happy experience. There is so much pressure on women to breastfeed now and it's not surprising we feel a failure when we cannot or do not want to when such an emphasis is put on it. I personally have really strong views that things have already gone too far in this direction (don't get me started on that one) and have seen friends struggle on through depression, bleeding nipples, toxic mastitis etc all because the health professionals could not bear to concede that formula feeding may be a better alternative. The hardcore breastapo / lactavists drive me mad endlessly citing scientific reports which are increasingly being shown to be statistically flawed anyway. Formula is not poison. Pretty sure it saves lives too!

Devondumpling - please don't hijack the thread with straw men. There was no judgement in this thread until you started using words like breastapo. No one pressured anyone and no one said formula was poison.

As Tiktok and other said, what the op describes is treatable if she wants to go down that road. Or as lots of pps said, switching to formula instead is doable if she wants to go down that road.

Either way, it's her decision, but it's not helped by you turning it into yet another bf vs. ff argument.

I felt exactly the same with my dd who is now 3, every time I bf her I'd feel overwhelmed with depression and anxiety & just want to cry, I thought I was a freak because everyone else said bf made them feel so happy & relaxed! I never produced much milk despite having her on & off me for 3 hours solid quite often during those first 3 weeks to try & stimulate production, plus she never managed to latch on properly, then she would just take a few sucks and fall asleep again! I tried pumping as well but like I say only produced a little bit of milk, felt like a total failure as a mother which obviously didn't help the feelings of depression!

When she was 3 weeks old she'd lost a lot of weight & had got jaundiced, I was also a wreck by this point & heading for PND. She was only 6.6 when born anyway so by this point she looked utterly scrawny & just screamed & screamed as she was so hungry all the time. My midwife & hv both said if she didn't gain weight quickly she'd need to go back into hospital, so at this point we switched to formula. I tried my best, I had lots of support, but it just didn't work out for us unfortunately. As soon as dd was feeding well on formula all was well & the feelings of depression started to go, she started to thrive and I felt happy and content and we still bonded, just a few weeks late, which still makes me sad now, we're extremely close & like two peas in a pod now : ) But I'll always worry and feel guilty that I haven't been able to give her the headstart healthwise that bf is said to provide & formula doesn't, if we had another child in the next couple of years I think I'd try to bf, but if the same thing happened switch to formula sooner next time, I can honestly say those first 3 weeks were the hardest & unhappiest of my life. I have friends who have had similar experiences so I know I wasn't alone, but at the time I thought I was this madwoman not natural or normal feeling so depressed & anxious because of breastfeeding!

I get something similar, a rush of anxiety when my letdown occurs.

Really interesting thread...thanks for sharing your stories. I feel that bf was first sold to me as a bit of a fairytale (so easy, amazing bonding, etc) which isn't realistic. And although some women may experience these highs, it's not fair to set those expectations for everyone. I've fared much better as a second time breastfeeder by simply accepting it for what it is. At times I feel bored and a bit frustrated, but (so far) never anxious or depressed.
I've bonded equally with my two DC (one completely FF from 3 weeks, one fully BF still at 10 weeks.) My oxytoxin kicks in when I hold my DCs after feeding - that's when I have felt most connected to them. Feeding mode doesn't even really figure - what matters is that they have full tummies and are relaxed. We often say "happy mum=happy baby", but the reverse applies too.

Beabea, please don't feel worried about not giving your DD a 'headstart' - the push to increase bf rates is only likely to influence health at a macro population level. It matters not one jot for us as individuals. Our genes and lifestyle choices are much more influential factors. x

I was coming on to post exactly the same thing. I liked it at first but nearly 9 weeks in and I hate ot. Have been crying today, so fed up with constant feeding, dreading the next feed, cluster feeding every night, using me as a dummy. I know it's all normal and I know I'm lucky to be able to feed him. Just hate it.

No idea what keeps me going. Maybe the money saving or what others may think.

:(