Failure at breastfeeding with 2 children, feel guilty

[Failure]

Please help, i have two daughters who i adore but due to an infectiona and her tongue being too short i could not feed her and the second was in SCBU and though feeding i became infected and feeding was agony and also got a womb infection and UTI to which apparantley becuase of my blood type etc i am very susceptible. I want to give my children the start i never had (my mam wasn't interested as i was a MISTAKE as she put it) but haven't been able to do so. Even though my youngest is 1 i still feel terribly guilty

Failure - do not feel guilty. My dd ( 6 mths) came along and I had the best of intentions to breast feed. Unfortunately like your second she spent three weeks of her life in SCBU. Then due to a congenital heart defect that needed surgery - they would not allow her to feed via breast or bottle - she has to be fed via a nasal gastric tube as she just did not have the energy and it would be too much strain on her heart. I was unable to even express for her - my milk just did not come - lots of reasons for that. At 8 weeks she had to have heart surgery and was finally strong enough to feed properly. However by this time - no milk coming from me and so she was bottle fed.

On the odd occasion I have wondered about breast feeding ( especially as sil breastfed neice - 2 mths older than dd) BUT i realised that it all comes down to you doing the best you can at the moment you are in. Formula milks have come a long way and your babies have not suffered because of your circumstances.

So put that guilt behind you and enjoy your children - as long as they are happy and putting on weight and satisfied - you have done a good job!!!

Failure - change your name immediately
Not breastfeeding does not make you a failure.
Breastfeeding is great for babies but in the great scheme of what makes a good mother it is WAY down the list so stop worrying and enjoy those babies.

No, no, no, no - breastfeeding can be an absolute bugger to establish, even if everything has gone brilliantly for you and your child. You have had to deal with all sorts of additional traumas - so do not beat yourself up about this. Life is too short! Millions of kids haven't been breastfed and are doing just fine! You're not a failure, you're a mum who faced circumstances beyond her control. Enjoy your kids, enjoy being a mum and do not worry about breastfeeding.

FAILURE???!!!! No way, no way, no way. I agree with everyone else, especially Jasper in calling for an immediate name change. I suggest: Success, fabbo, muminamillion, superstar. Your kids are incredibly lucky to have a caring, loving mum like you. And if you are rewriting the parenting script because you didn't have such an easy ride at the hands of your own mum then you should feel all the prouder. In the general scheme of things breast feeding is a shedload of pants when compared to parental love and affection. I know that sounds trite but I honestly believe that. Welcome to mumsnet, by the way. Please stay and let us convince you that you're fab.

You MUST NOT feel guilty - you did the best you could at the time. I agree with everyone else that the most important thing you can do for your children is love them. Definately change that name.

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Don't!!!! You are not a failure!! You have the rest of your childrens lives to show just how excellent a mother you are. Feeding them is only a tiny, tiny aspect of being a mother. feeling guilty about not being able to breast feed is like feeling guilty if you can't russle up cordon bleu food! What matters is that you love them. Everyone has things that they can't /don't like to do, and that is what makes us individuals. I couldn't hack b/f (I did try quite hard), and my kids are just fine, and they even manage to love their mad, disorganised mum It is the love that counts, don't beat yourself up.

Failure (what a name!!?).... you have 2 very valid reasons for not being able to breastfeed so you mustn't beat yourself up about it! When my ds was born I was full of good intentions to breastfeed. I hadn't even bought one bottle or a steriliser.... I didn't bank on it being SO difficult. Ds didn't take to it and was soon so distressed and hungry. The hospital would not give me a bottle even just to calm him down to try breastfeeding again. As a result, I began to dread feeding times and the midwives ALWAYS had to intervene to get him to latch on properly. By day 4 I was very distressed, ds was starving, I was sore and by breasts were engorged so I called it a day. I felt so terribly guilty and a total failure. Asthma runs in my family so I was especially keen to bf. It didn't work out for me, but despite that I have a bouncning and healthy 19mth old ds.

You are not a failure at all. Breastfeeding is not the only way to nuture your children. And your dd's will never actually remember how you fed them anyway. It sounds like you have had to face a lot of problems already, and overcome them, and you obviously care hugely about your kids. Stop beatng yourslef up about the one thing you didn't manage to do (although it is actually the babies that weren't able to do it - not you) and start focussing on all the things you have been able to do for you.
And you are allowed to make one more post under this name - to tell us what you are changing it to.

I always wonder what the advice will be in 10 years time... ie will the advice switch and we will all be told that latest figures show breastfeeding isn't the be all and end all. And as has already been said breastfeeding isn't the only way to care for your children. Personally I feel guilty that I couldn't have vaginal birth as I have read in several articles that it does various goods for the baby to have the final journey/push etc etc so you are not alone wishing you could be the perfect mother... just glad that we have healthy happy children in comparison to a lot of children out in the world.

I tried to breast feed both my DS's but gave up both times after a few days.
I haven't got inverted nipples but they are quite flat and my areola(spelt wrong I think, but I mean the dark bit) are also huge so firstly there wasn't much pointy-out nipple to suck and secondly I couldn't fit the areola into the babes mouth as this is what the midwife said I had to do.
I'm expecting again now and will try again but after 2 healthy children virtually exclusively bottle fed I won't woory if it doesn't work.
Don't beat your self up over it, as it's been said before nurturing your babies is done in lots of ways not just BF and I'm sure you're doing a brilliant job.
Ohh and PLEASE change that name!

I have lots of lovely memories of childhood, spending time with my mum, playing at home, going to the park etc etc. I can't remember anything about being fed as a baby. I was bottlefed (and sadly, my mum still feels bad about this) but I don't feel deprived - and neither will your daughters. They have your love and that is what matters.

I agree with what all the others have said. I wasn't able to breasfeed and felt terribly guilty about it, so I can sympathise with how you feel. My ds is now 2 and I thought I had come to terms with it, but a couple of months ago I came across a Mumsnet thread on the subject and completetly over-reacted as all the hurt feelings came flooding back. I did feel better after I'd got all off my chest, and I hope you are now feeling a lot happier about it too. What everyone has said is true. There are far more important things you can do for your children and you have no need at all to feel guilty.

Just to echo everyone else's comments, please, please don't feel 'guilty' about this, I just wonder if anyone is making you feel like this, are you getting any negative comments from so-called friends?

MAM - don't feel guilty about the vaginal birth thing either (have you seen the 'too posh to push thread'?)

Totally agree with everything said in this thread. I really and perservered through hell to feed my ds (now 3.5). I have 2 inverted nipples both of which simply did not function quickly enough for ds who had to literally suck hard to pull each one out before getiing to the milk. I lasted 4 months and it got slightly better for the last two weeks but I felt so guilty about formula especially with guilttrippers in the NCT. The pain is incredible! I struggled in the same manner with dd (now 16m) gave up after about 1 month but needed my GP to persuade me to give up even then - the guilt is just terrible and it doesn't seem to go away - breast is best but what do you do if it simply to painful ar impossible to feed. It does feel a little silly when I watch ds munching chicken nuggets in McD's but I doubt that NCT mums would go there either!

Just to add to what all the others have said - welcome to Mumsnet and change your name at once! All that matters is that you love your girls and given you had a less than brilliant example to follow, you are clearly doing a fantastic job. Please try not to feel guilty - when they are all romping round the toddler group, can you honestly tell which are the ones who were breastfed? But you can really spot the ones lucky enough to have a mum who wants the best for her children.

This is so sad. Yes, breast is best, but being a good mother is best of all. Nothing in the world beats a loving mother. There so much guilttripping in the world regarding babies and babycare. You did your best, you couldn't do more. Your children have a FANTASTIC start in life because you clearly love them so much. I wonder if you might be depressed. You sound as if this is really upsetting you a great deal. I don't know a lot about PND but some of the contributors to this site know a lot more and might be able to help if your feelings about this are hard to cope with. You would have every reason to have difficult issues given your mother who sounds, frankly, awful.
Mam - there is also research that c-section babies have some advantages, such as feeling less pain in later life and, some say, being easier to comfort and more serene. But other than that, no difference. Certainly no difference in adulthood, and we all spend a lot more time being adults than babies.

Please don't feel guilty about it. As already said there is so much more to being a good mummy than whether you breastfeed or not. I tried to bf DD but stopped after 6 weeks. It took me this long to realise (and overcome the guilt trip) that breast feeding was not best for my little girl. I produced very little milk at all (due to being very anaemic it would seem) and DD was starving and not getting much at all (even though she was perfectly latched on, etc.)

MAM - I didn't have a vaginal birth either. I ended up with an emergency cs after failed induction. I refuse to feel guilty about that too.

In both cases I did what was in the best interests for my baby at the time.

Totally agree with all the mums here. I breast fed, but it was bloomin' hard work! The number of times I nearly gave up are too many to count. However, I was never breast fed, and I grew up fine! You don't need an excuse not to breast feed, and any decision you make/made is one that you made because of reasons, not excuses. DO NOT FEEL GUILTY. I always told anyone who asked that I was going to try to b/f, but if it didn't work, I would not beat myself up over it. I realise the reasons behind midwives and health people pushing b/f nowadays, but I did begin to feel a bit pressurised before my ds was born. Yes, it is the 'natural' feeding method, but I believe that it is important for the mother to be happy too, otherwise how can you concentrate on bonding with your baby?

You said it yourself, you adore your two girls...that will be apparent to them, and no amount of breast milk will replace that!

Please, please don't feel guilty. I echo everyone else here when I say, change your name!!! I also understand some of the guilt, I didn't have any of the problems that you had but still struggled to feed DS1, now that I am feeding DS2 I realise I should have given up with DS1 much earlier than I did (limped on partially feeding to 16 weeks), he wasn't happy and neither was I.

Please stop beating yourself up over this. As others have said in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, I was bottlefed and it doesn't matter two hoots to me now as an adult.

Tiktok posted a link a while ago to a great website to help mums who haven't been able to feed. I think it was on a PND thread, I'll see if I can find it.

Here is there PND thread, part of it discusses b/feeding guilt. Here is the site recommended by Tiktok. All the best!