Did you deliberatley sabotage your breastfeeding?

[NewYearNewHat]

Am curious. Am bf my toddler still, but I don't want to bf any future children. However, I come from a very pro-bf family so I would feel the pressure.

DH is pro-bf but more along the lines of not seeing any other alternative iykwim. He just sees it as the natural next step and has no idea about bottle feeding/formula etc.

So I was thinking with my next baby I would start out bf and then sabotage it as much as I could, introduce formula/dummy/bottles etc.

Has anyone done the same?

As someone who struggled with breast feeding each of my three dses, I actually find it upsetting that someone would pretend tomhave the difficulties I had, rather than just tell the truth.

Ds1 was jaundiced immediately after birth, was given phototherapy, and when thatndidntnstartnto improve his condition, I was told I HAD to supplement with formula, which destroyed my chances of breastfeeding. Despite hiringnanpump and breaking my heart over trying to re-establish breastfeeding, I failed.

Ds2 was in hospital, labelled as failing to thrive at 6 weeks old - he was exclusively breast fed, and had not even regained his birthweight, having lost 10oz. We were not allowed home until he started to gain weight, which didn't happen until I introduced formula, on the strong advice of the doctors and paediatric ward staff.

Ds3 I mixed fed from the word go, but he only gained weight if given two formula feeds a day, so I only managed to breast feed for 12 weeks.

I had undiagnosed depression at the time, and each failure to breastfeed plunged me into PND.

It is posts that like that from SDTG which encapsulate why I get so pissed off and frustrated with this whole issue.

I have very similar stories to tell, including myself. It seems that so much pressure is piled on that you WILL breast feed, it is BEST and if you don't you are a failure as a mother and a human being, it is not surprising that it becomes so fraught. I had sore and bleeding nipples, could only express about 20 mls and my child was screaming. Of course I gave her a bloody bottle. And anyone who wanted to sit by me and tell me just to work through the pain, in oooo about six weeks you'll be fine, would have got that bottle shoved up their arse.

WHY can't we have a more relaxed attitude - great if you can breast feed, good for your baby, dead convenient, but if you can't don't worry, here is a handy bottle (I used to travel with the ready made up packs and just poured it straight into bottle, no faffing about with heating so was very convenient. Didn't notice daughter complaining as she guzzled it down).

Then maybe we wouldn't have women who feel they have to lie to their families if they don't want to breast feed. And maybe if the pressure is off, some of us who found it difficult might have been able to have another go.

the fact is you feel pressured about feeding,and that's not right
if you'd posted you were pressured to top up or ff,people would pile in to support
you feel pressured to bf,thats a real shame.confide in hv.get some support.best wshes

When I was breastfeeding my DS2 when he was very little, I actually considered doing things to make my milk dry up so I would have an excuse to stop. I thought it would be easier to give bottles and maybe he would wake less. I didn't as I wanted to do my best by him and as it turns out he's a great sleeper and I am so glad I don't have to fuss about making bottles and sterilising.

This is odd. OP - do you get that past the first couple of weeks, until you get to 6 months, formula feeding is actually harder work? You don't just have an ever ready supply of milk, you have to sterlise bottles, boil the kettle, leave it to cool for 30 minutes, then make up the bottle, let it cool to a drinkable tempurature. In total, it takes about 45 minutes prep. Fine when you are post 6 months, the baby only really needs 3 bottles a day, none in the night and has a schedule, but for the first few months, this rules formula feeding mothers' lives. Or not, they just 'cheat' and risk their baby's health by not making bottles up properly. Or buy the ready made cartons, v expensive way to do it.

You will have to follow a strict feeding routine because if your baby is crying for milk, tough, they have to wait for the bottle to be ready, you'll have to leave them to cry until it's ready. If you only plan to be out for a couple of hours and haven't taken enough bottles and formula with you, tough, you've got to go home, not be flexible (actually what you end up doing is carting round shed loads of stuff on the off chance).

If you want to stop feeding your toddler, just do it this week, it's not that big a deal. You might feel a bit rubbish, but offer cows milk in a cup, if they won't have it, make sure there's lots of milk in their diet but stress too much.

For the next one, feed but from day one, express so your DH can do a bottle feed early. It helps get that as an option if you get them used to both early. Then from 6 months, there's no reason family would have to know what you are doing, as you'd only need to do 2-3 bottles or feeds a day, you could quite easily avoid family at morning/bedtime/lunch to see it....

bottle feeding isn't hard,and won't be tough for mum or baby
ready made cartons, or pour freshly boiled water into big clean jug to cool
I've bf and mixed feed,and ff is not the problem it's made out to be.and can be shared with dp

Formula feeding did not rule my life. I would make up bottles, put them in the fridge, then microwave for 20 secs. Took cartons when out. very easy.

Damn sight better than crying with bleeding nipples and hurting and hating it.

Lets just be honest with each other in this debate please. If you want to breastfeed, great. Do it. Get all the support you need. If you don't, don't.

no way does ff take 45min prep.at all.and ready mix cartons are useful too
dispenser measured dose good for when out and about ff is straight forward and not a faff

Shed loads of stuff dontmind? Er - one bottle, one or two cartons. Barely noticed what with all the nappies, wipes, spare tops etc,etc.

Agenda much?

Thanks christmasknackers I have felt the same way for the past 18 months, glad I'm not the only one.

I have very mixed feelings about bf, too many to explain myself coherently here. It has been a big dark cloud over my entire motherhood experience so far to be honest.

Sorry for offending anyone.

That's really sad. I hope you can sort something out for this baby and the black cloud can lift. Just don't think lying about it will help.

I bf my ds for 17 months, he stopped only 1 week before DD came alone. I really did not want to BF dd as Ds, from about 4 months old, would only BF lying down, so was a pain to get out anywhere for any decent length. I was the same as you, planned on stopping at 6 months, but he would not take any sort of bottle, and was very sick at 6 and a half months, just after he had started solids, so he did not touch food again till he was nearly 14 months old, so I just kept on BFing him.

I said to Dh, I was going to bottle feed dd, as I could not face it again, even though DS had been easy to bf, never took very long, never had any issues bfing, was just the lying down thing which meant I could never really go out, and I never ever felt comfortable Bfing in public.

But dd came along, and I gave it a try, more because I had with DS and it was expected than anything else, she had a tongue tie, and was on and off 23 hours a day, and that could have easily been the time to stop, especially with all the midwives and HV saying to try her with a bottle, but I got stubborn about it, and had to fight to get her seen by the specialist at the hospital, and have her tongue tie snipped, and after that everything went fine...and she bf till 18 months.

The point is, you do not know how you will feel till the baby is here. But, if I had decided to go onto formula with dd, after trying to BF, I would not have agonised over it or felt guilty. I BF dd purely out of stubbornness because there was an issue.....DD is exactly like me, contrary and stubborn, if you tell her the sky is blue, she will argue it isn't, just because she can!

no OP, it's not because other people are lucky enough to have families that are different to yours, mine are earth motherey too and all fed into toddlerhood, some tandem baby and toddler and I do not plan to be a martyr to BFing with no2 like I was with no1 but will be honest about it if that's what I choose

your suggestion is disturbed, and WILL affect other people's perception of their ability to breast feed if another person is saying that they "couldn't".

Why do you want approval from people who don't support your choices as the baby's mum anyway? I'll bet if you actually go for it then family members will come out of the closet and say that they wished they had too - my attatchment parenting mother admitted to wishing she'd given GF a go when I found it works for us and out poured all the things that she hated about AP which you'ld never have guessed before!!

op is not responsible for how others may or do feel about bf.
she feels pressured which is so sad,frankly feed baby how suits you and be guilt free about it
no one should feel pressure to bf or to ff.both modes of feeding are safe

The thing I don't understand is why are you breastfeeding your toddler? You really don't need to. If you stop give yourself a break before next baby you may feel you want to do it again.

If you don't want to then don't.

Why the Fucking Hell would you want to make yourself more work and stress, You are stark raving bonkers!

Sorry but I FF DD1 and BF DD2 and there is no comparison.

Now they've decided to add ridiculous temperature rules to making formula its even more of a faddle.

DON'T

It would just perpetuate the myth that BF is always difficult and if you have a problem you need to supplement with formula. When some of the time the problem is poor support from HCPs that don't know enough about BF. I can imagine someone your family knows having problems with BF and them saying "oh yes, that happened to NYNH and she had to switch to formula", when really that isn't true.

Sheesh there's a lot of barking mad people around. Ff or bf is the same thing; feeding ur baby. Ff more recent invention and bf is just natures way. Why do u all give it so much weight? Do u not have anything else in the day to worry about? Just feed them. It honestly doesn't matter which way it is or if its both. Ultimately the ONLY thing that matters is baby is fed, full and happy.

The rest is noise.

With colic, sleeping, illness, just getting used to having a newborn give ur selves a break. The only person usually pressurising urself is u so use the best piece of advice I was given via MN and trust urself. It will work out.

The OP is not responsible for how others perceive things. I was told by a couple of poeple that I should force myself to Bf in public, as I had some sort of responsibility toward making sure others saw me bf, so as to normalise it and make it more acceptable or some other such shit that they preached to me about. Well, no, I never ever felt comfortable doing so, and it would have been awkward as hell.

This is about a situation that is personal to the OP, and how she is feeling that she has to lie to her family to FF, and quite frankly, if she wants to FF, for whatever reason, and Lying about it is the only way to make her family back off and leave her alone, then fine, do it. Why have more to worry about on top of that, about "perpetuating the myth". This is an individual, not a soldier in a crusade.

op individually responsible for feeding her baby,she's not responsible how others see bf
challenging myths that's hcp,gp job.no mum needs to be a bf or ff advocate
and if she prefers one mode feeding over another,well that's up to her

Sorry, but I'm not sure if it's BFing the OP hates or the fact that her family are right to encourage it.

Personally, BFing is the most beautiful thing I have ever done and can't conceive why anyone wouldn't want to (after the first few weeks, which are shit).

However, I am also totally hate it if I feel I'm being bossed about and pushed into a corner.

OP I am not criticizing your decision not to BF, just your BARKING method of telling people / making FF happen.

Just do it FFS.