Proud to have breast fed

[Keepdlingwhatyourgutsays]

I will start off by saying I don't care if you bf or ff. I see so many posts where women say they ff but none on bf. they get taken down or people straight away think it's a dig. Honestly what ever you chose to do you do.

However after so many negative and nasty comments when I was breastfeeding I can say I did it. I didn't give in to the people who were nasty I didn't let them bully me into stopping. I was a younger mum not young young but I was young and I was still very insecure about a lot of things and I did not feel supportive.
I do remember once the first time I breastfed on the bus I did that thing where I assumed everyone would be staring and one elder gentlemen was and he just grinned a very kind grin and that kept me going through some of the nasty comments.
If you are breast feeding and getting comments from family or friends please ignore it because looking back they were just insecure (not everyone but the ones I New) or they are just plain nasty. Anyone who makes a nasty comment about that isn't nice nor needed.
But remember wether you breastfeed or bottle it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. Online people get so angry about it but it really doesn't matter guys

Isadora
That's my point exactly. Why would you care that anybody chose to bottle feed or breast feed? Advertisements are there for people who choose to ff, there's also advertisements online for breast pumps and nipple shields, for people who choose to breast feed.

I'm not after a discussion about what's best or worse cause that was the point I was trying to make.. it shouldn't be worth a discussion as long as your baby is happy, healthy and fed.

What irritates me is that women are still being asked to go onto programmes or write an article for a magazine to discuss things like co sleeping, being a stay at home parent, blw or whatever it may be, and then criticise other women who chose a different method, it just isn't fair.

It's just odd though, because when I was breastfeeding, I was making posts on the infant feeding forums asking for advice, and I got some lovely support and solidarity. It just wouldn't have crossed my mind at all to make a post outside of the IF boards just to talk about how great I felt about doing it, because I know how emotive it is and how there are lots of preconceptions, rightly or wrongly, about attitudes towards "BF vs FF". I feel like you're a bit contrite about how your post came across and perhaps that has changed your outlook a bit, but as a PP said, these debates shouldn't be happening at all.

And Isadora is wrong, it't not up to other women to convince new mums that BF is the right thing to do, regardless of your opinion either way. Women really can be trusted to use information available them and make decisions based on that you know! If information was presented clearly, in a balanced and unbiased way, by health authorities, and then support for both methods was decent and available to all, perhaps women at a population level would be able to make more informed and confident choices. But that's a whole other conversation...

With all this negativity sometimes its just nice to talk to other BFing mums about it, like who you accidentally flashed, my brother while changing sides apparently he told my sister 'he turned and it was just there', he didn't say anything to me but did spend the rest of his visit looking straight ahead. or the weirdest you BF (west midlands saffari park as zebra walked passed the car).

I really think there's something to note here you really can't have a conversations just about breastfeeding with other mums who breast fed. That's really strange

@angie1984 i think it's when you squirt it on accident for the first time that's shocking 😳
Flashing your brother 😂 My sister saw a fair share.
It's the leaking I didn't expect before id even given birth I woke up to a puddle 😂☔️

When people say breast is best, they don't mean as an absolute in all circumstances. It means all other things being equal, breastmilk is optimal.

We all know that sometimes babies cannot have breastmilk for a variety of reasons. Formula is a safe and nutritionally complete alternative that saves babies lives. It's not optimal, there are things it doesn't have that breastmilk does, but lots of things we do in life aren't optimal, for various reasons.

We still squirt regularly I think the best one was when we were out at a baby group and the DH was helping us latch managed to hit the baby, me , my bra and the DH all in one go. I am so glad I got my mattress protector though there were still mornings the DH even woke up in a puddle.

@coffeecupofmilk no one is judging you. This is a thread for bf mums to talk nicely and positively. Not a debate about what is better

Haven’t RTFT, I clicked on it in the middle of the night having FF my babies to make myself feel bad because I couldn’t breast feed and i feel guilty as hell that I couldn’t. I feel breast is best is shoved down our throats, and would love to see a more positive fed is best message being thrown around instead. I ebf for a grand total of 9 hours before a midwife took over with ff because I was absolutely exhausted, and although my babies latched beautifully, I just wasn’t bringing any milk/colostrum to the party. I managed to feed my babies one expressed bottle each a night and found that they actually slept better on boob milk, but I couldn’t produce more, and stopped after a month after sobbing my heart out at 3am and becoming increasingly distressed over the whole thing.

I felt incredibly ashamed at formula feeding at the time, like I’d somehow failed my twins, and obviously must still feel like that as I’ve clicked on this to make myself feel bad! Congrats to every one of you who managed it, good for you. For anyone else who’s clicked on this and has formula fed, congrats to you too, we’ve all managed to keep a tiny human fed and watered, it’s not easy 👍

That's brilliant. The things you do when breastfeeding 😂

though every time i do squirt i almost certainly will hit the baby in the eye, poor kid and the DH said today she has never had the experience of being rained on .

Unicorn why sit and read to make yourself feel. And it's not here to do that. And the fact it's been said it doesn't matter what you do could have been a positive for you. This is clearly a thread for breastfeeding mums to talk

The point is that the phrase "breast is best" is never meant to apply to those situations where it's obvious it isn't best. People seem to think that those who use the phrase mean breast is best in all circumstances, when it's obviously never going to mean that. Nobody (sane) says "breast is always best".

Bless. That'll keep away conjunctivitis lol

Because these aspects of life have not been turned into a political or societal battleground, at least nowhere near to the same extent that feeding babies has

Well clearly the FF “side” of the battle is winning- just look at our dreadful statistics for breastfeeding past 2/4/6 months.

And no I’m not wrong about MORE info being needed about breastfeeding to balance out the already saturated bottle feeding messages that are rife in our society.

There aren’t adverts for breastpumps on mainstream tv. Yet every episode of Corrie or similar will have an Aptimil or similar advert- remember the “closest to breast milk” claim- yep- closer in the way that I’m closer to the moon when I stand on a stool... 🙄

The biological norm has been lost to many and the amount of misinformation out there about breastfeeding is unreal. That it (BF info) feels forced or pushy is unfortunate and not ideal...obviously. That support should be there and freely available is undeniable. And that lack of resources or support should be “blamed” rather than tired and upset mums I totally agree with. I also agree that mums can choose not to BF should they decide that, but I would rather they based that choice on facts and not opinion. (“My child is 7 and you’d never know which of their classmates was breastfed”) type of info.

No one is talking about your specific situation. The point is that in the absence of any issues breastmilk is optimal for babies, generally. Formula is an excellent alternative if there are issues, or if you choose not to breastfeed. There is no criticism of formula in any of that.

@Isadora2007 I completely see where your coming from. But I think if we constantly answer people with educated answer people don't want to hear no one will pay attention. We just fuel the fire to turn this into a debate which is what we don't want. I'm not having ago really not 😀 But it'd be nice to have a post with out a debate. I know people make it difficult.

Actually AssassinatedBeauty I've scoured the infant feeding forums during both pregnancies I've gone through, and it seems the phrase "Breast is Best" is open for wild interpretation to the point of exploitation sometimes. Even the NHS itself has slightly dubious ways of promoting breastfeeding, touting for example, that you'll be closer to your baby than a FF mum.

That's why I disagree with posters saying they feel it is a necessity/their duty to spread the message to the masses...

I personally think it would be nice if the NHS or anyone else stopped trying to encapsulate principles around infant feeding into a neat little 3 word slogan - that would be better for everyone really.