Did anyone BF one child and FF another?

[deedsnotwords11]

Just pondering what I would do...

My first baby had a tongue tie, missed due to covid and due to lack of support we ended up topping up from the start and switching to fully formula around a month old.

We are discussing a second baby and I would really like to have another crack at breastfeeding, knowing what I do now.

But I'm worried it makes it unfair between my children if I've only breastfed one of them - what if the breastfed one is poorly less often or something and I feel awful for not managing to give my first born the same milk.

Has anyone had one BF child and one FF child? How do you feel about it if so?

Wow this is so helpful - so reassuring to read! I think I need to get over myself and plan to give breastfeeding a really good go with the next one as that's what I would really like to try

@ToddlerLockdown

I think you should do what is best for each child at the time. Doesn’t mean you have to do the exact same thing, just what is best in that moment.

This. As a parent your aim is to be able to say to your adult dc that you did the best you could at the time for each dc with the knowledge you had, circumstances you faced and the resources you had. This may differ for different dc. For what it's worth I breastfed all three of mine two have chronic health conditions (one serious enough to get high rate pip). My siblings 3 children were all ff and are very healthy.

I was bf, my brother formula fed. I have a few allergies (horses, rabbits etc) , my bro has asthma, hay-fever and animal allergies. Both maternal and paternal GPs have similar allergies, my mum smoked throughout pregnancy and still does, who knows what caused the differences - nature/nurture?

Sort of...

Dc1 and I were both really sick after she was born. We had to go into separate wards so obviously couldn't breastfeed. I managed to get my supply back a bit till we could mix feed, which I did for 9 weeks, then supply just stopped and we switched to FF, which I then really regretted.

With dc2, he was tongue tied, and also ended up in NICU for another reason after birth. I ended up doing a mix of expressing breast milk and some breastfeeding (good supply luckily). He wouldn't latch after about 4 months though, as he preferred bottles. I continued expressing milk for him for about a year, so he got much longer having breast milk than dc1 did.

Do I feel bad? Actually, no. Dc1 is so healthy and despite my regret at switching to FF with her, I really did my best to feed her with the knowledge and abilities I had at the time. She is the right weight, tall, active, does park run every week, really smart.

So in brief, you should go for it. If it works for you, you also won't have to worry about bottles all the time, so you'll have more time to focus on your older dc, which is another benefit for dc1.

@deedsnotwords11 can I recommend a breastfeeding course? So worth it!

Was in such a state with my first born who was big and starving so switched to formula at 3ish weeks.
With dc2 was determined to crack it. Had a few sessions with an amazing bf coach/consultant. She helped so much with position and giving me confidence. Dc 2, 3 and 4 were ebf and continued feeding beyond 18 months.
The all had tongue tie which I did not fix. It was not severe. I can't stress enough how much the bf coach helped with my confidence and determination.
They didn't sleep as well as dc1 though. But there were a number of factors involved in that

Yup. Me and DC1 never really got the hang of breastfeeding. We'd switched fully to FF by 4 months. DC2 took to it well and I BFed until she was 3. It was just what worked for each child.

Don't overthink this. I FF ds1 from 10 days, and BF ds2 until 7 months.

Ds1 is healthier, stronger.

I have any equally strong bond with both.

Tried to breastfeed my first but wasn't successful. I was only 19 at the time and mentally unwell. 2nd baby was fully breast fed until 15 months and I was pregnant with 3rd baby who bf until 2.5 years but I was 28 with number 2 so more mature.

I did all 3 dcs differently depending on a lot of different factors. Incidentally, the one with the most illnesses/broken bones is the one who bf longest!

All three are equally healthy, happy and drive me nuts.

Yes, no one believed me when I said DD2 couldn't suck, she still has problems with certain drink bottles at 14, at 4 months she'd dropped from the 91st centile to the 9th, we tried mixed feeding then it was FF except bedtime until 8 months when she decided she preferred the bottle because it was easier. All my DC are exactly as healthy as each other, apart from DS1 but that's because he was born with cystic fibrosis. 🤷‍♀️

My first didn’t latch and I didn’t really want to bf anyway so I Ff. it was great, allowed me and DH to genuinely share the load and he was a great sleeper. I was able to adapt to the shell shock of motherhood without the added pressure of being the only food source and sharing my body. I was honestly not tired beyond the first month or so. DH gave me a full night where he did all wake ups every Friday. When Dc2 was born they latched well immediately so I followed their lead and ended up bf-img exclusively for nine months. I spent most of that time loathing it and on my knees with exhaustion but despite giving a bottle a day from three days old they became a bottle refuser and I was trapped. It was largely quite a dark time in my life, looking back.

Now they are equal in terms of health and development, early days to tell but if anything I’d say the FF one has had better health. They both had chicken pox and he was mildly uncomfortable for a couple of days while the bf child ended up in hospital with severe infection.

So I’m my experience it makes zero difference and I don’t feel a jot of guilt about the Ff one because why would I? They haven’t been disadvantaged in any way as far as all the evidence so far shows!

BF ‘evidence’ is largely completely useless because there are very few studies that study differently fed siblings which is what you need to do to adjust for all the other social and economic factors affecting outcomes. The little evidence there is around differently fed siblings shows (according to one US study which is actually reported on the NHS website) ‘no statistically significant differences’ between outcomes in bf and ff siblings. And in fact rates of asthma were higher in bf siblings.

I’m not anti bf AT ALL but I am anti all the misleading bullying and propaganda which is largely based on insecure women quoting fifty year old studies which are completely flawed because they overlook the fact that overwhelmingly rich women bf and poor women ff in this country. Adjust for that, and in the western world it makes basically no difference. We should be concentrating on the myriad other factors that actually affect children’s lives and not where their milk comes from for the first few months!

Child 1: tube fed then FF
Child 2: FF
Child 3: trying to BF with a bit of combi

Different children, different needs, different stages in my life, different circumstances... trying to do what's best for us all as a family unit at a particular time.

As a primary school teacher I’ve never correlated time off I’ll/intelligence/physical ability with children who were bf vs ff. Unless I’m missing something, how they were fed just ceases to be an issue after the first few years.

*ill

My first i BF for 6 months then put on the bottle. The others I BF for 12 months. There’s no difference in them ,and they don’t know as they’ve never asked.

I bf my first for only 2 weeks, he had a big tongue so struggled to latch, he lost too much weight in that first 2 weeks so I was advised to top up with formula, as soon as he got it poured straight into him with no effort he simply stopped bf. My second latched from day 1 with no effort and bf for 26m. Dc1 is off to uni next weekend, fine, strapping, healthy man, dc2 is an intelligent, healthy and beautiful young woman. I'm happy that I did the best for both of them.