Deciding to breastfeed or not...

[Chicken123]

Growing up, I’ve always said if possible, I’d always breastfeed my child, but now I’m actually pregnant, I don’t know if I want to do it long term.

I will try and if successful, continue for a couple of weeks before I’d probably end up expressing.

I almost feel like if you decide to choose any other way of feeding your baby these days, it’s so frowned upon and other mothers really have their negative opinions of this whether it’s a personal choice or you literally just cannot do it.

I’m scared of being judged and I LOVE the idea of feeding my future baby, but I love the idea more of my fiancé being able to have this responsibility too and have another thing that helps the bond.

I don’t know.
My mind may change again, circumstances may change but I’m just surprised that after all this time, this is how I’d feel

Why not do both? My health visitor said around 4 weeks babies are able to learn how to drink from a bottle as well as breast, so you could express milk for your husband to feed but still have the bond of breast feeding when it's your turn. This was our plan, my body had other ideas! DD is now formula fed and I dare anyone to have a go for it! 😂

@Mommabear20
I didn’t even think of that. I guess I will just have to see how it goes as you can plan but like you, your body has different ideas and that’s fine as well.
As long as they’re happy, healthy and their tummies are full who cares how they’re fed I suppose x

Expressing is hard work.

There's loads dad can do, winding, nappies, baths. Don't make work for yourself expressing unless you (not your partner) want to. Expressing doesn't give you a break, really, it adds to your tasks.

I think see how you go.

Why don't you just give it a go and see what happens? I'm 8 months into EBF my second and was very much ' take it day by day, no pressure" and it seems to be working well for us.

DS has never had a bottle but it hasn't impacted his bond with DH in the slightest. He works shifts but if he's home, he does everything related to bedtime including bathtime and then I feed to sleep.

For me expressing was the worst of both worlds. (Faffing around with bottles and having to find time to express.) Once breastfeeding was established (and it was a rough couple of months to get there) I loved the convenience and ease of being able to feed at the drop of a hat. I breastfed til just over a year and ended up loving it.
My husband has a fantastic bond with our DD and he only fed her the odd bottle of expressed milk from 3 months onwards (I found it more trouble than it was worth.) He took her for walks while.i slept and was very hands on so don't worry about their bond.
At the end of the day it's a very personal decision and you have to go with whats right for your family.

Personally I hated expressing, I tried everything including looking at a photo of my baby but after 25 mins I only had like 1 ounce of milk. Just couldn't seem to do it.
In the end I just breastfed as it was so easy and so lovely and it worked well for us. For ease of holidays, and going out for the day I think it was the best choice.
I wouldn't think too much about it, I'd just see how you get on with the feeding itself.

I was like you when I was pregnant, always thought I'd breastfeed then got pregnant and and found housing a baby in it for such a long time made me think I'd quite like it back at the end of the pregnancy and let someone else take on some of the feeding without putting my body through more of that. But I ended up breastfeeding my first, who was pretty easy going and took a bottle often too. There was the maternal instinct part which made me want to feed him myself , I think. I also used breastfeeding as a way to help me lose weight and not share the baby and other selfish reasons.

I have a 12 week old and we’ve been mixed feeding from about 2 weeks. I breastfeed until 5pm, then we switch to formula for the evening and late night feeds, then back to breast in the early morning. So far it’s working well. But I don’t tell everyone who asks what I’m up to if I’m worried they’re the type to judge!

See how you go OP. You might love breastfeeding and want to continue, you may hate it and choose to use formula instead.

I can only speak from my own experience which was that expressing was HARD work. It ended up being pointless as DS was a bottle refuser and I ended up breastfeeding for close to two years (I had planned on 1).

Please don't feel any guilt for whatever you decide to do. Raising children, especially newborns is hard, give yourself a break and remember that there is no such thing as a perfect mother.

Whilst most women do start off by breastfeeding, by about 3 or 4 months Bottle feeding is very much the norm (exclusive breastfeeding in England at 6 weeks is 24%, significantly lower in Wales and NI and 17% at 3 months). You’re much more likely to see a bottle at a baby group than a boob. So this idea that you’ll be judged for not breastfeeding is a nonsense really.

That said breastfeeding (when it works well) is so easy and convenient. Expressing is really, really hard work and a massive faff if you don’t need to be doing it. There are a million and one ways that a non-BF parent can be useful and bond with baby.

It's not binary. I've breastfed for over 4 years in total now, and my husband has had plenty of nice moments giving the odd bottle of expressed milk. It's not a big thing, fathers have so many ways of bonding, you don't both bond in the same way.

Thank you for all your lovely experiences and responses.
It’s so interesting to hear everyone’s stories around breastfeeding.
I will take your advice and just see how I go and see how I get on and ultimately, see how I feel when the time comes

I didn’t breastfeed by first baby but did my second. I have to admit I much prefer breastfeeding (mainly because of how practical it is not worrying about bottles). I was only planning on doing it for a couple of weeks but 10 months later we’re still going! Although I do give him formula now of a night.
Personally I didn’t express much. I only did on the odd occasion but it seemed like twice the work but I know a few people who like expressing.

When DS got to 8 months old I started combi feeding and giving him formula in the night and just breastfeeding in the morning and occasionally in the day time. I wouldn’t have minded doing this when he was younger to have a little bit of a break.

I surprised myself with breastfeeding because I wasn’t sure I really wanted to. The best thing to do is just go with the flow and not put too much pressure on yourself. I told myself if it didn’t work I’d just use formula, and because I was so laid back about it, making it work didn’t seem too stressful.

As I’ve experienced both a formula fed baby and a breastfed baby, in terms of development & bonding etc there has been no difference. I enjoy the time with DS2 when feeding him and I like the idea it’s something only I can do, but I haven’t bonded with him any more than I had my formula fed DS1!

Breast feeding is wonderful but it is very hard for most people at least for a couple of weeks. So if you want to do it you have to be quite determined and have some support in place. After that it gets much easier and is much easier than formula feeding in the long run. I ff my DSs and breastfeed my DD and breastfeeding has been much easier and less tiring (after the initial few weeks).

I was always indifferent. Eventually I breast fed for 2 weeks, expressed for a further 1, then my DC has been on formula since. It's been good and I wouldn't have changed my decision. I had a difficult birth and an emergency c section, recovering physically and emotionally meant I didn't want the extra pressure of EBF as well. My DC is a perfectly normal and healthy child so all round a good decision for us.

I was only going to do the first day or 2 but it's been so easy and no pain that we have carried on. So far 6 weeks. We do bottles of pumped milk too, but god that's a pain and then you have to sterilise them etc, at least this way when she starts screaming I can shove her straight on the boob. Godsend when your out lol.

Just see how you feel, you might have sore nipples by day 2 and hate it x

Breastfeeding is great once established. The first few weeks were shit!

And expressing is utterly soul destroying in my experience. I’d much rather breastfeed than express.

I’m just finishing my BF journey with my 18 month old.

I combi fed my first and exclusively breastfed my second.

I HATED combi feeding. Honestly it just added work to me for really very little benefit.

I was determined to EBF my second and thankfully she took to feeding really well. She refused all bottles and dummies but that was ok. She recently ended her breastfeeding time at 17 months (I was prepared to go longer if she wanted as we were only feeding once a day)

Once feeding is established EBF is soooo easy and cheap. It's hard in the early weeks during cluster feeding and sore nipples and engorgement but all these are temporary and don't last forever. Once it settles it's so easy. I could just grab a nappy and leave the house with her. If toddler wanted to play while feeding I had a free hand to do that. I could take her anywhere and not worry about taking bottles. Didn't have to worry about not being able to get milk during the crazy supermarket times recently. Also she got my immune response to covid 19 when I caught it. She's had more colds than her brother but that is due to him bringing them home from nursery lol.

There is so much that dad can do to bond and help. Expressing milk for dad to feed is no help to you. He can do nappies, take babies for walks, do a dads meet up with baby, clean the house, cook food, do the shopping etc. He can bond by having lots of skin to skin time (which is the main thing that promotes bonding during breastfeeding) even better you can have a long shower while he has his skin to skin time.

If you do decide to try, make sure you read up on what to expect now and where to get help. It's ok to ask for support. Most women end up stopping because they don't have the support or knowledge to deal with the early weeks. NCT and la leche league are both running virtually at this time. I also highly recommend the book Your Baby Week by Week

With bfing rates so low in this country it's silly to suggest you're going to be judged for formula feeding. Even healthcare professionals assume my baby is formula fed 🤷‍♀️

If you're up for giving breastfeeding a go then do, and just see how it goes. You don't need to make any decisions about the future now. Every breastfeed your baby gets is amazing, whether you do a few months, a few days, or just that first feed.

My opinions, FWIW... Expressing is a faff. Only do it if you want to and it benefits you. Breastfeeding doesn't affect a father's ability to bond with their baby. If you breastfeed, you get to hand the baby over for all the rubbish jobs like nappy changes and baths (I hate baths)

I breastfed my first for just over a year.

I'm pregnant now. I'm going to go for a more combo option this time. I'm proud of what I achieved with DC1 but I think it'll take the pressure off for DC2 to take a bottle from someone else.

After the first 12 weeks breastfeeding becomes the easiest option over bottles / formula / expressing, to the point where it’s really easy to carry on for years if your supply and baby allows it. I agree that expressing is a faff - I had to do it initially due to tongue tie but as soon as it was fixed I stopped and my baby didn’t even notice the lack of the bottle.

If you want your OH to bond then bath times and nappies are the most useful way to go about it. DH took these on entirely allowing me to sleep for a precious few minutes throughout the day

Sillyyak I don't understand why you do this? Surely in the middle of the night when you're both sleepy, it's even more hassle to go and prep a bottle rather that just grab baby and feed? What's the logic?

I struggled for three weeks before we established breastfeeding, expressing every four hours to keep my supply going until baby learned to latch. It was really hard going. I persisted through weeks of cluster feeding for hours every evening, determined not to give my baby any formula. Mentally I'd got a bit stuck and to me it felt like if I gave her a bottle of formula it was akin to poison. Ridiculous because eventually I did relent and she now has a bottle last thing in the evening and when we're out - and obviously it hasn't done her any harm at all! She's a really happy little thing and meeting all her milestones early. I think it's really valuable to breastfeed if you can, but for me mixed feeding really gives you the best of both worlds. Don't underestimate how mentally and physically draining it is to pump for weeks and months on end though. That was time I really wanted to be cuddling my baby, not hooked up to a milking device with tubes and bottles and that godawful "vooop, vooop, vooop" noise going on and on.

He can bond by having lots of skin to skin time

This is a lovely suggestion. Reminded me that DH used to do skin to skin all the time with DD (I didn't do any). Poor DS didn't get any other than his face against my boob 😬

[auto] it's easier to do bottles at night if you leave them to dad? It's worth mentioning though that feeding at night is important for your supply so generally if you're combi feeding it's not recommended to switch night feeds for bottles.

I tried to breastfeed DC1 but he just wouldn't latch on. I expressed but could only keep it up for 3 weeks. It was exhausting. DC2 was breastfed and would take a bottle of expressed milk with DH if I was out. DC3 was breastfed but absolutely refused any bottle eventhough it was my milk.

Also breastfeeding consultant explained that night breast milk contains a hormone or something that helps baby sleep so ideally day time expressed milk shouldn't be given at night.