Breastfeed or formula feed?

[Emm333]

Please no nasty comments. I realise breastfeeding is recommended.

I'm 28 weeks pregnant and had been completely set on formula feeding mainly because this is what most friends have done, allows your husband to feed the baby too, and wanting to avoid mastitis which my mum had a bad experience with when she tried to breastfeed. A friend who has breastfed has also told me how exhausting it is.

I've pretty much ignored any information on breastfeeding as just viewed it as a negative for the above reasons, but recently started randomly leaking breast milk (particularly when I'm holding my bump when the baby kicks!) and was surprised to find it didn't freak me out and actually felt reassuring in a weird way. My midwife gave me a magazine about types of feeding at my last appointment about various benefits etc. So I now feel a bit guilty if I don't give my baby breast milk!

For those who were undecided, how did you choose how to feed your baby? Also be great to hear from women who have combination fed breast milk and formula and how they did this?

Thank you!

Well I got pregnant in june 2022... right when there was a massive formula shortage in the US that lasted months. I watched documentaries showing women traveling 10 miles to find a store selling formula, spending days on facebook groups, or crying every nights because they were nnot sure how they were going to feed their baby the next day... I breastfed (exclusively pumped) for one year and in that year I saw two significant increases in the price of formula.

@Fireside10 I understand what you mean that it could be seen like wanting a baby but not to be pregnant. But that’s exactly how I felt about pregnancy. I was overjoyed when I got pregnant, and we had been trying for a baby for a long time, but I can honestly say that I hated every second of every day and saw it as a horrendous means to an end. I hated how I felt - I had very bad morning sickness until the day I gave birth - and I hated all the other typical pregnancy side effects and sensations, but just as much I hated how my appearance changed. I didn’t ‘glow’ as many people told me pregnant women did, and after about six months I looked like a beached whale. I can still remember interviewing for my replacement at work while my baby was really active and my stomach was shooting out in all different angles - it was like a scene from Alien 😆😆. I think the nine months of pregnancy and the first three months of having a new baby was one of the very worst years of my life and I was so relieved once she had been born and once I’d decided not to continue breastfeeding. Life after then was wonderful. Despite how much we desperately wanted our daughter, nothing would have made me go through that again.

@Growlybear83I'm not sure I explained what I very well, i think what I mean it's it's almost the next step rather than a choice (even though I appreciate in reality it absolutely can be.)

I hope I didn't cause any offense, that certainly wasn't the intention. For what it's worth i didn't particularly enjoy pregnancy or giving birth although I can completely relate to the beached whale/weird alien stomach look 😂

Hey 👋 I am also 28 wks pregnant 🥰 But with 3rd baby.I breastfed first two girls pretty much exclusively for first 6mths, then continued stopping when they were both 3/4yo.

I went into it with first baby really wanting to breastfeed for the benefits health wise, but thought it would be more of 'i'll stick it out for 6mths then stop when she weans' but from when she arrived it felt quite natural and empowering to me, more than expected, then she still very much needed/wanted it after that and we had got into the swing of it so just carried on. It was bloody hard work at times, a real tie and sacrifice and can be very mentally draining on a mum as they always want and always need YOU. But it can also be a really lovely experience emotionally, and saves alot of faff with steralising, remembering to keep prepping bottles, baby having to wait and getting them at the right temp to feed, and having to keep coming down in the night and do it all rather than just a quick feed and back to sleep.

With second, I was keen to express/combination feed to ease the pressure abit on me, but we weren't very consistent with bottles and she refused them from 4wks and never looked back 😫 Both times i have not got on with pumping- even using a double electric pump with baby no2.

This time around i am DETERMINED to combination feed! I don't think my crazy busy life would let me not to be honest 😅 so we will be doing several bottles a day alongside breastfeeding to (hopefully!) get him in a consistent routine and used to having both.

I would say, don't make any definite decisions until baby is here.Keep all options on the table, see what your birth and post natal health for you and baby is like etc, what their temperament and feeding patterns are like.I think things will feel clearer once baby arrives about what route feels right and what is possible.

I agree about it being the ultimate parenting hack! It's like offering someone a cup of tea when they're crying and you really don't know what to do to make it better, but it's actually useful, unlike the tea.

For us, it works really well for splitting parenting tasks. I feed overnight and DH does everything else. No one has to wash up or spend ages getting milk to the right temperature. Plus I don't feel guilty booting him out of bed to rock the baby because I already fed it. Has the double bonus that the hormones from feeding send you back to sleep so I'm normally fast asleep by the time he's finished rocking. Poor DH doesn't get any sleepy hormones. I swear I'd have gone mad having got a non-sleeper if I didn't have the breastfeeding hormones.

Also makes spontaneous days out much easier. We can stay out longer than planned, or even have a late dinner, because food goes with us. The only limiting factor is how many nappies we've got. We have to cart far less stuff around. I might have hit lucky (apart from the non-sleeping), but mine is the only baby that hasn't been sick all winter from my friendship group. All the rest stopped breast feeding by 6 months. It's saved us a fortune by not having to take days off work.

The first couple of weeks weren't easy, but almost everyone had some source of stress with a newborn: family, relationships, baby boy growing, difficult delivery, difficult recovery etc. It was really worth it in the end.

No you didn’t cause offence at all!

I chose to formula feed after listening to a lot of friends saying it was difficult for the first 8 - 12 weeks. It actually really annoyed me listening to people saying that as though "well just suck up the difficulty for 3 months and then you'll be fine". 3 months is a bloody long time to be struggling! Anyway, after discussions with my midwife and a mental health trained midwife, they agreed that it was too taxing on my mental health. There are benefits to it of course and I understood but if it was at the cost of my mental health suffering badly with a newborn baby, it wasn't worth it for me. I felt it was ultimately the best decision for me and the baby.

Getting breastfeeding established with my first was the hardest thing I've ever done (it was so painful at first!) but once we had overcome that it is really the ultimate fast food and I was so glad that I didn't have to faff about with bottles and powder. We always supplemented with formula, so my husband was able to help with night feeds or if I wanted to go out for a bit. I also decided to move baby off the breast and onto formula when he was about six months old, but once I realised what a faff making up a bottle was when I was out and about I went back to breastfeeding and continued to do that until he self-weaned at about 14 months old (just mornings and bedtimes by the end).

Also, if I had my time again I would be more mindful of my mental health and if I was really struggling to breastfeed I wouldn't hesitate to switch to formula. It's definitely worth giving it a try, but it's not worth sacrificing your own wellbeing over. Fed is best.

I wouldn't compare formula to a take away.

I was just far too lazy to formula feed! No bandwidth to be dealing with bottles, heating, sterilising etc. At home or out.

Plonked them on day and night without having to get up, then DH did the other end as that seemed fair 🤣

First few days you just need to ignore anyone going on about how many ml they are taking. They have a stomach the size of a hazelnut and your milk doesn’t even come in for the first few days - colostrum is all they need

Just go with the flow and do what’s best for you 💐

I combi fed my first and exclusively breastfed my second. Making bottles used to stress me the hell out. Now I pop a boob out and away he goes.

Dad doesn't need to bottle feed the baby. He needs to cook and clean for you while you're bonding and feeding the baby. He can play with the baby, change nappies etc, even hold baby when they nap for his own bonding.

If nothing else, I am very disturbed by the recent formula recalls and am glad that I'm not using it this time around.

This a million times over. Essentially, presuming you have an adequate supply, your boobs are nature gifting you a perfect prep machine, for free, that never needs cleaning, Milk in seconds, on tap! The downside I guess, is that no-one else can use this perfect prep machine.... so you HAVE to do every feed!

I was too lazy and skint to formula feed to be honest. The only part that I disliked was the ‘letdown’ pain for a week or so after my milk came in, but after I counted to 10 it went. Other than that there were no negatives and a whole heap of positives. I could express when needed so DH could give a bottle but not sure that was worth the faff in hindsight.

Thats your prerogative.

Whilst it is designed to meet a babies nutritional needs as closely as any packet and can allow it is just ultra processed food with lots of additives that a baby’s gut is not designed to handle. My comparison to fast food comes because similarly it is ultra processed with lots of additives that is hard for our guts to handle.

Then there are the ingredients to make sure that it doesn’t go off past it shelflife and it sticks together to be fed.

Recently, there have been recalls because of contamination. Most formulas contain heavy metals. Startch for thickening. Soy fiber as an emulsifier. We have yet to discover a way to try and feed a baby naturally as a breastmilk substitute and we have to realise the trade off of formula is starting a baby’s life on UP food.

The OP asked us for our own opinions on why we chose to breastfeed or feed formula and I gave her my own opinions.

Whatever a parent chooses to do for their own child is totally up to them and how much research they do into formula feeding and how much knowledge they have about what they’re putting into their babies body. It’s up to them.

The same way we all raise our children in a way that our beliefs, situation, finances and knowledge allows us to do.

And if you can't breast feed? How do you think women in that situation will feel reading your hyperbole?

I think the decision will come naturally to you - it sounds like you're already on your way there. I breastfed my first baby for 18 months and yes it was exhausting, so when I became pregnant again with my second I told myself I'm formula feeding this time. Closer to the birth I changed my mind - motherly instinct took over and I wanted him to receive all the benefits. 13 months in now and no regrets.

Oh and to add, I've never had mastitis with either child. Don't necessarily worry about that as it might not even be an issue.

I wanted nothing more than to breastfeed my two but had a really hard time both times and so, for my mental and physical health I formula fed. I think both have their benefits, it's a very personal choice but my advice would be to try breastfeeding if you want to and off it's not for you, switch to formula... You can't do it the other way around x

I’ve done both. Neither was more particularly beneficial than the other. It’s not difficult to make a bottle, it’s not restrictive and travelling is still as easy. It’s just more expensive!

I haven’t rtft but for me, BF wasn’t just food - it was the whole way I mothered my babies. Like this natural process of nourishing them from my body and with my body. Served so many soothing purposes as well as food. FF involves cuddles and closeness so maybe it’s the same but I suspect doesn’t involve the same emotional relationship between the pair, that’s maybe achieved at different times when you are FF.

There were lots of annoying things about BF, but if I couldn’t do it with a baby of mine I’d be devastated tbh, I remember those experiences so fondly.

I wasn’t bothered either way. But then got the hang of breastfeeding and found it far easier than formula feeding. No bottles, no sterilising, no perfect prep machine. Just lift up your top and that’s it’s.

I found it very stress relieving. If the baby cried in those early days, I’d plonk myself on the sofa, with a pint of water, cup of tea, slice of cake and feed the baby, they would stop crying, I had a lovely excuse to sit down, and more than often they would nod off.

I found breastfeeding like a magic button - the baby would stop crying, immediately calm down and when I started reading the science behind it, got really hooked. The fact that the composition of the breast milk changes of the baby is ill I found fascination. I also used the breast milk for sticky eyes which always worked wonders.

The weight just dropped off me too. When you feed the baby, you can literally feel your stomach muscles tightening.

Agree with every word of this.

Firstly, your baby will be fine either way and you must do what is right for you. Don’t put pressure on yourself to make a decision yet.

i think that in this country, we are faced with a combination of very poor bf support combined with pressure and guilt re breast is best. Yet despite this, many midwives push the myth that baby is hungry before the milk comes in , and encourage top ups.

I bf both of mine. I was lucky to have friends who bf so I had some understanding about the initial challenges. I was told that the first 6 weeks were harder than ff and thereafter it was loads easier so it seemed a no brainer to me! Plus it was free and it avoided cluttering up my house with all the bottle paraphernalia. And this was before perfect prep machines and it was no longer considered safe to make up bottles in advance.

it was hard for the first 8 weeks with my first. Exhaustion, latch issues, nipple pain etc. Thereafter, it was so much easier - baby fed to resolve hunger, thirst, tiredness, pain, boredom etc. It was an incredible panacea for everything! Nights couldn’t be shared but that gave me brownie points for breaks at other times and lie ins. I ended up co sleeping and feeding lying down and he learned to help himself and not disturb me!

I had no teething issues with my second child, she latched on immediately and there was no pain etc.

But yes there are downsides. The pressure is on you and this can be challenging for both you and partner. However I had friends who ff so could share night feeds but partners maintained that they needed their sleep because of their jobs.

nights out and breaks are definitely harder and babies often appear to fall into a routine more easily when ff, and feed less often.

I certainly don’t think ff harms the baby. Of course there are known benefits of bf for baby and mum , but ultimately, having a baby is challenging enough and they are best served by having a happy mum so you have to so what you feel comfortable with.

But follow your own instincts and don’t be pressured by the views of others.

Best of luck!

This post was the OP asking WHY we breastfed or didn’t. I answered her questions honestly from my own perspective.

hyperboyle is exaggeration or used for effect. I very literally am stating facts.

Do you know that in countries where you need a prescription for formula those that actually CAN’T feed for medical reasons are about 2%.
take Norway for example 98% of mothers initiating breastfeeding and around 77-80% of infants still being breastfed at 6 months of age.

breastfeeding is HARD for many people and so they give up. The UK system is designed for you to make that choice. Many scandi countries are not.

I think if you can’t feed your probably not reading a thread with this title? especially if you think it is going to be triggering?