Breastfeeding and attachment parenting - your thoughts

[awfulpersonme]

I've not posted on this board before but have lurked a lot.

I'm interested to see what you think about two things I have thought about a lot in recent weeks - breastfeeding and attachment parenting.

I breastfeed my 5 month old and as such was on a few Facebook groups for support. On these groups I have seen comments stating that women who ff should not have children, that formula should only be available on prescription for babies who need it medically, and asking for tips on how to persuade their female friends and relatives to breastfeed their babies. These groups are largely AP based.

So:

1. Is pressurising women to breastfeed essentially anti feminist? Isn't it just another way of telling us what we should and shouldn't do with our bodies, another way of making female bodies public property?

2. aren't a lot of the attachment parenting principles essentially quite anti-woman? Every AP group I've seen seems to place a mother's need for outside stimulation, sleep, and good mental health as far, far below the needs of her children (at all ages, not just newborns and young babies). The idea that you must be around your baby 24/7 just seems to me to be another way of keeping women firmly "in their place".

What do you all think??

My husband has been approached so many times by people with 'solutions' to our non-sleeping baby that basically seem to consist of taking me back from her like a piece of property getting passed around, as in I shouldn't be feeding her in the night, he should be manly and stop me and demand that we have a bed to ourselves alone. When he shrugs and says Batteries breastfeeding isn't really my call to make, but FWIW I support her, he gets told that women are 'weak' about their children and get dependant on the feeling of being needed and I need him to step in. Because really that is what's best.

To my mind, AP ain't got nothing on that kind of sexism mainly because AP proponents tend to be online rather than your neighbour, relative, doctor... I'm not a fundamentalist Christian so I don't have any exposure to that crowd. But it's all individual experience

he gets told that women are 'weak' about their children and get dependant on the feeling of being needed and I need him to step in. Because really that is what's best

Thus is exactly what a doctor told us.

Because, of course, women are either ridiculously smothering over-protective over-invested in their children self sacrificing fools entirely (and selfishly) economically reliant on others who will have no financial security to show for it in their old age.

OR

Cold hearted working bitches who don't care about their children, dumping them in childcare, barely even know who they are know their key worker better than their parents and those women might think they're well off but they'll have no emotional security of a close bonded family to fall back on in their old age.

Because we have to be weak and deficient at something. What with being female.

All the anti-AP threads smack of woman-hating of the first kind to me, and I can't see how that's better than the second.

Well whether you BF or FF, you'll be told that you're selfish for doing so.

ICJump

Yes. I know. If you would like some interesting reading on this topic, I have a book about it, Feminist Perspecitives on Science, or I can send you a book chapter from a different book which covers much of the same material.

batteries

I'm truly sorry you feel this thread is woman hating, that was absolutely not my intention in starting it.

I started it as someone who breastfeeds her baby but who sometimes has to give him the odd bottle of formula if I've not managed to express much. I have been blasted for this. I'm also someone pushed to the brink by a baby who can take 4+ hours to fall asleep, who won't feed, be rocked, co sleep or otherwise comforted to sleep. When I've asked for sleep training advice I've been told by APs that a hellish existence of no sleep is just part and parcel of having a baby, that my mental health is unimportant next to my baby, and that I must just shut up and put up.

I don't know many routine based mothers and I'm sure there are many extreme rod for your own back types out there. But among those I've met, they're the only ones who have ever given me any kind of useful practical advice other than 'co sleep, use a sling' or my personal favourite "he will grow out of it/sleep when he's developmentally ready to do so"

Some children are just shit sleepers and there's fuck all you can do about it. Maybe mine is one of them. But don't try and kid yourself that all babies are incapable of sleep as it's simply not true. Much of the time you can significantly improve their sleep if you want to. If you don't want to that's fine too. But I have seriously resented being told how selfish I'm being for putting my mental health above my baby.

It's interesting how different narratives of what motherhood should be are used us a stick to beat women with. From my own experience, I definitely felt more pressure the other way- breastfeeding was fine up until a certain point and then it became 'are you still feeding her' or 'you've only just fed her- why is she feeding again? Maybe you need to give her a bottle...'.
Then there was the pressure to 'get back to normal/work' as quickly as possible. I was made to feel that there was something strange about wanting to hold my baby, keep her close while sleeping and not wanting to be apart for too long. The relief I felt when reading about the breastfeeding dyad and how symbiotic that relationship can be was immense. My feelings were a perfectly normal biological response. I wasn't a freak for not feeling a desire to go on a 'girls' night out'.

I think there is a general dismissal of women's feelings as not that important or something that needs to be 'managed' to something more acceptable. The transition to motherhood is tough - suddenly a whole other raft of expectations get dumped on you. It can feel very lonely when you're swimming against the current.

The whole thing is a minefield!

I just think it's as simple as all parenting choices should be respected.

For instance I do not want to co sleep (unless it got me better sleep which it doesn't) - I want to share my bed with my DP only. Other mothers love co sleeping. That is totally fine and works for them and their families.

erinaceus that would be great. The chapter is probably better as as I'm in Oz and the postage would cost a bomb. I'll PM you.

awfulpersonme But it's not as simple as respecting choices. Our choices aren't made in a vacuum. Our choices are made in a society that undervalues women, it undervalues what we do and treats the functions of our bodies as disgusting. If we act like feeding like feeding is just a simple choice we ignore all sorts of contributing factors

53, thanks for answering my question. It was really helpful.

It sounds like AP is descended from the Continuum Concept, which was popular when my kids were small. It now being advanced by a born again Christian may well be a response to many born again Christians being given authoritarian child care advice, and this more child centred approach being an alternative to that.

As much as we tell people to trust their instincts, often when women are pregnant or have a baby, they do want some kind of advice and explanation as to how to care for a child.

I also find Outsself's posts helpful in articulating my feelings on this.

Different styles of child rearing are always going to arouse strong feelings. The difference between how these issues were discussed twenty years again and the way they are discussed now seems to be in the promotion of equal parenting as some kind of moral good, and the spin put on this that it is some kind of feminist goal.

So, some stuff about feminism and 'equal parenting,'

1. Given that pregnancy has many physical and psychological risks, feminists recognise that women in the UK almost always only have a baby because they want to be involved in the care of their baby and want the baby to live with them.
2. Feminists (and universal human rights) recognise the special status of mothers, and the strong feelings mothers have for their babies.
3. It's an abuse of human rights to separate a mother from her baby without very good reason to fear for the child's safety. Adoption is a last resort.
4. The assumption that the basic family unit that a woman should raise her baby within involves the baby's father or any other man is damaging to women's rights.
5. The assumption that a father should be more important in the life of that mother and baby than grandparents, uncles, aunts, friends and partners is not a feminist position.
6. The assumption that a mother should share a bed with a sexual partner as a duty is not a feminist position.
7. Mothers' parenting decisions do not make them morally responsible for how much care or the manner of care fathers' provide. Making fatherslook after children is not another job mothers have to do or should be judged for failing to do.
8. It isn't more feminist to live with a father who does fifty percent of the childcare than to make any other arrangement.

I suspect that AP's popularity lies in part in quite a deep fear many women have about how society not only views caring in general, but the trivialisation of pregnancy, childbirth and breastfeeding. and women's strong feelings about their babies.

AP no doubt has a variety of issues, but it's also pushing against a much stronger social force to devalue motherhood, caring, relationships and human contact and replace it with paid employment as the pinnacle of what a human being is.

Feminism is about the human rights of women.

Yes almond. I agree with everything you said.

I disagree with some of it, eg 4 and 5.

IMO is not more or less feminist to SaH or WoH (part or full time) when you have a baby or young DC.

Just a thought- how many of those who felt pressured to formula feed had children in the last year? My DD is six months old and the pressure to continue to EBF has been enormous. It seems like this attitude is a backlash against the pushing of FF in previous generations.

The facts should speak for themselves without the rhetoric. People just need the information to make the decision.

I heard an interview with a well known pediatrician a while ago. He basically said that if you're the kind of parent who buys parenting books then you probably don't need them. The people who do need them don't bother to get parenting tips.

I agree with the people who said the issue is when could becomes should and may becomes must.

My DD is 18m old cosmic. So not in the last year but not far off

Dozer, do you want to expand on that?

Are you saying that you believe a mother with a baby in a basic family unit should always also include a man?

Or are you saying such a belief is not damaging to women's rights?

My twins are 16 months and I had pressure from all corners - HCPs, family and friends to FF, to mix feed or to express.

Of course a family unit need not always include a father, or co-parent if the mother's partner is a woman, but their role is IMO more important than extended family and random people. Hence why, for example, the legal system includes provisions for financial support and for DC to have contact with both parents. I don't see this as inconsistent with womens/mothers' rights (or the wellbeing of DC).

I should also say that while I was pregnant with DTs, not one person IRL spoke positively to me about BFing twins, or about parenting twins in general.
There was a lot of scaremongering and a general assumption that it wasn't possible to parent twins in any other way than by being routine-based, entirely parent-led.

I must have a fuck off face - I didn't get any pressure (or conversely, help) with BF my 3 year old - I had some with my 6 year old (in another country - not experts, but midwives who had some helpful ideas, and the occasional less helpful )

I agree with Almond for a pure, feminist theory view point.

Thinking about it, I wonder if some people are forceful about AP (or any other particular scheme) because that gives them a firm answer when any other advice comes their way. I'm generally fairly immune to it, but it can be wearing, especially with your first newborn.

Agree with dozer on point five. Of course a family unit doesn't 'have' to have a man. But if it does, and that father is engaged and parenting equally then it's not unreasonable to assume in that individual family unit that they are more important than extended family. Again, it's the 'should' that makes the tyranny.

I've been speaking to my mother on the BF vs ff issue. When she had me in the late 70s there was huge pressure to ff. Now she's seen me under pressure to BF and struggle. It seems there's always a stick to beat women with isn't there? Always a way we 'should' behave. Plus ça change.

I have to admit I'm really surprised by 4 and 5 in that list. I thought that feminism was about equality, how can it be if we diminish fathers' roles to such an extent? How can I expect my children's' father to play an equal role in raising them if feminism says he's no more important than extended family?
Sorry I know I haven't joined the debate til now although I have been reading it!

I would say the line between bfing support being supportive and feminist an unsupportive and anti-feminist is pretty simple.

When it supports the woman's desires and choices and enables her to do what she wants to do and is important for her as a mother, it is feminist. When it in any way intentionally coerces or shames the mother for her choices it is anti-feminist.

Totally agree with fusion

Surely we should all be helping each other. Non-judgemental tips are what mothers (and fathers too) need. That's why I find labelling so unhelpful. All it does is create 'otherness'.

I guess where I'm coming form is that breastfeeding support isn't always on an individual level. Breastfeeding support comes in the form of advocacy. For example a Australian based breast cancer charity recently paired itself with a formula manufacture. My self and many other breastfeeding supporters asked them to end the partnership because breastfeeding to near universal levels could prevent 20000 deaths a year from breast cancer. Many women felt that our advocacy was anti women, that we were shaming women for using formula. This was not the case. We were however trying to address the issue of of a formula promotion undermining breastfeeding and therefore increasing risks of breast cancer.