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??

We are fortunate to have a huge bed so usually we don't have to boot one parent out. In the early days sometime DH has slept in another room as we tend to have more than one child in the bed. It is quite rare for my babies to need feeding overnight once we get past a few months so after then it is as likely that I would sleep elsewhere as DH. For is cosleeping is about both parents not just the mother.

I think women perhaps talk about parenting more than men full stop, there are more women than men on here - not all the women on here are AP

TBH the women (I actually know, not talking about internet randoms) who follow the stereotype of 'Attachment Mothering' do so because they were all control freaks before children. I know for sure two (as they confided in me) believe they have the right to do what they want with their DC - To the point one said her (then) 14 year old son was selfish for having a girlfriend. The other complained at her fear her DIL (who I might add, didn't exist because her DS was 7...) wouldn't breastfeed to 'punish' her.

I find the women who are judgemental with 'Attachment Parenting' are usually not very well or happy.

On the other hand, I have a VERY close friend who picked and chose her 'attachment parenting,' choosing to extend BF like I did. All she wants is for her DD to be happy, so at her fifth birthday for example, she bought Haribo even though she thinks it is gross. The first person I mentioned? On her son's tenth she explained to him that his birthday was 'equally about her' so he could choose to see the movie he was gagging to see 'with her, or not at all. After all, it is our special day.'

I'm not a gambler, but I know which child I think will turn out okay!
And this is the issue with any 'rule list.' It's NOT one size fits all and some mothers will abuse it, like the ones I mention. The problem is, they can defend it as a 'parenting choice' and no one can tell them what abusive cunts they are.

Well you are fortunate indeed to have a huge bed.

I've read a lot of the AP forums in my time and believe me, it's not universal. It is not uncommon for Dad to be in the spare room for 3/4 years, as when No 2 comes along the first one is "not ready" to move into their own room.

That phrase "AP Moms do it on the table". It all seems a bit grim tbh.

Attachment Parenting is exclusively aimed at the mother though. How many AP Facebook groups have a vibrant male cohort?

How many men even talk about AP?

It honestly should be called Attachment Mothering cos that's what it is.

How many parents have you actually asked? (And come to think of it, how many parenting groups of any sort have a vibrant male cohort, MN included? Parenting online discussion groups do tend to skew female, regardless of approach.)

I have the same approach to parenting as my husband. We do the same things (well, he doesn't lactate, but you know what I mean). We are on the same page. We sleep in the same bed and everything.

But sure, it's just about the mother, regardless of what any of the mothers actually doing it actually say about their lives. Sigh.

My DH co-slept with DS1 for most of the night after DTs were born. He (DS1) was only 18.5 months and he found the new arrivals very difficult to cope with.

I do believe that supporting women to breastfeed if that's their choice is feminist in the sense that it's supporting women. I am a peer supporter of women who breastfeed multiples.

But on the other hand if women choose not to breastfeed, for whatever reason, then that choice must be supported too.

I mentioned my MIL upthread: her parenting style would be seen as quite far from the notion of AP - she thinks you can spoil a baby by holding it, doesn't hold with breastfeeding, is a fan of controlled crying etc. - BUT she would have done 95% of the child rearing in her home, all of the cooking, all of the washing. And that side of things is anti-feminist in my eyes.

You seem to be viewing the whole AP world from your own house. Fair enough.

Moo I have teenagers and believe me, when children are older, it is impossible to know who breastfed/co slept etc or who chose a different route. We are all pretty privileged, I guess, in being white educated middle class, so surprise, surprise, all our kids are doing pretty well. I think in those mad baby years it is easy to become fixated on things that really don't matter that much in the long run.

My DH also slept in the spare room (mostly with our older boy) for about a year after our twins were born.

Was this grim for him? I don't think so - it was about survival for everyone: I could manage DTs overnight, feed them when needed, bedshare if necessary. He could get a good nights' sleep to be able to drive to work and support us. That year flashed by in the blink of an eye and now that all 3 of our kids are finally sleeping all night, hopefully we will have many, many, many more to share a bed.

Well, in my own house, in the houses of other AP parents I know, in the AP discussion groups I'm part of, and from AP organisations like API.

But do go on, I'm sure you know better.

Alrighty then. Whatever floats your boat.

You seem to be viewing the whole AP world from your own house. Fair enough

I have not said that I am talking for the whole AP world. I am talking from my own experience which is just about all that most of us can do with confidence. I have friends who parent in a similar way as you tend to gravitate towards people with similar views as you. We have quite frank conversations and they are not sleeping apart for years at a time - they could be hiding the truth but I don't think so. As a SAHP I mix with lots of other parents and I seem to be more representative that the AP extreme which is held up on MN

Tbh I'm judging AP off the backs of Facebook breastfeeding support groups I've been on which IMO are awful and v anti woman.

I've read a lot of the AP forums in my time and believe me, it's not universal. It is not uncommon for Dad to be in the spare room for 3/4 years, as when No 2 comes along the first one is "not ready" to move into their own room

But aren't you more likely to post on a forum if you have a problem with an issue. So the posts you are seeing are not representative of AP as a whole. For us and the parents I have discussed this with the point of is to bond with parents ( and for us it is easier).

We do have two children/ babies in with us at the moment, they are very much sleeping with us and not just me

I don't use FB groups because I did they tend to attract lots of holier-than-thou extremists of every shade. You get huge false consensus effects within the groups where those with the loudest voices create the "norm" and everyone else beings to feel this is how the whole world thinks (so anyone who disagrees must be wrong).

It's as true of parenting groups who push AP or Gina Ford as the One True Way, as it is of liberal feminist groups who castigate anyone as a TERF who doesn't toe the line on trans issues. At their worst, these groups are a vicious little bubble of groupthink, like a mini cult.

1) Is pressurising women to breastfeed essentially anti feminist?

Pressuring women to do anything is anti feminist. Providing accurate information on the pros and cons of bfing versus ffing would be fine, yet no one does this. Instead, each side (extremist anti-bf and anti-ff) presents horrendously inaccurate info about the pain and restrictions of bfing or the damage and dangers of ffing, with emotional anecdotes taking the place of objective facts.

Both approaches are anti-feminist because their information distortion takes agency away from the woman by removing her ability to make properly informed decisions.

2) aren't a lot of the attachment parenting principles essentially quite anti-woman?

No, the principles aren't. As pp have said, the principles themselves are pretty woolly and flexible. Lots of extremist AP proponents (often seen on fb groups) are quite anti-feminist and take a stance I would certainly describe as anti-women. However, these people are not representative of AP in general or of the majority of people who raise their children along those lines (with or without the AP label).

Sorry Philoslothy that wasn't towards you, it's just a fast thread.

Thankyou Elspeth

I have made it clear I think people are failed by the system, the one that is designed to encourage profits for baby product manufacturers

You have certainly made it clear you lack the ability to see any other view point beyond this one.

So far as linking ff to poor heath, obesity etc I bet you conveniently overlook all the socio-economic factors. Middle class mothers tend to bf ( in my case being bullied and pressured into it)

Instead, each side (extremist anti-bf and anti-ff) presents horrendously inaccurate info about the pain and restrictions of bfing or the damage and dangers of ffing, with emotional anecdotes taking the place of objective facts

The misery of bf is an objective fact for me. You can dismiss that as emotional if you like but you have no right to say my description of my experience is " horrendously inaccurate"

To give a different sort of anecdote of breastfeeding.

My DH is from an African society that often BFs till at the very least, four years. He was born over there, but has lived here since a toddler.

Other than the midwife (which is a long, long story) his parents put me under enormous pressure to BF. Except then MIL would make comments insinuating my breast milk wasn't good enough quality I was pretty befuddled because this wasn't a MIL thing I'd ever seen addressed on MN or elsewhere, but DH explained that in the culture the idea is the more 'cuddly' to people other than mum baby was, the better quality the milk. One of my twins was very relaxed with anyone, one barely let even DH hold him!

It made me feel like even though I was doing 'what i was told,' my children's personalities weren't up to scratch.

This is basically when I discovered feminism and realised no matter what I did, I'd be a 'bad' mum. FIL perved on me whilst BFing which s why I stopped, and MIL acted as though I'd done her a personal slight by not expressing so she could fed - even though they were toddlers eating real food, and oe of the reasons I tried so hard to BF was because she made it very clear what a worthless mother I'd be if I didn't!

This is why I'll formula feed next time. I didn't BF for me anyway, and even in the society I was a part of, I was considered a failure purely because DS2 preferred mummy.

I mean, what's the point? Bottle next time!!

The misery of bf is an objective fact for me. You can dismiss that as emotional if you like but you have no right to say my description of my experience is " horrendously inaccurate"

I haven't done any such thing.

I'm sorry you had such a rough experience bfing, but please don't put words in my mouth.

Who then are these anti bf lobbyists who present horrendously inaccurate info about the pain and restrictions of bfing with emotional anecdotes taking the place of objective facts

I've read many individual accounts on here from women who individually have had a horrendous time. I've never seen any which were presented as anything other than their individual experience.

On the other hand I've seen plenty of the sort of generalisations being made by the likes of MooCow.

Did you mean collectively all posters who write about the "pain and restrictions" they endured are presenting "horrendously inaccurate and emotional anecdotes"?

If not I'm at a loss as to what group, sector or lobbyists you have in mind. Is there a ff equivalent of the La Leche League?

My children are teenagers. Both Gina Ford and attachment parenting were after my time.

Can someone who does attachment parenting explain what it involves, why they do it and how it has benefitted them and their children?

And can I ask if the other people you raise your child with also use attachment parenting - parents, siblings, friends, partners, professional child care providers? Do they use different styles? Is it easy to switch between different people using different styles?

Who then are these anti bf lobbyists who present horrendously inaccurate info about the pain and restrictions of bfing with emotional anecdotes taking the place of objective facts

I never said they were lobbyists, but they're a visible presence online and on FB groups. As an example, they are the kind of people who post photographs of ill newborns being fed through a supplemental tube with captions about how the selfish mother is forcing her baby to bf. Or who take a tragic story (such as one where a drunk mother fell asleep on her baby and suffocated it) and comment that it's one more life that could have been saved if the mother hadn't been brainwashed into bfing. If you haven't seen any of these kind of posts, then lucky you. They're very unpleasant.

Did you mean collectively all posters who write about the "pain and restrictions" they endured are presenting "horrendously inaccurate and emotional anecdotes"?

Nope, absolutely not. There is no way that interpretation can be taken from my post unless you actively strain to misread it. The sentence specifies that it's "extremist anti-bf and anti-ff" sides that present women with horrendously inaccurate information, not posters on MN and elsewhere describing their own experiences. I haven't seen real extremists on MN, tbh.

Also, you have misquoted me. I never used the phrase "horrendously inaccurate and emotional anecdotes". To do so would mean that I was describing individual anecdotes were horrendously inaccurate, which I did not do. What I actually said was "horrendously inaccurate info about the pain and restrictions of bfing or the damage and dangers of ffing". Information like (from the anti-bf side) that bfing will make your partner resent the baby, make your child clingy, has no health benefits whatsoever, and so on. Or (from the anti-ff side) that ffing will irreparably damage your baby's gut, make your child less attached, give your child eczema, and so on. All these are examples of inaccurate info I have seen online.

The point of both sides in an unpleasant and unproductive "debate" using distressing and emotive anecdotes to make their argument is a separate issue to the inaccuracy of the information they present. Posters can and should tell their own stories all they want. But when other people (the extremists with an agenda to push) use those stories to manipulate women into feeding their babies a particular way, then it becomes a problem.