Excuses

[Blah11]

^^
Other people can FF your baby.. no one else can BF them (well technically another BF mother could but you know what I mean).

That's not really faff though is it?

Abby was also given EBM in a bottle so other people could also feed her.

Its easier to have other people look after your baby when they're FF i think. Yes you could express but who has time to express when you have a brand new baby? They're usually feeding constantly so you cant get time to express

 

[Kit]

This thread caught my eye while I was looking for some specific information - I am no longer breastfeeding. I agree with the original sentiment, that people should be able to be open about their reasons for stopping, but unfortunately a few comments have slipped through that make it easy to see why people do feel the need to make an excuse. There have been some comments which suggest that people are buying into the idea that women who say they had a low milk supply are somehow kidding themselves, or just didn't persist. I find this very hurtful.

I had a very low supply and a very slow let down - this resulted in a baby losing weight because he would try to feed, get almost nothing and scream and refuse to latch again. After a while he became completely discouraged and wouldn't even try to latch on - even with the intervention of a very experienced breast feeding specialist midwife and a lactation consultant. We were told to give formula urgently and given an enormous amount of support to try to get my supply up and I tried everything. I pumped constantly, I tried to feed him whenever I could get him at all interested, I tried herbal remedies, I discussed medication with my GP. In the end I BF exclusively for less than 2 weeks, mix-fed in ever decreasing amounts (with the breast milk being mainly expressed) and finished up on just one BF per day up to about 3 months when my milk disappeared altogether.

Unfortunately whenever low supply is mentioned I see a certain cynical expression appear on people's faces and some of the comments on this thread echo this. I have been told outright that everyone can get their supply up. My MW and breastfeeding consultant both told me that a low supply is NOT as rare as people think and that in the old days we would have used a wetnurse or he simply wouldn't have made it.

Please be very careful in coming to a judgement as to whether something is just an excuse or not - lots of people seem to think I am just making excuses but if they had been a fly on the wall in our home in those early days they would certainly think again.

I don't believe that I went into BFing with a defeatist attitude or that any more persistence would have got me anywhere but into a bout of PND and my LO probably into hospital. Maybe I better come up with an implausible excuse - he truth clearly isn't cutting it.

 

[Tiff]

This thread caught my eye while I was looking for some specific information - I am no longer breastfeeding. I agree with the original sentiment, that people should be able to be open about their reasons for stopping, but unfortunately a few comments have slipped through that make it easy to see why people do feel the need to make an excuse. There have been some comments which suggest that people are buying into the idea that women who say they had a low milk supply are somehow kidding themselves, or just didn't persist. I find this very hurtful.

I had a very low supply and a very slow let down - this resulted in a baby losing weight because he would try to feed, get almost nothing and scream and refuse to latch again. After a while he became completely discouraged and wouldn't even try to latch on - even with the intervention of a very experienced breast feeding specialist midwife and a lactation consultant. We were told to give formula urgently and given an enormous amount of support to try to get my supply up and I tried everything. I pumped constantly, I tried to feed him whenever I could get him at all interested, I tried herbal remedies, I discussed medication with my GP. In the end I BF exclusively for less than 2 weeks, mix-fed in ever decreasing amounts (with the breast milk being mainly expressed) and finished up on just one BF per day up to about 3 months when my milk disappeared altogether.

Unfortunately whenever low supply is mentioned I see a certain cynical expression appear on people's faces and some of the comments on this thread echo this. I have been told outright that everyone can get their supply up. My MW and breastfeeding consultant both told me that a low supply is NOT as rare as people think and that in the old days we would have used a wetnurse or he simply wouldn't have made it.

Please be very careful in coming to a judgement as to whether something is just an excuse or not - lots of people seem to think I am just making excuses but if they had been a fly on the wall in our home in those early days they would certainly think again.

I don't believe that I went into BFing with a defeatist attitude or that any more persistence would have got me anywhere but into a bout of PND and my LO probably into hospital. Maybe I better come up with an implausible excuse - he truth clearly isn't cutting it.

Its posts like this that made me say what I did earlier in the thread. Blanket comments are just that - blankets. Its hurtful to people who actually had that sort of thing happen.

I just don't think people should comment/make opinions on other people's choices to feed their children. I do agree though, at least with the OP she was trying to get across that people shouldn't be upset, or feel the need to make excuses. However there are quite a few people who aren't that understanding, or empowering. They view Formula Feeding as feeding your baby rat poison.

Its hard to know what people are of the "Formula is rat poison" mentality and who are open and supportive. There's nothing wrong with being proud of your accomplishments with BF, as I mentioned before I *love* seeing the "I've been BF for ___ months" blinkies. From most of the posts on here it seems that the BF Moms are of the "its your choice, but at least try" mentality, fair enough. Just remember that not everyone shares that viewpoint. No one should ever feel the need to try and rationalize/justify/explain why they made their choices.

Anyways, Kit just wanted to say sorry if this topic upset you at all... and IMO so long as your LO is being fed and thriving then everything else doesn't matter.

 

[Foogirl]

Its easier to have other people look after your baby when they're FF i think. Yes you could express but who has time to express when you have a brand new baby? They're usually feeding constantly so you cant get time to express

I had plenty opportunity to express milk. I had gallons of it in the freezer.

 

[Seraphim]

Kit

It's a bit chicken and egg too. If people didn't use such reasons as an excuse, you wouldn't find people like yourself feeling disbelieved. But people should keep their opinions in check.

x

 

[jamielou]

We had a lot of opinions on this in a lecture and one of the others who had sat in on a session with new young mothers said that a lot of the girls didn't have enough information about why brest is best. Which i kind of agree on. We get leaflets posted everywhere with a mother cuddling a baby to the breast and how "studies show" but we NEED the studies to be printed everywhere with all the staistics printed to so women can see it for themselves. If people just keep referring to it as "studies shown..." as one women said to me on a post natal ward (when i did my maternity placement)

She said, "Where are the studies as i've never seen them" and as a student nurse i felt like i should of been able to give her a leaflet or something with the studies that have been done but i couldn't. All we had was some perfect pic of a model mum with the baby latched on and sucking perfectly. I have actually seen one study of it which we had at uni from about 1999 and it was a study on basically babies breast fed and bottle fed on about 1000 babies basically testing on what illnesses etc they had up to five or ten years of age i think and about 60% of the babies that were ff fed had been subjected to more illnesses so we desperatly need these to be printed!!! It's no good just putting "studies show.." people need to see it for themselves otherwise its just words!

 

[Seraphim]

We had a lot of opinions on this in a lecture and one of the others who had sat in on a session with new young mothers said that a lot of the girls didn't have enough information about why brest is best. Which i kind of agree on. We get leaflets posted everywhere with a mother cuddling a baby to the breast and how "studies show" but we NEED the studies to be printed everywhere with all the staistics printed to so women can see it for themselves. If people just keep referring to it as "studies shown..." as one women said to me on a post natal ward (when i did my maternity placement)

She said, "Where are the studies as i've never seen them" and as a student nurse i felt like i should of been able to give her a leaflet or something with the studies that have been done but i couldn't. All we had was some perfect pic of a model mum with the baby latched on and sucking perfectly. I have actually seen one study of it which we had at uni from about 1999 and it was a study on basically babies breast fed and bottle fed on about 1000 babies basically testing on what illnesses etc they had up to five or ten years of age i think and about 60% of the babies that were ff fed had been subjected to more illnesses so we desperatly need these to be printed!!! It's no good just putting "studies show.." people need to see it for themselves otherwise its just words!

This thread isnt a debate on the benefits of either though.

 

[jamielou]

Sorry have another thread on my mind browzing another mums forum doh!

I've never had anyone make me feel bad personally (probably because I didn't have a choice) but I can kinda see where some of the points here are coming from... though I do think maybe why do people get defensive if they really did try? I don't know but no body should feel bad about their decisions!