How many times do we have to say something? If you ladies want to debate the ins and outs of BF, donor milk, etc by all means make a new thread and start chatting about it.
The fact that the topic at hand is being blatantly ignored even after things have been mentioned twice by two separate moderators is unreal.
How many times do we have to say something? If you ladies want to debate the ins and outs of BF, donor milk, etc by all means make a new thread and start chatting about it.
The fact that the topic at hand is being blatantly ignored even after things have been mentioned twice by two separate moderators is unreal.
Is it allowed to start a new thread then? In baby Club/News and Debates or something?
i dont mind saying why, i dont justify it by saying giving every excuse under the sun. i simply didnt want to because the idea of it is so unnatural to me, i would never feel comfortable doing it. it doesnt sound easy and in my eyes formula does what i need it to do
the OP put it in a way that was simply curious, where i was happy to answer. BFs made it into a debate
sorry you had to.
all round!
Mrs Pop, I sooo get you on the guilt thing hun
In the hospital i was in, i watch a team of midwives bully a poor foreign lass into trying to BF, her LO wouldn't latch, she couldn't express any milk at all and for 3 days i saw what a state they were both in. I am completely for trying your hardest but this poor woman was crying in my arms at night. I told her she can ask for formula, no one had told her this and she thought she would be in hospital for months until her LO fed.
I heard her asking the midwife for milk and sobbing and the midwife kept saying no, i actually stuck my head in and said "can you please give them them some formula" It was actually disgusting the way they were treating her. I do think sometimes the breastfeeding push can go a bit too far.
I hope that didn't offend anyone, i'm very pro BF but not to the point of bullying
That's disgraceful. Very strange though how the very same hospital made me give Holly formula. She lost 13% of her birthweight in the first week due to non-latching and me expressing colostrum, and we ended up being admitted back to hospital. They made me express 3 hourly, and top up with formula til she gained weight. We weren't offered to try cup feeding, and were made to give bottles, despite them knowing I really wanted to BF. They were just interested in feeding her up and getting her out. I'm pretty certain the early introduction of bottles is what led to our latching problem, but I didn't know any better and didn't want her to starve. Those 48 hours were among the worst of my life, they didn't even help me with the washing/sterilising pump parts although I was assured somebody would help me. I was pumping/feeding EBM/FF in a continuous cycle round the clock and had approx 30mins rest in between feeding times.
Thanks for this thread thumper, it's really interesting
It does seem alot of ladies didn't choose to FF during pregnancy, but had a decent bash at BFing before switching. I think it's a shame that those of you who are saying you didn't really want to switch might have been able to continue if the majority of medical professionals were any help whatsoever!
I completely get what M+SandBump is saying - for me, after the c-section and my failure to even go into labour, I HAD to BF. I had to prove my body could do something it was supposed to! But it was never a lovely bonding experience for us, at least not in the early days. Not helped by the fact he wouldn't latch for 8 days so we expressed and cup fed, and I could barely move following the c-section, so I couldn't lift him or carry him. He was plonked on my lap every so often, and then I expressed. I was only getting half an ounce most of the pumping sessions that week, but that's ok, because newborn tummies can only hold 5-15mls over the course of the first week, so I had plenty of milk to give him. I figured that if he would latch, he'd feed for an hour, so pumping 0.5oz in 30-40 mins was probably ok.
Sorry, I've gone off on a tangent. I think because with forumla you have to give several ounces from the word go, it scares people when they only express a fraction of an ounce. It's an education and expectation issue usually, not a breastfeeding one.
My mom switched to formula for me when I was 6 weeks old. She says her nipples were bloody and my latch was like a hoover! I think it spurred me on too that I wanted to 'beat' my mom. Is that mean?
The only people I've known FF from birth are the girls from my school, who *seriously* aren't the brightest (mmm, drugs) and had their youngest at 16/17, have never had a job and live off benefits. I don't think they would ever consider BFing an option. Everyone else I've known has at least tried to do the first couple of feeds so LO gets the colostrum.
It did go a little mad, and I'm sorry for my part in it. I stand by my posts though! It is still interesting that most people only chose to FF after encountering difficulties BFing, and not many didn't even try to latch LO on once. Interesting reads, and some really sad stories.
i know you probably didnt mean it in a nasty way but i do find that slightly offensive. im bright, dont do drugs, yes im young but i have a job and dont live off benefits and i chose to FF from the start and i doubt im alone in that.
BF was never really an option for me but its not because im an uneducated druggy
I wondered when I wrote that whether it would be taken the wrong way. All I mean is that the only people I know who've never expressed even a slight desire to try BFing were the ones who were young and less educated. I'm only 22 myself, and was 21 when LO was born, so I'm by no means knocking young parents. I know there are women who choose to FF from birth, but I can hand on heart say that all my friends and ladies I know have at least tried, except for that particular social group. Just an observation, that's all
