Formula milk

filigree_2

I would suggest that the OP doesn't buy milk in advance. Even if you get utterly desperate the baby won't starve if you have to drive to distant shops. You can buy small cartons of ready made milk instead of big tins of powder, that way if you change your mind and go back to breastfeeding you won't be tempted by that full tin. I struggled on for three weeks before I gave in and went to Sainsbury's, I wouldn't have lasted long if the tin was in my kitchen

I used Aptamil which was new at the time. It was different to milks on the market because it had added long chain fatty acids. The only problem with it was that it didn't smell very nice when it came back up! Baby didn't seem to mind it though. SMA looked and smelled nicer but I thought the nutritional aspects outweighed the cosmetic ones. I tried Boots own brand which is probably perfectly good, but it was much harder to mix and stayed lumpy. I didn't use it again.

I agree that breastfeeding support is negligible, but health professionals aren't allowed to talk about bottlefeeding at all. I think that's more harmful in a way - once a mother is bottlefeeding full time there is no point treating her like a pariah. She and the baby need the best advice available and if that means bottle feeding advice then so be it. There are a few tips I wish I'd known at the time and I'd be happy to pass them on, but it's such a minefield. Women who seek advice online risk a huge flamewar from the boobnazis* which is such a shame - having a baby is hard enough without other mothers sticking the boot in.

*I'm not calling anyone on this thread a militant boobnazi

flutterbybutterfly

Sorry if this comes across as "preachy" but I just don't understand. 'across' says in her message that she "never fancied breastfeeding too much hard work to me..."

Too much hard work! Babies are hardwork, they are a lifetime commitment but they are the most natural and rewarding thing in the whole world. Believe it or not so is breastfeeding!

I do respect peoples individual rights and I know that bottle vs. breast opens a whole can of worms but I don't understand the reasons people give for not breastfeeding. Surely in the whole debate what really matters is the baby, and no-one can argue with all the medical evidence that points to breasfeeding as the better option. I didn't want to, or didn't fancy doing it just doesn't wash with me. You decided to have the baby so why not put the baby first.

Also, medically there are very few occassions when a mother is unable to breasfeed. Statistically most mothers are able to breastfeed and if the right support is sought then there really should not be this culture of artificial feeding of our next generation. Our bodies are designed to be mothers. Our breasts are functional parts of our body designed to give our offspring all of the important nutrients and anitbodies and not forgetting that all important skin-to-skin bonding that only breasfeeding can give. The culture in the UK sees breasts as sexual objects, I am not disputing their place in a loving man/woman relationship (I am not a spinster - I do have a loving relationship with my wonderful husband) but this is a secondary use not their primary use.

Breastfeeding is highly beneficial not just to the baby (nutrients, antibodies and bonding) but also to the mother. Breastfeeding can reduce you chances of developing breast cancer so it might just mean that you are actually around for a longer part of your child's and their childs's and their child's life. It is also so meaningful and worthwhile. I am not stating that a bottle fed baby can not develop a bond with mother and vice versa but I do believe that breastfeeding can create a unique bond which bottle feeding can not replicate.

Yes, breastfeeding hurts a bit sometimes and it is hard to do. If you persevere you will get back 1000 fold what you have put into it all.

Oh and by the way, when the breast milk dries up naturally it does not hurt. It only hurts if you stop abruptly or if your milk 'comes in' and then you don't breastfeed but let it go away. Naturally stopping breastfeeding by either weaning off gradually or by your baby weaning itself off means that the body only produced what your baby demands and will gradually reduce to nothing on it's own. This is usually pain free.

Incidentally my second baby (now 18months) weaned himself off at 1 year old and now drinks straight from a cup. This is also thought to be dentally superior and bottles with teats can damage baby's teeth and shouldn't really be using bottles after 1 year. Progression from breast to cup is much easier than bottle to cup.

If any of you think I am being one sided here, let me just mention that my first baby was bottle fed. There is 9 years between my 2 boys and my first boy was a teenage pregnancy. (Can I stop you there before you stereotype me, as I went on to get straight A's at GCSE and have never claimed benefit in my life). I had no support with the first baby to actually breastfeed, I tried it and gave up. Everyone assumed it would be bottle fed and there was no medical support. I had a bad case of mastitis at 1-2 weeks and that was it. I know from the second baby that if you have mastitis the best thing to do is feed through it. It will clear, it won't affect the baby and it will mean you can carry on feeding. It actually relieves the symptoms as it prevents build up of milk and pressure.

I did a lot of research before having the second baby, and have found there to be a lot of support and advice if you look for it. Also I think that there is more medical support (although very variable) to help you through it.

My tips for sucessful breastfeeding would be:-

* Find out about support groups locally (clinics etc...) and go along. You might no think you are the type of person to go to baby groups but trust be you and baby will get so much from it including advice, support and lifelong friendships.

* Find out about hospital/midwife/doctor support. If you are not going to get the medical support to help you breastfeed ask to change. I had a wonderful midwife he was a great advocate of breastfeeding but I heard horror stories of midwives and doctors talking people out of it for ridiculous reasons.

* A lot of maternity wards like to see a baby take asap. If breastfeeding takes a while to work they often encourage a formula feed. This might be necessary if you baby medically needs it but more likely that not it is just so they see "x" fluid ounces taken by your baby. You will lknow if it is medically right or if it is just pushy (often not bother about breastfeeding) midwife wanting to get a bottle down the baby. If you introduce any sort of artifical teat before breastfeeding is established you may hinder your chance of breastfeeding altogether. Remember that breastfeeding is not instant and it takes a while for it to become established, your baby has plenty of nutrients and goodness stored up from the placenta to allow it time to breastfeed naturally which may take a day or two.

* Skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth.

Even if you can only do it for a short while it is better than nothing.

Really why is there even a debate on breast vs. bottle when most of the rest of the world just get on with the most natural process in the universe?

There needs to be an fundamental change in the way we think in britain. This needs to start with governmental changes in policy with regards to breastfeeding in public (already changing) and benefits to a breastfeeding mum.

I won't even start on the breastfeeding in public debate as thats a whole new essay!

Sorry if this has opened a can of worms but to reiterate what I said at the start, I do not understand why most people CHOOSE to bottle feed. I didn't realise how passionately I felt about it till I started typing!

Oh and to keep to the relevance of this being a money saving site - try breastfeeding - it's FREE!

finc

My opinion is that it is the individual's choice. End of story.

Breast feeding doesn't suit everybody whether it's due to returning to work, illness or they just don't want to. I BF my daughter at first for a couple of months and had no major problems but I hated every minute of it. When I finally decided that bottle was best for us I was made to feel very guilty by the health visitors at clinic. Not something you really need when you've just had a baby.

When my son was born I decided to bottle feed from the start and again came across the breast is best brigade trying to make feel like a substandard mother.

I am not anti breast feeding and would encourage anyone to give it a go but only if they want to. At the end of the day it is their body and their choice.

There, rant over. :grinheart

jellyhead

i'm not arguing flutterbye, but my bottlefed baby is perfectly able to use an ordinary cup at 6 months and has lots of skin to skin contact - i was hardly dressed for the first few weeks and throughout august i only wore little chemise things so was barely covered anyway lol! we have delightful eyebrow conversations during his bottlefeeds. not sure about this bonding thing - i've seen breastfeeding mums stick the baby on the breast and carry on watching TV or chatting to friends, never giving the baby eye contact and have seen bottlefeeding mums maintaining eye contact and chatting to the baby. bonding can take place during bottlefeeds, mothers are individuals, not just a member of the breast or bottle camp and there are vast differences between women no matter what their feeding method.

the most irritating thing about breastfeeding preachers is that they never stop to consider what's in the bottle - the amount of times i've been criticised by 'well-meaning' women who fail to see that it's actually breast milk in the bottle. okay maybe most women are physically able to breastfeed but not all babies can do it. okay, that's my rant over! hugs and kisses to all mums out there :-)

Karnam

jellyhead wrote:

the most irritating thing about breastfeeding preachers is that they never stop to consider what's in the bottle - the amount of times i've been criticised by 'well-meaning' women who fail to see that it's actually breast milk in the bottle. okay maybe most women are physically able to breastfeed but not all babies can do it. okay, that's my rant over! hugs and kisses to all mums out there :-)

i get that too. i give my baby abottle every day of breast milk and get such looks when i do it outside as im quite young (21) so people make assumations. so much for all that pain i went through beginning BF.

and yes i too dont like BF, its uncomfortable and i just dont enjoy it. but i do it because yes, its best for baby. i gave birth - i can BF.

flutterbybutterfly

I agree Jelly H, there are a vast difference between mothers of both breast and bottle, however the 'unique' bond created through breastfeeding is has been proven as just that 'unique', I am not saying that a bottle fed baby does not bond with the mother, nor am I saying that a bottle feeding mother is in any way a better or worse mother that a breastfeeding mother.

The terms bottle and breast are used to relate to the milk given i.e. artifical or breast milk and not the method of delivery. So, Jelly H given that you baby is breast milk fed you must have believed that to have been the best food to give your baby.

The main point of my post was that I don't understand why so many mothers choose not BF to for reasons such as "couldn't be bothered with the hassle". This is what I mean by fundamental change in culture needed. To quote from NHS breastfeeding information, "Almost a third (29%) of women in England and Wales never initiate breastfeeding resulting in one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in Europe, compared for example to Sweden where only 2% of women never breastfeed" and these statistics just get worse and worse when you look beyond the number intiating BF and start looking at BF rates of babies at 1 week, 2 weeks.....4 months etc. So why do we have one of the lowest BF rates in Europe? Compared with Sweden who are similar to UK in the economic and lifestyle stakes, what has brought about this discrepency?

I know the government are making various changes to policy to increase the low numbers of UK mothers choosing to BF. Changes I am aware of are; policy changes to support breastfeeding in public places; benefit changes to allow food vouchers in place of milk tokens so that state dependant women who breastfeed are also supported; support for breastfeeding mothers in the workplace including where possible providing a safe, clean and private space to breastfeed during working hours and allowing flexible working hours (employers have to make provision for both of these where possible so back to work does not mean stopping breastfeeding if you don't want to, flexible working hours is of course for any parent not just those breastfeeding mums).

Obviously there are genuine reasons out there why a baby might not be BF, as Jelly H says not all babies are able to latch on or feed. This is a very low percentage of babies and can be for a collection of reasons, the most common one being premature birth.

Once again hats off to Jelly H for giving her baby the best start in life.




"Imagine that the world had invented a new "dream product" to feed and immunise everyone born on Earth. Imagine also that it was available everywhere, required no storage or delivery - and helped mothers to plan their families and reduce the risk of cancer.

Then imagine that the world refused to use it.

At the end of a century of unprecedented discovery and invention, even as scientists discover the origins of life itself, this scenario is not, alas, a fiction. The "dream product" is breastmilk, available to us all at birth, and yet we are not using it"

From Take the Baby-Friendly Initiative! A global effort with hospitals, health services and parents to breastfeed babies for the best start in life. UNICEF 2000

Karnam

flutterbybutterfly wrote:

I agree Jelly H, there are a vast difference between mothers of both breast and bottle, however the 'unique' bond created through breastfeeding is has been proven as just that 'unique'

although i'm quite often one of the mums jellyhead refers to, the ones who watch tv and chat with friends when breast feeding. i have to agree with flutter. ive given my baby a bottle and done so chatting to her, making eye contact and so on. but its nowhere near as close as the bond when im feeding her myself via nipple, even when im watching tv. its a physical closeness that is almost impossible to describe unless you've bf or have been pregnant.

i imagine that if i had given up BF when it was hard, i would not feel as close and secure in my closeness to my daughter as i do now. its a primal bond, that really cant be replicated by the simply act of chatting to your baby when shes drinking.

regarding latching on.... i thought that the majority of babies have to learn to latch on, there's no element of instinctive latching on, as all women's breasts are different! i know that my little one had to learn and it was painful trying to help her with positioning, letting her have trial and error on my nipples, her latching on painfully etc. etc. the only reason i can see for babies not being able to latch on is a problem with the palate (like a cleft), personally i suspect that some women simply cant face the pain of constantly trying to get them on and so assume that if the child cant latch on automatically painfree, than they never will. which is a delusion and an excuse to simply stop the pain for the mother by blaming the child. that's v harsh i know but its also my personal opinion.

i also dont blame women for giving up because of the pain. it is horrific for many (cause we're all used to our lovely padded bras and protected nipples) and i spent many a night crying and yelping in pain.

but in the same way that some women are proud to go through childbirth without pain relief, but dont judge others for having epidurals, i am proud of what i went through for my baby to BF, but i dont blame other women for not being able to stand it.

however women like britney spears, who are not even prepared to go through a little pain (elective ceaserean indeed!!) to give birth annoy me. its not just flowers and storks, you gotta go through the pain, even if you just try it.

finc

I'm not fully convinced with the bonding thing mentioned when BF. I BF my daughter and never once felt a surge of bonding when I BF her, in fact probably the opposite. I knew it was best for my daughter which is why I carried on for 2 months but I truly hated it and got to he point where I was dreading feeding time (which incidently was about every 45 minutes).

It didn't particularly hurt so that wasn't the issue I just completely hated it and took over my life. You might well say that this is was what you get having a baby but I disagree. Just because I've given birth to a baby doesn't mean I've also given birth to all aspects of a life for myself.

When I chose to bottle feed her I finally felt the bond as I could enjoy feeding time and enjoy my baby. I was a much better mother for it as there was no resentment building up and was generally happier which obviously reflects on the baby. I don't think how you feed your baby dictates how you bond with your child as there are many other factors to consider.

Despite all this I am truly pro BF if it is the choice made by the mother and not something she has been guilt tripped into doing. I just think sometimes people see bottle feeding mothers as inferior creatures. :heartsmil

jellyhead

i'm formula feeding now, breastfeeding just didn't work out. with my first baby i just didn't produce any milk, not a drop, not even after blood transfusion to help my iron count. it was probably caused by the blood pressure medication i'd taken, but don't around ten percent of pregnancies have pre-eclampsia? that would be ten percent of mums with no milk supply, sounds like a lot of mums to me. i didn't even get a day where my milk 'came in' - nothing at all. my first baby tried to breastfeed but didn't get the hang of sucking. he'd been bottle fed for a few days though by the hospital staff before i woke up.

my second baby couldn't suck. he was put to the breast immediately and he tried his best but he just couldn't get his tongue off the roof of his mouth. i had a bit of milk then and did have a day when my milk 'came in' but it soon dried up and after 6 weeks of expressing there was nothing. it's been mentioned elsewhere, some mums don't express well and they seem to need a baby to suck at least part of the time. i realise that some babies take a while to get the hang of feeding but there comes a point where you just don't want to starve them anymore. newborns are supposed to sleep and 3 days without a wink of sleep isn't healthy for baby or mum. the hospital gave him formula at that point, looking back it seems incredible that the hospital didn't have a breast pump i could use! after i came out of hospital the NCT counsellors were great, very helpful and the midwives arranged for a hospital's counsellor to call me (where was she when i was in hospital??). i was given help with hand expressing (didn't work for me) and was given information on breast pump hire etc. i used a manual pump at first then bought a mini electric one. to begin with i was getting 2 ounces out each time i expressed but it dwindled and towards the end of the 6 weeks i would express for hours when you add it all up and only get one ounce of milk out during the entire day. but yes i did want to give the baby my milk and if expressing had worked better i'd still be doing it now. when baby had breast and formula milk he preferred the taste of the breast milk. the midwife said baby's tongue tie might improve but it didn't seem to. i kept trying to breastfeed but he much preferred to suck on a teat and never took to the breast. if he had, maybe i would have had a good milk supply for him.

but anyway, there's my 2 babies, i had no milk for the first, and the second didn't suck and the milk dried up. i do wonder if with the second baby i might have had a better milk supply if i'd been lent a pump in hospital, or been able to try nipple shields to push the baby's tongue into the right position before he'd totally given up on the idea of breasts providing milk. i realise the hospital staff are trained to offer breastfeeding help, and they encourange mums to stay until they have the hang of it, but sometimes pumps, expressing and nipple shields are better than no breast milk at all and the hospital policy doesn't allow for that - you can't use anything artificial because it confuses baby. but with the first baby there's just no way anything could have worked and i had really bad PND because i felt so guilty about not breastfeeding.

sorry this is such a long post lol! there's also the enjoyment aspect finc mentions - if you truly hate breastfeeding that's no good for bonding.

stardoman

"i realise the hospital staff are trained to offer breastfeeding help, and they encourange mums to stay until they have the hang of it, but sometimes pumps, expressing and nipple shields are better than no breast milk at all and the hospital policy doesn't allow for that - you can't use anything artificial because it confuses baby. but with the first baby there's just no way anything could have worked and i had really bad PND because i felt so guilty about not breastfeeding."


The shocking thing is, the hospital staff are often NOT trained, or get such a small amount of training that they still know very little. Around here, nurses training as a midwife do not get ANY breastfeeding training at all. Those doing the full midwivery training only get a few hours out of the whole, 3 year, course. A lot of the knowledge is passed midwife to midwife. Hence, some very out of date ideas are often still in use. Also, a lot of contradictory advice is given.

My 3rd baby failed to suck. We did skin to skin and it was 48 hours before he would even open his mouth . At 60 hours, he took 4 sucks and then fell asleep for 12 hours. At 72 hours, he finally had a good feed, followed by a big wee!!!! I was put under a lot of pressure to supplement from one midwife in particular. Also, an auxillary was dying to take my baby away to feed him and offered this at every opportunity. But I knew enough to give it time, and just keep trying every half hour or so to feed him. If I'd been a first time mum I would probably have been scared into giving him some formula by this particular midwife. (She also commented that I'd never be able to breastfeed him as he was so big).

I'm also like you in that I never had the sense that my milk came in. I never became engorged. I never leaked, either during pregnancy or breastfeeding. In fact, I gave all the breastpads I bought away. I've breastfed 3 babies, so I must've had milk there!

I don't think pre-eclampsia effects your milk. I had pre-eclampsia with my first and was induced 2 weeks early, yet I still breastfed him. My understanding is that only 2% of women who clinically do not product enough milk. Many more don't produce enough milk because of the poor information they are given. Stretching the gap between feeds, limiting the time baby has at the breast, giving a bottle at night too early on (and thus limiting night feeds) all play a part in how much milk a mum's body will make.

I also find it ironic that mums are told not to feel guilty and then in the next breath the health visitor blames the mum's body. For example, my friend was told not to feel guilty as switching to formula was the best thing for her baby who was gaining weight slowly. The health visitor then said "You just don't have enough milk to feed him". Well isn't that laying the blame straight at her door? The real person to blame is the health visitor who was giving her such rubbish advice.

Mandy.