Bottle Feeding

Fleago

I must admit, I'm not too keen on posts that criticise mothers for bottle feeding either. Some of us would have dearly loved to have been able to do so, and who tried desperately, but who couldn't for a multitude of reasons and some of us simply choose not to do so for personal reasons.

Is there any need for other women to make them feel inferior as mothers at best or downright negligent at worst. Haven't mothers got a hard enough time of it without condemnation from their peers?

sooz

susiesue wrote: »

goodness me can't belive any one bothers with all this faff! breast feeding is cheaper and easier. this country has a real problem with it, people can be so unsupportive but i really don't understand why bottle feed. not being funny or a troll but i honestly do not understand why bottle feed.
i understand some women really CAN'T not won't do it but for goodness sake can anyone tell me why you put up with all this faff? it would have drove me nuts.

my ds was an emergency c-section weight of 9lb 6oz, i was on a drip and morphine and had compications after birth so i had a rotten time. his first feed was formula, which he took very well. i felt like he had been poisioned! i was very emoitional though. lol

she has a 6 day old baby! This is hardly helpful.
I was unable to feed DS1. Since I managed with the help of a very kind midwife to feed DS2 (& continue for 6 months), I guess I could have, but I didn't have the support.
I put up with people criticising me for bottle feeding, & felt sh*t. Lovely random comments from the next table in a cafe are soooo helpful to a new mum! Then second time round breastfeeding, I found I got just as much criticism. Even my own family find it embarrassing that I breast feed! But if I dare hand baby a bottle, then I'm asked why? You can never please everyone. Third time round, I don't care The most important thing is that all my babies were healthy, well fed, & were gaining weight. How that is achieved is totally irrelevant.

rachnbri

To be honest I think for those of us who have found breastfeeding easy it's more of a feeling of "OMG why would anybody put themselves through this crap?"

I breastfed both of my boys until they were toddlers. I had no latching on problems, no pain, no mastitis etc etc with either of them and have to admit to feeling a little smug and superior when I heard about the issues aquaintances had had with day to day inconveniences and delayed planes and having to plan feeds etc. I always thought "why choose to bottlefed and have all these worries and have to plan everything when you could breastfeed and it's free and easy and you don't need tons of equipment".

I assumed that if you'd choose to do that it must be because you were vain or uneducated or just plain selfish. Then a good friend of mine had a baby and she had been determined to breastfeed, however it didn't come as easily to her as it had to me. She was exhausted and in agony, baby was tired and hungry and eventually she "gave in" and baby had a bottle. It's not what she'd planned to do but she had to make the choices which were best fer HER and HER family. She still feels upset that she couldn't get the hang of breastfeeding and feels that she's missed out on something very special, and she plans to try again with any subsequent babies.

Anyway it wasn't until my friend had this experience that I realised that it's not always as easy as I found it and now, rather than judging, I just thank my lucky stars that I had the experience I did.

li'l_p

My_Fathers_Daughter wrote: »

As an aside lil_p at 6 days you could probably still try to establish BF if you wanted to. Obviously, I don't know what happened but I was talking to someone the other day who didn't start to BF her son until day 17.

susiesue - I am sorry but your comments are not helpful and are quite upsetting. Why would you say something like that to someone who gave birth 6 days ago??? You clearly understand that this is an emotive issue, there is no need to be so mean.

Thank you - I agree. As I stated in my earlier posting I was hell bent on breastfeeding from the minute I found out I was pregnant and have tonnes of books and researched a lot online about it, however after the birth (forceps delivery under GA) I have simply not been able to get off to the start I had anticipated. The hospital were absolutely shocking and a poster above sets it out exactly - I had various midwives come in and basically grab my boobs and grab the baby leaving me just sitting there quite anxious watching as my baby got more and more distressed (not to mention me)!!! I must also point out tht my baby had to contend with a 'aching head' from the traumatic delivery she had, which didn't help in the first few days, especially when they would grab at the back of her neck...

In the end I had to tell them to leave me alone is it was simply not helping me or the baby, and was in fact making us worse. Plus it was prolonging my stay in hospital as I was not 'ticking the boxes' as they want you to be.

I am still expressing as I still don't believe it is a lost cause. However, I have enough to be dealing with at the moment, in terms of my physical recovery so I am not prepared to add to the already existing stuff we are getting used to.

My_Fathers_Daughter

li'l_p wrote: »

In the end I had to tell them to leave me alone is it was simply not helping me or the baby, and was in fact making us worse. Plus it was prolonging my stay in hospital as I was not 'ticking the boxes' as they want you to be.

I am still expressing as I still don't believe it is a lost cause. However, I have enough to be dealing with at the moment, in terms of my physical recovery so I am not prepared to add to the already existing stuff we are getting used to.

Good for you - well done for standing up for yourself. Keep up the expressing if you can, all the goodness of breastmilk is still there, however it actually gets into baby's mouth (I assume you are bottle feeding your EBM?)

feelinggood (can be found on the parent thread) is a shining example of expressing and it took 6 weeks or more for her LO to take to the breast... Not everybody has her determination but it does go to show that as long as the milk is still there you can keep trying to feed to see if it works for you.

Ultimately, you need to do what is right for you and your family - that doesn't always mean BF...it means doing whatever you need to do to be HAPPY!!

You sound like you have had a stressful week! The first week is the hardest IMHO

My advice, for what it is worth (b00ger all!!) if you do want to try to start BF again is find yourself a Breastfeeding Support Group or a good Breastfeeding Counsellor and see if you can relax into a BF pattern that suits you both.

Come join us on the Parent Thread when you have some time

emlou2009

lil p, ignore the hurtful comments. you have done the best you can for your baby whether it be expressed milk or formula milk, he needs to eat which is what you have done, nothing else matters honestly! and the worst thing you can do is stress yourself and your baby trying to do something which isnt working. thats exactly what i did for the first 3 weeks of my sons life, i am actually welling up as i write this lol, but i really regret that i spent those precious first weeks dreading every waking moment of his life, arguing with my OH as he fed him formula behind my back as he could see it wasnt working! and i have to admit that before i had him i was a one for "why would you not breastfeed, bottles are faff" etc myself.

dont worry about what these people say, its your baby, your life, your decision and come and join us on the parent thread for more straight talking, you dont get silly comments like that over there

mspig

Krystaltips wrote: »

The reason each bottle should be made fresh is because of the bacteria that will grow in it if it is left to stand. The water needs to be approx 70 degrees because this temperature will kill off bacteria without damaging the nutritious make up of the milk... Any cooler and it won't be effective at killing off the bacteria...

Countless people can sit here saying 'well it never did me any harm' but there are families that have lost children through illness that wish they could say the same... The guidelines are there to prevent more baby's becoming ill....

Well we made all my sons bottles up for the day and stored them in the fridge, and was even given the approval of my youngests immunologist (as hes got no immune system), the only thing we had to do was keep sterilising his bottles until he was atleast a year old.

li'l_p

My_Fathers_Daughter wrote: »

(I assume you are bottle feeding your EBM?)

Yeah, we are - as they say 'If Mohammed won't come to the mountain...' We felt that it doesn't matter how she gets it, as long as she gets it and benefits from it.

Well, last night we made up 3 bottles before bed and stashed them in the fridge. OH was less keen and had a grumble about it, however I will be interested to know if he found it easier when he was up at 4.30 ths morning not having to be boiling and measuring half asleep.

My Mum was a great coach too last night, and I chatted at length with her on the phone about it (even if she is only 5 mins away!). I must add that she had exactly the same problems with me as a baby so was unable to BF herself (30 years ago), and she quite happily made up feeds in advance with obviously no adverse affects .

I think it just needs a bit of perspective. OH and I are both very much perfectionists and sometimes this really goes against us, as we follow everything to the letter. Not a bad thing, of course, but it can just sometimes mean that you do things to the Nth degree, overcomplicating what doesn't need to be overcomplicated.

Thanks again to those that have offered their comments/advice. It has been really useful.

ETA: As I sit here, I have two bottles made up in the fridge ready for next feeds, the old bottles on sterilise and OH and baby fast asleep. God, I am making this look easy!

galvanizersbaby

li'l_p wrote: »

Sparkle03 - That's great thanks!

Yeah, as a few people have mentioned it is the whole rigmarole of when the baby sets off - we go and fetch a bottle out of the steriliser, boil the kettle, then we have to wait for the kettle to cool a bit but no more than 30 mins, pour the water into the bottle, add the scoops. We then replace the lid, shake and cool under a running tap or jug of cold water and serve.

As someone stated, it does indicate that you have to add the scoops to the slightly cooled boiled water to kill the bacteria and is as per manufacturers instructions - as opposed to being the advice of HV's or anything like that.

I know it doesn't sound much and I think we probably are getting overly stressed about taking bottles out of the steriliser and thinking they are less than sterile after 5 seconds... :rolleyes: but we are new to this so it's easy to get carried away/stressed that you are compromising the babies health.

I gave up on the steam steriliser as we seemed to have to constantly be switching it on. The instructions state that the indicator on the front show how long the contents are sterile for (i.e. 1, 2, 3 hours) and the instructins state that once the timer gets to 0, the contents must be sterilised again. Generally by the time we have put the bottles in and set it off, it counts down and then we get to the feed and the indicator is already at 0, so we have to set it off again. Once again, I may be missing the point here, but that's what we've read/understand.

Thanks for all those that added helpful comments, it is early days (...day 6) so I am sure we will start to find our feet soon and things will stop seeming so stressful and alien to us.

Op - I had one of those advent sterilisers you microwave - just washed bottles put in steriliser (would take 6-7 bottles) added cupful of water and then microwaved for a number of minutes (can't remember how long now)
I would imagine any large enough microwavable container would give you the same end result but I'm sure if this isn't the case somebody will correct me.

Get a few of those little cartons of ready made up milk for going out - make things a bit easier for you at the moment.

You are doing great :jyou will get in to a routine in time - perfectly normal to be stressing at 6 days!!!

moiramber

I think I was stressing for the first 6 weeks!!! I breastfeed but it has by no means easy and we have come accross most of the obsticles you can and we're still going 6 months later. I think obviously breast is best but for many reasons lots of women just cannot do this which they should not be slayed for! I'd say bottle feeding does not make you a bad mother by any means! As long as you're feeding your baby does it really matter if its breast or formula?