New mum....failing :(

*Redhead*

Don't beat yourself up about it if you aren't able to breast-feed.

I fully intended to breastfeed my DD 5 years ago, i managed 2 days, then I was rushed back into hospital.

By the time I recovered, breastfeeding wasn't an option anymore, and she'd settled fine onto formula milk.

Up until she started school, she was never poorly, now she has the odd cold/sniffle, she's now at the top of her class academically and she's just the happiest litle girl.

If anyone ever said to me formula fed babies are disadvantaged, I'd have no trouble in using my DD to show them otherwise.

You need to make sure you keep your strength up for her, she needs her mummy. Xxx

sooty&sweep

Hi

Please please please don't let this turn into a breast v bottle debate.

We all do what we feel is right for ourselves, our baby and the whole family at the time. Being a mum is hard enough without throwing critism at each other. Frankly it's not what the poster needs right now !!

For me as a mum I always worry whether I've made the right decision or done as much as I can for my children.
I'm past the breast / bottle debate and my current worry is whether I've chosen the right secondary school for my son. Different issue but still worried as it will effect the rest of his life.
For me I'm just learning that I will always be worrying about something but all I can do is to try and make the best decision I can on the information I have available.

Jen

pleasedelete

When my daughter was born I breasted her immediately. I even fed her while having my wisdom teeth extracted as it took so long and she was hungry (the dental surgeon said he would put it in his memoirs) I was super breastfeeding mother (although hopefully not preachy). I fed her for 18 months. No dummy etc

My son was born 3 years later. He cried- wouldn't feed etc etc. When he was 5 days old my mother arrived with sma and bottles. He wolfed it down. I carried on trying to feed him. At 10 days old he was rushed into hospital with undiagnosed jaundice. He went onto bottles full time. He had a dummy.

Had he been my 1st child I would have blamed myself but I had fed for 18 months. Sometimes it just doesn't work. Luckily these days we have easy access to formula. Don't feel bad - it just happens.

He is now a big teenager. Our relationship is just as close as it is with my daughter. In the end it doesn't matter how you feed them What matters is that the baby is healthy and you are happy.

Use a bottle. Don't feel guilty. Enjoy being with your lovely baby

jenhug

Congratulations on the birth of your first child. Get used to the feeling of guilt, it will hang around in some form or another for many many years!

I still have nightmares and wonder how my children have survived to 12 and 10 without permanent physical scars! The jury is still out on the emotional scars! Youngest seems to quite like me though!

Don't fret. Its easy to say. You haven't failed your baby, you really haven't. You can have another go at breast feeding with babies number 2, 3, 4 and 5! ;-)

VikkiiKawaii

Hi,

I haven't got any personal experience but just wanted to say that my mum had a similar problem with me. I'm completely healthy and doing my A-levels now. Breastfeeding isn't the be all and end all and you aren't a failure.

Abbafan1972

I was going to reply to this yesterday, but didn't get the chance.

First of all, congratulations on the birth of your new baby!

As the last poster said, Breastfeeding is not the be all and end all of everything.

I have 2 gorgeous girls now aged 10 & 7. With my 1st I had got it all worked out that I was going to BF etc. Then I got pre-eclampsia and she had to be delivered at 24 weeks as both of us nearly died. Obviously, she was being fed through a tube, I did manage to express for a while, but it was hard work and really difficult to keep the milk going. For about the 1st month or not even that, she was on my milk, but then she had to be switched to a special milk, as I couldn't express anymore and when she came home after 4 months, she was on something called "Nutriprem" which is made by Cow & Gate.

When I had my 2nd, luckily she went full term, but I was still closely monitored throughout. I decided to try and BF with her. The hospital I was at were very "anti bottle" and they knew that this was my 2nd, but no idea what I went through with my 1st and that I couldn't BF with her. Therefore "I already should know what to do". I had a difficult time getting her to feed and of course the hospital wouldn't discharge us until she was feeding properly. The one day I had the curtains pulled round my bed the whole day, as I was so upset because I had been up all night and was tired, because I was trying to get her to feed. I felt like a failure then.

Luckily there was a lovely nurse who came and sat with me behind the curtains and told me I wasn't a failure etc and need to do whatever is right for me etc and it really helped. So she was put on the bottle and took to it straight away, so it wasn't long before we went home.

You are not a failure! Babies do perfectly fine on bottle milk and don't spend the time feeling guilty about what you should've done etc. Enjoy your time with your new baby because they are not little for long.

Good luck.

FBaby

As her baby is so very young, and she is feeling so very vulnerable at the moment, could we all respect that, and keep the thread on track. Any feelings anyone else has about how they fed their baby, and any imagined slights about that, are likely to relate to a situation which is much less immediate and raw than OP's

This is the reply I got from Nikki when I dare suggest that OP shouldn't feel that her baby will be disadvantaged if she doesn't breastfeed....Funny she hasn't felt the urge to say the same to meritaten.......

meritaten wrote: »

but, it also forces new mums to rest while feeding! it gives mums and babes a closeness you just DONT get when bottle feeding (sorry, but it is true - there is NOTHING like the feeling you get when feeding YOUR baby with YOUR milk)!

I don't think this post will make OP feel better....

Butterfliesarepretty

Op you are not a failure. 13 years ago my daughter would not take from me either. I tried to express too and nothing came out. I felt a failure and with my ex husband being mentally abusive and saying i was not expressing right made me feel worse.
1 month later I went to the clinic as there was something wrong with my breast. They did ultrascan on it and there was a big balloon inside it was a blockage full of milk. They released the blockage by inserting a needle through the breast.
My daughter was fed on formula and she is healthy etc.
So you are doing your best and being a great mother. Take some time out for yourself and treat yourself you deserve it.

nickj_2

don't beat yourself up over it , when my 1st daughter was born she wouldn't breastfeed ,so we gave her the bottle , she's now nearly 17 , has never been seriously ill and has done really well at school ............ it is not the be all or end all of everything , instead of worrying about not breastfeeding , enjoy giving her a bottle

Yolina

I was a formula-bottle-fed baby (in France 40 years ago, that was the recommendation rather than breast-feeding!) Believe me, I don't feel hard done by and always was (and still am) fit and healthy