Oh my goodness Ourlux, i COULD NOT have done it! I was shy in my head but i guess i told myself that if i was going to tell friends BFing was good and normal i had to act that, and also i kind of secretly like the idea of being the BFing pioneer in restaurants etc.

I forced myself to feed when DD was hungry no matter who was there and didn't warn people or apologise. I got a few off comments (mainly XP's friend apologising as if he'd caught me touching myself and a few hair-and-make-up-type female friends being a bit don't-know-where-to-look the first few times) but lots of lovely ones and one of XP's mates sat next to me for a whole feed watching, fascinated (which actually was very lovely) and afterwards thanked me for "showing him what bonding looks like" - he holds me in sort of awe now! LOL. I couldn't have coped BFing if i'd had to do what you did, not out of resentment but out of PND. Seriously without being able to get out, see friends, exercise etc. i would have been SO ill.

I do wonder though if part of it is that there are all these women who say "But if you FF then DH can help" but my XP WOULDN'T help. Even during the day he was useless in the beginning. FFing would have ultimately meant MORE work for me. I had to assure DP that when we have babies even if he doesn't get to do the night feeds (which he insists he'd like to share in) he is more than welcome to get up, change the nappy, bring the bubs to me for feeding and wind him/her afterwards! It was all of that which i found hard. I remember one night. She was about 8 days old. XP was refusing to even wake up properly (despite promising he'd do the nappies that night as i had visual disturbances from sleep deprivation) and was shouting sleepily at me to feed her so she'd be quiet. I was changing her nappy, cold milk dripping onto my feet as it sprayed in answer to her cries, and then she pooped explosively all up the front of my t-shirt. I was covered. She was covered. XP got up and took himself and his pillow into the spare room and left me, coated in poo, to deal with it myself. What difference would a bottle make to THAT!?

Bx