Thanks guys.

The other thing that I find perplexing is the whole attitude that if you give one bottle, your baby will become very confused and will not take to the breast again. I believed this so strongly with DD1 that I absolutely refused to give a bottle and only gave in when they threatened not to release me from hospital because she had lost too much weight and I simply could not attach her. I was so scared that giving her a bottle would mean the end of our breastfeeding that common sense left me.

I don't think breastfeeding advocates realises what a huge disservice this does to many women (like myself) who struggle. It just makes us more stressed which makes us even less likely to be able to get it together. I put huge amounts of pressure on myself every single breast feed as I thought if I couldn't get it to work 'this time' and had to give another bottle, that our journey was over.

While I have no doubt that some babies do get confused, I wonder if this is true of the majority. When I was reading about relactation it said that most babies could be persuaded to go back to the breast provided that they were under three months old.

Now to me, you can't have it both ways. You can't demonise giving the odd bottle but then on the other hand say, "but oh yes, if you want to relactate, it should be possible."

I didn't even try relactating with my first baby because I simply assumed because I had given her bottles, that she would be so confused she would never have gone back to the breast. Whereas in actual fact, relactating with my first daughter would have been easier than with my second because I had expressed for two months so still had supply whereas with my second I had no supply.