More support for FF mums by choice?

[Jennifer13]

Unfortunately, Tan, you'll never be able to find what you're looking for in most other people. I sincerely hope that you have that kind of support from your DH and others who love you, but as for many things, most outsiders do not understand you and come to their advice-giving with their own experiences and prejudices.

I hope you know that probably none of them (I hope!) meant to cause you pain or harm with their words and were only trying to do what they thought would be helpful. It's a dilemna we face when dealing with people every day, is what we are saying helpful or not? Try to picture the motivation behind encouraging you and use your experience, as you say, to perhaps not jump to any easy answer or conclusion about someone else's position.

[BekZ]

Tan hugs. Mother guilt is one of the hardest emotions to overcome and it is mostly experienced when we have made a choice about parenting our child. I firmly believe that decisions are made in a moment based on the knowledge and experiences we have had up that point, and we all make choices that we believe are right at the time. Please don't regret any thing you did just learn from it. You;ve done an awesome job with both your boys.

When I decided to FF both my older girls I felt a little alientated in certain BB groups because so many other mothers were making a success of bfing and I also felt inferior as a mum. At the same time I realised that I had made this decision based on what my family needed at the time and I had to get on with the job of mothering my kids. Once I let go of the disapointment in myself and accepted my own choices I began to feel at peace what I had decided to do.

At the moment my DD3 is 11 weeks and fully bf but our journey is taking its toll on the rest of the family and if it wasn't for DH picking up the slack with the other girls I would just have to ff. So now I have another decision to make and it is so hard....bl@@dy mother guilt

[MummyNaomi]

Matryoshka - Wow a lot of your post really struck a chord with me. My DS is almost 6 months and we have just switched to FF after 2 weeks of hell - DS refusing to suck for more than a few seconds, crying on the boob - Our 3 hourly feeds became something we were both dreading. I think my own guilt and need to BF as I thought it was the best thing made me reluctant to give up, but its only the last few days that I am realising it was the best thing for my baby. Nappies are significantly wetter suggesting he is now drinking a reasonable volume, he is settling significantly better and seems much more content and our feeding is now enjoyable again. Although I miss the skin on skin contact, I find that DS still looks into my eyes and holds my hand while feeding so the experience is again beautiful for both of us.

I understand completely where you are coming from re the support for FF Mums - but it seems there is always someone on both sides of the fence that have an opinion that differs to whatever decision we make as Mums

Just wanted to say that I am glad to hear another Mum has found FF beneficial for their child. While I am really proud we got to almost 6 months of BF and will definately BF my next child for as long as its the right thing for that baby, the time was right for us to switch and I'm also proud I was able to make the right decision for my child. While I was initially going to work through it and hope the BF returned to a great experience, at what cost to my child? As an adult I can deal with the frustration, pain, sadness of the BF stress - I had to consider how that impacts my son, and I think thats an important consideration. Sure I still think Breast milk is best (if its working well), but if my DS is only drinking for a few seconds/minutes each feed compared to drinking a good FF then I am not doing the right thing by continuing this indefinately with the hope things would turn around (and believe me I tried every trick in the book to rectify the issue - increase supply etc etc)

So in a nutshell yes, I think more understanding and support re FF Mums would be a good thing

Sorry for the waffle

[Marlene]

Support is lovingly being held - it isn't agreeing with a decision . I support people all the time who I don't necessarily agree are making fabbo decisions. There is a difference...

Beautifully said!