I've been reading this thread but feel a little overwhelmed by the number and detail of responses to address the points made in those so I'll just try to answer the original question from my own experiences.

I think the phrase "happy mummy = happy baby" can sometimes be useful but can sometimes be over-used too.

It was helpful to me in the early days when I was having problems breastfeeding. For the first two weeks each feed took up to 2.5 hours (trying to attach, then expressing, then formula top-ups as advised by a Lactation Consultant). I would get a half-hour break then for it to start all over again and in that half-hour would try to feed myself. I was hating the whole thing and was extremely anxious and torn about what to do. Then I spoke to a counsellor at the ABA and while she did not say happy baby = happy mummy, she DID say that the most important thing was the bond between DD and I and that had to be paramount. Trying to BF, for me, was harmful to that bond because it was full of angst. I felt MORE bonded to DD when the feeding experience was calmer and for me that was by bottle-feeding EBM and FF. Yes, I could have sought out more support and more LCs but I didn't want to see anyone else - I'd had at least 15 different midwives pawing my breasts in the hospital and simply could not handle any more 'help'.

Did bottle-feeding rather than BFing make DD happy? Well, I don't think it made her any less happy or more happy. It has certainly not been detrimental to her health - she has had one minor illness in 17 months.

I think, when I spoke to friends about this, and they said happy mummy = happy baby what they were really trying to convey was, "Fiona, you are absolutely torturing yourself about this because you are trying to do the right thing by DD and continue BFing but it is destroying you mentally because you are so uptight and anxious so it is OK to not to it, if it means the difference between you bonding with and enjoying your DD than not." I have a history of depression and the trigger for me is anxiety and feeling like I am not doing a good job - my troubled experiences with BFing were making me very anxious and I have no doubt, that if I had perservered even more I would have have got more anxious and at risk of becoming depressed.

I think, generally, the way I think of parenting is that there has to be a balance between parents' needs and children's needs. Sometimes DD comes first, sometimes I do.

For instance, DD sleeps from about 10.30am - 2.30pm. This is not convenient for me as it's the time of the day when I would like to be out and about, buying stuff for tea, going into town, whatever. Also, we live in a very, very noisy house which means that I can't do noisy housework like loading the dishwasher, vacuuming etc. while she is asleep. But I make do with the situation and let her sleep. I don't drag her around the shops or make appointments during those times which in turn, means that A LOT of the time I feel housebound and feel useless. Hence, why I'm on BB so much early morning/early afternoon because I have few alternatives that won't involve waking her up. That makes DD a very happy baby but doesn't make me a happy mummy but the alternative is that I go and do my stuff and have a very grumpy baby which wouldn't make me happy either. So, on balance, we'll carry on doing what we are.

The inability to do things when I want/need to (even flushing the toilet can wake her up), has meant that I have returned to work part-time for my sanity. That HAS made me happy and I believe that I'm a much better mum on the days we spend together now than I was before when I was home full-time. Our situation is unusual in that DP is a shiftworker so most of the time we can work around his shifts. Most of the time, she is still looked after by either DP or I and occasionally we get an in-home carer. I'm not sure what we would have done if the only option was to put her into childcare for five days a fortnight. It would have been a very tough call but I can't say for sure that I WOULDN'T have done it.

Well, I have waffled. I guess what I'm saying is that I think happy mummy = happy baby is sometimes a very useful reality check for mums who would otherwise torture themselves in their efforts to do their very best and remind them that it's OK to not be "perfect".