What would you give up in order to BF your bub?
health?
career?
sport?
habit?
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What would you give up in order to BF your bub?
health?
career?
sport?
habit?
Anything but health.
Same:
Everything but health. I can postpone all those other things, but health is important because I want to be there for my kids and be capable of looking after them.
Anything & I'd even let my health slide a little too as long as it wasn't my mental health as I think that is really important to look after when looking after a baby.
Hope you're ok Kate and this is just a hypothetical question....:think: :hug:
Hi,
I'm not sure that I'd give up ANYTHING in order to breastfeed my baby. And the really good news is that you don't have to.
Statistics show formula feeding mothers have poorer health outcomes in both the short term and long term, and so do their babies. Just like at any stage of your life you can have health issues while you are breastfeeding. The really sad thing in our society is that breastfeeding women are often not treated for medical conditions that they are experiencing. Unfortunately they are often told that breastfeeding is the cause and the solution is to stop breastfeeding. And women accept it. Imagine being told to stop using your foot because you had a sore on your big toe that you couldn't get treatment for?
Career wise I am really proud of what I have done over the last 17yrs I have been breastfeeding - including a whole new career in lactation. You don'thave to give up the food you like - most women just follow a healthy diet. You could breastfeed on a tim tam and a can of coke if you wanted (OK - you'd feel like hell, but your milk would be fine) You don't even have to give up the occasional glass of wine. Babies are portable and you can feed them anywhere - a few days at home gave me cabin fever, so I was always glad to be out and about with only my boobs and a spare nappy.
Starting a family brings a whole lot of life chages - more profound than at any other time of our lives. It can be hard at first. It can be hard anytime. After you have children everything is a compromise between your needs and their needs no one entirely gets their own way again. And that is as it should be - but not easy at first.
Katie, am I right in thinking you or some-one close to you is having a tough time with breastfeeding right now?
i would certainly give up anything that would put my baby at risk, but in my case i continued with my sport of horse riding from when DS was 8 weeks old, i just got off to feed or expressed some EBM, i still had the occasional night out with EBM on hand, and unfortunately for me i had to return to work when DS was 10 months but that was not going to make me give up BF i just fought with my boss until we came to an arrangement about me needing time to express and or go feed ds. I fed DS until he was 14.5 months when he self weaned, yeah sometimes i made sacrifices about not going somewhere or having that drink of wine but it was usually when i couldn't be bothered going anyway or didn't want to express.
I hope you're okay Katie hugs xxxx
Well, I hope I don't offend anyone but I wouldn't give up anything if it made me unhappy. part of being a Mummy is being happy and comfortable with your choices and being the best Mummy you can be. I don't believe that giving up something you cherish just so you can BF is necessarily making the best choice for your baby. If I was an elete athlete for example and it meant that my training interferred with my ability to produce milk then I would formula feed if it meant to give up would make me resent my baby. Same with career - some women define themselves by their career and if giving it up to BF means they are lost and unhappy then that's not good. A happy Mummy = a happy baby.
Now I don't want to start a debate about breast or formula being the best I just wanted to give an alternate view. I know that breast milk is best for baby, but there are millions of formula fed babies that are safe, and happy and loved by equally happy Mummy's who haven't had to give up anything. Motherhood is not about giving things up it's about adapting and expanding our lives to include all that we need to complete us.
I don't imagine I'd have to give up anything that I hadn't already given up to be pg and therefore become a mother in the first place. I structured my whole lifestyle around having a family, and that was for pg, baby, toddler, bfing and now pre-schooler. Some of that meant giving up part of my health (pg and birth always affects your body - but then there are some positives from bfing), career (I don't work full-time and of course that has some affect), sport (no high impact, high risk for me - not that I was particularly into it anyway! ;)) and habit (sleeping in, drinking - not that I did much, but you get the idea). It's just a fact that you choose one path and others won't be travellled.
I prefer to focus on everything I gained by becoming a mother and bfing my child and now continuing to care for in the best way possible. And that well and truly outweighs what I have given up!
I wouldn't give up anything either. And like Barb I don't think you have to.
I gave up lots to breastfeed my babies. I gave up being selfish, thinking only about myself. I gave up overindulging in alcohol and fatty foods with no thought to my health. I gave up sleeping peacefully every night. However I don't think I could have avoided giving up any of these things by not breastfeeding, it was a natural extension of being pregnant for me. IMHO motherhood requires a lot of sacrifice no matter how you parent.
I gave up my 10c bras but I bought hot milk ones instead so I survived. Other than that I didn't have to give anything up.
I think that breastfeeding works best when a mother doesn't feel like she has to martyr herself to it.
I think that maybe there are things that you might have to give up to breastfeed but they are the kind of things that you gain by giving up - excessive drinking, heavy smoking, partying every night, a crack habit.... that kind of stuff. If you give them up to breastfeed then your health can only benefit.
Exactly. I do think we give up these things but I wouldnt want to give up the beautiful connection that V and I have and how she sees me as an extension of herself.. I love BF and that is from someone who was adamant I would NEVER do it....Oh how things change lol:
natty - I can't believe you said that and look at you now!! I think I might start a new thread. :think::
Just getting a bit off the point but yeah Jennifer, I even bought formula to use at home and threatened to bring my own to the hospital...then she was born and there was no way I was giving it to her lol.."You had me at hello" lol.
I would have given away my career and bad habits for children regardless of feeding method and I never played sports, but I have given away a huge chunk of mental health for breastfeeding.
My DD is nearly 9 months old and I have left her for 1.5 hours at the longest because she might need a feed. I can't get a break away, can't go out for a child free dinner, can't give the night time duties to someone else so I could actually get some sleep. I would love to leave her with someone else for a while and just have a bit of a sanity refresher away from kids but I am tied to her because she needs to be fed. A night out, maybe a drink or five and then a full night of sleep whilst someone else looked after her would be amazing.
And before anyone tells me I could just express, I will add that it doesn't work that way for everyone and I don't have hours to sit around expressing to get enough for one feed that she wouldn't take from a bottle anyway.
I completely sympathise Artechim. Expressing was a nightmare for me too and I never got a break from my babies apart from an enforced one when boytwin was in hospital. I know I will probably sounds like a broken record but it will get easier, and once your baby is around a year you will be able to get away for a few hours as breastmilk will not be such an important part of her diet. Well done for getting to 9 months, you sounds like an amazing mother.
I personally don't think you should have to 'give up' anything.