'if I can...'

Ok, not too sure what the point of this post is... But it is something that has been playing on my mind of late, so thought I would share.

Why is it that almost every new mum to be (including myself a couple of years ago) seems to say 'I want to breast feed if I can'

It's as if we embark on motherhood expecting to not be able to breastfeed, when in reality it is very small minority who can't. It's like society sets us up to fail in some ways. I don't know for a fact, but I would expect that there are more couples who have difficulty conceiving than there are women who don't have their milk come through. But you rarely hear a woman about to embark on the TTC journey say 'I want to have a baby, if I can'.

Anyway, it's just an observation of mine. Perhaps in our endeavors to educate people about breastfeeding and the difficulties that can come along with it, we're unintentionally sending the message 'hey, give it a go, but be prepared to fail'....

For me, I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to because my mum couldn't. She tried with both me and my brother, managing a week with me and a bit longer with my brother. She was crying the entire time we fed because it was so painful for her and in the end both of us stopped gaining weight. So I wasn't sure if I could, didn't know if I faced the same challenge as mum did, but was also determined to give it a go. I was happy to find that I could, and went on for 14 months.

I have thought the same Miss E.

I understand what PakRakMG says though about your mother's experience influencing your own and I can understand how that can happen because I had the opposite experience. My mum BF all 4 of her kids so I just always thought I would definitely do the same. I had lots of attachment problems with DD1 and was crying at every feed for weeks but I never seriously considered stopping. I just thought 'I have to feed my baby and this is how babies are fed so I better just work it out' even though during feeds I was wondering how the hell I could keep going with this pain.

I do hear the 'if I can' a lot and people buying formula and bottles before baby is born 'just in case' and wonder if it becomes a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy.

I think people say i will breastfeed if i can because they are setting themself up for the what if factor. I think its better to have your options open than be thinking that one way is the be all and end all only to be let down. Well thats the way i see it rather than setting themselfs up to fail.

I feel a bit sad when people say 'if I can' or 'I will try'. I understand lots of people have a hard time in the beginning but I think a lot of women need to believe in themselves a bit more. In the end I only breastfed DD for 5 months but I never had any doubts that I would breastfeed while I was pregnant. Like heaven mentioned my mum also fed us kids with no worries so having that influence probably helped.


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I think people say i will breastfeed if i can because they are setting themself up for the what if factor. I think its better to have your options open than be thinking that one way is the be all and end all only to be let down. Well thats the way i see it rather than setting themselfs up to fail.

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Thats why I said it. I always felt instinctively that I would bf and be fine with it (and its been a amazing experience so far with zero issues ever), but the "what if" played a lot on my mind. I didnt want to go in with the expectation that it would come naturally & easily incase it didnt and I was left disappointed. I was very pleasantly surprised and grateful that from our very first bf things have been exactly what I didnt think it would be: natural & very easy and we've had no issues whatsoever. The reason I didnt expect it to go so well was from reading peoples experiences on here & reading/being told that it can take weeks to establish breastfeeding, and struggles & having a hard time with it at the start is normal. So thats why I always said "if I can" or "I'll give it a real go", to try and minmise the disappointment and feeling of failure if things didnt go as I wanted.

I hope that makes sense lol, I am so tired my brain isn't working too well lol

i think its just our society it sucks i didnt buy any formula for either of mine just couldnt handle the pain the first time and went out and bought some

Shan23 - It makes perfect sense :)


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Sad isn't it.
I think the treatment of first-time parents by the parenting community is largely to blame. So many parents are so quick to tell you about the negatives of parenting, or at the very least to stress to a first-time parent that they have no idea of what being a parent's going to be like until it happens. That may be true but we don't have to bang on about it so much.
Personally, I said I will BF 'if I can' because I was too scared of receiving someone's scathing comments about how things may not work out that way and won't I just have to wait and see.
It's the same with birth - why shouldn't we say proudly 'I'm going to have a drug-free vaginal birth' without the pre-fix of 'all going well'...? I was told by so many parents that I was 'crazy' for wanting a drug-free birth and many were surprised at how I hadn't considered the possibility of a surgical birth. But why should I seriously consider something that's unlikely to happen to the point of half-expecting it to happen?

That's thing, I completely understand the doubt that we have as expectant mothers, goodness knows I had it too. And establishing breast feeding was really difficult for me, inverted nipples, failure to attach, cracked nipples etc etc meant that we used nipple shields for the first 12 weeks. But we got there and I breast fed DS for 21 months.

I think the problem is that we come across so many bad stories and old wives tales from well intentioned people, that we are left believing that there is a high probability that our bodies might not be capable of it. I think somewhere along the line the message is being misconstrued from 'breastfeeding can be difficult to establish' to 'it could be impossible for you' (which can be the case, but it is very rare).

I guess my point is that there are lots of things in life that require hard work to achieve, but when we say we want those things we don't feel the need to precurse it with 'if I can'. For example, I want to be a nurse/doctor/midwife/accountant, I want to run a marathon, I want to loose weight, I want to be a good parent, I want to win tattslotto.

It's like we go into breastfeeding doubting our ability to do it, rather than believing in ourselves and our bodies like we do in almost every other area of our lives.

I totally agree. I don't hop in my car every time thinking "I'm going to xyz, so long as I don't have a crash". And the odds of a crash are fairly high but I'm knowledgeable about what to do in case of a crash and I'll deal with it if it happens. Same when I expected to BF, have a drug free vaginal birth, have a home birth... if a crisis happens I'll deal with it but in the mean time I just said "I'm going to breastfeed".

You don't usually tell everyone you are trying for a baby though so you don't need to add a clarifying phrase in case it doesn't happen. I think the sad thing is people ask how a baby is going to be fed at all, would be nice if society just saw everyone giving it a crack as the norm so didn't even think to ask. The reason I always said I will get through labour without drugs if I can or breastfeed if I can is to take the pressure off, then it was only myself fully expecting those things and not everyone I knew too. I don't think it set me up for 'failure', what somebody says to the world isn't always the same thing they say to themselves.

I think along with alot of people it comes from the older generation and what there experiences were and we now live in a much more accepting society to them i believe. I mean if you speak to the older generation and so forth they will tell you they all covered up or would wait to feed there baby until they could be alone or in another room because it just wasn't acceptable practice in front of others and i even found i would get looks from that age group but i didn't care as my baby needed feeding. It is like the whole society has to be retrained in what to do with breastfeeding when it is something that should come so natural.

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what somebody says to the world isn't always the same thing they say to themselves.

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That is very true....

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I think along with alot of people it comes from the older generation and what there experiences were and we now live in a much more accepting society to them i believe. I mean if you speak to the older generation and so forth they will tell you they all covered up or would wait to feed there baby until they could be alone or in another room because it just wasn't acceptable practice in front of others and i even found i would get looks from that age group but i didn't care as my baby needed feeding. It is like the whole society has to be retrained in what to do with breastfeeding when it is something that should come so natural.

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I have found the opposite generally. I was feeding my son on a crowded bus once and his legs were kicking the old man next to me who didn't mind at all. And two older ladies saw me and my H said they were quietly talking to themselves about how lovely it was to see someone freely BFing their baby.

I actually think it can be a good thing for people to be prepared psychologically for difficulties breast feeding. I openly admit that I always believed that people who ended up saying "I couldn't breastfeed my baby" just hadn't tried hard enough (though I'd never say it to their face). So when I found myself unexpectedly one of the very small percentage without sufficent glandular tissue to produce anywhere near enough milk, it was really really hard for me! Perhaps if I had said, I will breast feed if I can, then I would had adjusted better to the difficulties I faced. I think that people should of course be encouraged to breast feed.

Miss E, i wholeheartedly agree with what you have said, and its actually been on my thoughts of late with lots of friends about to have babies, they all say yes ill bf if i can, i want to say you can, but then i dont want to seem to be pushing them, when all i want to do is assure them it is doable. I know a few of them are uncomfortable talking about it with me as i do bf and did have endless issues that i pushed through or solved one way or another (mainly through good friends i found on bb and a good lc) but they feel they cant discuss it with me as i might try to push them or condemn them if they turn to ff, which very much isnt the case. The few who have talked to me say they feel they mightn't be able to because they have heard how difficult it is, so i agree, in part at least it's what mothers put out there that shapes what mums to be believe. i was an if i can girl too, i would only attach to one side for mum, most of my friends ff because 'it's too hard to bf' so i was definately an if i can girl. that is, till i realised i could. we should work on changing the attitudes of mums to be, and IMO education is a major factor, along with the way in which we as mums discuss and describe our experiences

We probably all know at least 1 mother who has struggled and weaned early (if not many mothers who have), so I think these sorts of qualifying remarks are pretty understandable.
It is a learned skill for mum and baby and can take a fair bit of time and effort to establish - not to mention support. There are lots of factors in our society that can make it harder to establish breastfeeding - birth practices, misinformation and ignorance, lack of technical expertise, lack of help and support for the mother at home.