Breastfeeding Myths and dealing with unwanted advice

bahhhh Christina tell her to jam it up her ass.... I hate MHCN/ PLUNKETS they have no idea, mine told me at DS 12 month check i should replace some feeds with cows milk now he is 12 months old. I told her to jam it and i would do what i wanted. DS self weaned at 13 months but when i go back to her for his 18 month check im going to tell her he is still breastfeeding and having around 9 feeds a day bahahahaha suffer in y a jocks stupid biatch!!!

Also with the weight i have a 2.5 year old who weighs in at a tiny 9.5 kilos, she isnt healthy says the MCHN she should be eating more blah blah blah


Also to the lasy who said about growth spurts EXCELLENT POINT that is the reason i stopped feeding DD at 5 weeks i thought i didnt have enough milk, well found out after i had stopped it was the darn growth spurt was pretty upset but we dealt with it.

DD was also labelled a "low thriving baby" still is actually and when i put her on formula she went BELOW her birth weight so they can shove that myth about feeding them formula will "fatten" them up!!!

Oh Christina im so sorry your Plunket is such an idiot, some of them really need to take a step back and realise they know NOTHING when it comes to breastfeeding. Although i managed to get my MCHN to join the ABA so hopefully some good will come out of that.

edited
[Edited on 25/06/2008]

Another myth that almost ended my b/fing was that a baby "must" put on X amount of weight per week.
Any gain is great.
Once I stopped weighing my DS & learnt to judge by his sign's I was a lot more confident in B/Fing.
[Edited on 25/06/2008]

hi mums! not sure if this is a myth but when people first meet my bubby they always just assume that hes formula feed because he is 6mths and 9kg. i have great pride in saying NO - he is breastfeed and i have actually only just started introducing solids! so i guess the myth is formula=chubby baby. another myth i always hear is 'bottle is easier'. I had my mother and mother in law harrassing me about feeding him when i had mastitis too - they wanted me to throw out my milk but luckily i had an amazing midwife who explained that its the tissue thats infected not the milk! I also recently was told buy a doctor that i need to be careful of overfeeding my baby and that i 'should be weaning him off using coconut milk or whatever it is that my culture does' (direct quote) what the f$$$! im still pondering a complaint. after reading this i think i better - what if some unsure first time mother actually listens to the idiot!
love this post ladies. thanks

Nooey,

It is hard and when we had this issue with DS1, I just rolled over and did as I was told because I thought they they knew what they were talking about and I didn't. It's taken me a while to be able to trust my instincts, but when you hear the same thing over and over it is easy to feel worn down and to start to doubt yourself. If I hadn't done so much research last time and talked to so many other mums I would have caved long ago.

Misinformation is the death to everything, bf, the type of birth you have, attached vs "detached" parenting............I think if women trusted their abilities more then half the stuff that we seem to have "trouble" with, wouldn't be an issue. But that's my thoughts, sure someone will disagree. LOL

Thought of another myth, not sure if it's been mentioned but "bf is demanding". What's demanding about sitting down on the sofa, lying in bed, having a drink in a cafe and feeding bubs, which you are kind of "forced" to do if you are bf? LOL

Christina

Haven't any of these health professionals heard of genetics!!! Maybe we need to yell GENETICS, GENETICS, GENETICS BlaaaaahBlaaaaahBlaaaaah!!!

I was just on the ABA forum and there is a thread in general about 4 hrly feeds. I think this is a really important myth to bust! I can't believe how many mums have been told to only feed their LO 4 hrly....lots of mums are bound to fail. Some mums are even told to limit the feed to 20 min AS WELL. Can you imagine how many BFing failures there must have been due to this ridiculous advice.

Cheers Claire

Posted by: Jamesmum2003

Thought of another myth, not sure if it's been mentioned but "bf is demanding". What's demanding about sitting down on the sofa, lying in bed, having a drink in a cafe and feeding bubs, which you are kind of "forced" to do if you are bf? LOL

Christina

I couldn't agree more Christina! BFing is definitely my down time, its the only thing that put some order in my life for the first few months with a newborn and a toddler. There is nothing better than sitting down, taking some time out and enjoying feeding a beautiful little baby....aaaaaaah.

Oooooh the weight thing always gets me. I was also told my milk wast good enough (DD1 was always on 10th percentile for weight and 90th for height) Well DD2 came along and she has been on the 75th percentile for both since birth!! Same boobs, same milk. Now at 4.5 and 2 they are off the charts in height and 75-90th in weight! Full bf, no ABM and DD2 didnt even have a bottle in her 2 yrs of BF.

One big myth for me is that BF is hard and it hurts. Yes, some people have problems, but for some of us it is easy sailing. I think some people set themselves up for possible failure before seeing what it is like for them and bub.

Also you only need to BF for 6 mths as once they are on food, they dont need it.

Hi All,

I'm a first time mum with a 9 1/2 month old DD.

She has been solely bf (with solids now added) and started to sleep through the night around 3 months. At 4 months (when she started crawling) she stopped sleeping through the night and started to feed much more often. Went to the doctor to find out if should introduce solids early (since she was so active) - had been told to by health nurse to wait till 6 months for solids - and was told to give her a bottle of formula before putting her to bed. Refused to do this so increased bf till ended up every 2 hours (12 times a day!!) and ended up being diagnosed with pnd so finally decided to ignore the quack and introduce solids - immediately started to sleep through again. Big thing I learnt - go with your gut.

A myth I found challenging as a new/first-time mum was the time that "should" be spent breastfeeding (was told should be minimum of 10/15 minutes each side) and that bub should feed on both sides each feed. I was "lucky" in that my supply was so much that DD could feed on one side in 7 minutes without a problem but it took a long time for me not to stress about the fact that she "wasn't getting enough because she wasn't feeding for long enough" - I'd try to "make" her feed on both sides, all that lead to was a LOT of projectile vomitting so stopped that smile.

I think a big component about feeding/weight gain that is never really addressed is how active the bub is. DD never seems to put the "required" amount of weight on (has only just doubled birth weight) and EVERYONE comments on this. I've had lots of people tell me that she'd put more weight on if I'd bottle feed rather than breastfeed. I don't worry about this because I know a) how much she eats in her 3 solid meals each day and b) how much she moves each day. Everytime someone says something negative about DD's weight gain I now respond with a comment about her activity level or put her down on the floor so she can show off for them smile.

One thing I was told is that you can start breastfeeding anytime up until bub is 3 months of age - that the hormone that causes milk production continues to form in your body until then so people who don't start breastfeeding straight away or who need to stop for a little while for some reason can start/go back to breastfeeding at anytime up 'til then without too many issues (really just building up the supply to bub's needs). I don't know how true that is but if it is true it is certainly something worth letting people know about especially those who want to BF but were pressured into bottle feeding early on.

It is actually the sucking of the bub that encourages milk supply.
A woman who has never given birth & has adopted a baby is still able to breast feed with the right help.
There are feeding aid's that can be used to to help this happen.

Man it's so interesting hearing all these myths out there and the problems people have bf. I get sooooo annoyed hearing mothers say comments as to why they weaned early or top up with formula mainly becuase they obviously just don't know enough about bf to keep it going. It's not their fault, more of a lack of education about how it all works. And to be honest, it is sometimes their fault as they just don't' have a committment to keep going.

One myth I get really riled up about is the whole, my baby weaned themselves at 6 months. RUBBISH!!!! Research says that babies don't usually self wean until 12 months at the earliest. It's more to do with them not needing as much bm as they are getting kj from solids. It's like mothers think, THANK GOD my baby is showing signs of disinterest so I have a reason to stop bf. It's sad.

Also, the same one mentioned here about supply. I heard a mother of a beautiful wee 4 month old that she had started giving her formula at night as she had 'run out' of milk at that time of day. She was a nurse and I felt like telling her to do some flipping reading about it and find out some facts.

Sorry if I sound a bit peeved but it really annoys me todays society and how there is this attitude to bf - like, it's inconvienient to do it. Aren't we, as women, designed to provide milk for our babies? The global average age for weaning is btwn 2 and 4yrs. In the US they say bf for atleast 12 months. Why in NZ do we have this thing about weaning at 6 months. If you get to that, you are a legend. What a load of rubbish.

I weaned my baby at 13 months and I wish i had've kept going as I really miss it. She's sick at the mo and I really wish I could offer her a feed as a comfort thing. I got really tired of people being SURPRISED I had kept going as long as I did. I was like, HELLO people, this is such a short amount of time in my life. It's not like I'm going to bf my daughter for 10 years - it's over so quickly that it barely registers as a blip on my life's radar.

Anyway, enough ranting!! Sorry if I've come across a bit cross, I just get sick of societies attitude to the whole bf debate. It just shouldn't be an issue in my opinion. We had kids to bring them up as best as we can, and bm is the best we can give them. It is hard work to start with but it just gets easier and easier.

I agree with antoher post above somewhere mentioning how over in the other thread about bottle and breast feeding that there is so much confusion and misinformation for new mums. Really hard to expect them to keep going when there is such a lack of good info for them.....

Well said, Lucyluu