What is Breastfeeding
Breastfeeding is the process of a woman feeding an infant or young child with milk from her breasts. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. Also i...
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mothers opinion - vent
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I just want to vent a little I guess. My mom has always been VERY hands on with her kids (me and my sis). Now I have a 1 month old DD who is the first grandchild. My mother breastfed both me and my sister (no other kids) so you would think she would be encouraging with my breastfeeding efforts. I feel like she is FAR from it. Before DD was born she told me CONSTANTLY how horrible BF was for her and how painful it was and how horrible all the leaking was. She also CONSTANTLY makes remarks how my aunt is still BF her DD at almost 4 yo. Now that is a long story but the short version is that she wants her DD to cry for her when she goes to her dad's for visitation. I have told her repeatedly I don't have any plans to BF that long (shooting for 1 year at the least and probably 2 years at the most) but she still feels the need to tell me often how "she better not see me BF at 4..." Well why the F*** is that her choice anyway... why should she care... Also when we brought DD home and she was her to "help" she tried to get me to give DD formula cause my milk hadn't come in yet and we were VERY stressed by the whole thing. DD ended up losing from 6lb 8oz to 5lb 13oz at her lowest... almost exactly 10% so while it is more than they would like the nurse said it was fine since she was so small she didn't have much to lose... and then the day after my milk came in she gained 4OZ!! Apparently my mom had a shot to bring in her milk when we were born and she was upset they didn't give me one. (i have never even heard of this before) She also is CONVINCED I should be trying to make DD go longer at night (up to 8-9 hours) and I can't convince her that BF babies need milk more often than that! I feed on demand.. if she wakes up I feed.. if she doesn't wake up for 4-5 hours I let her sleep but I am not gonna try to force a 1 month old to go longer than she wants... I just can't get my head around why she wouldn't want to support BF her granddaughter since it was important enough to live though the pain and hassle for 6 months for each of her kids!! BTW we have had a very easy time since my milk came in and I rarely have any pain and while DD's schedule is different every day we really have it VERY easy.
Posted on 10/20/09, 05:10 pm |
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How difficult.
You are right of course but it's so tricky. I guess you just have to keep smiling, thank everyone for their advice then ignore them! I definitely needed to bf through the night at 1 month. Sometimes every 2h :( although I did get a 4-5h sleep from quite early on. Schedule?!?! Hah! I don't think newborns have any idea. To force one on them will surely only result in lots of crying :) Just feed whenever and enjoy it. It sounds like you're doing this but I wanted to say it! :) Things have really changed in the last decades. You could remind her that it's only been about 30 years that people have considered drinking while pregnant to be bad. Mothers were told to put their babies to sleep on their fronts causing who knows how many cot deaths before the advice was changed. We now know that smoking is also a risk factor for cot death. There are many new things that make life better and safer for our babies. Some may prove to be wrong but the best thing we can do is follow the most current advice from health professionals. In my ante natal classes they specifically said that our mothers and MIL would give us advice and that the best thing was to listen but don't feel obliged to follow it. It's just difficult early on when you're vulnerable from sleep deprivation and all the newness. Good luck! 
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Dear P, sorry tohear she is giving you such troble. You know you are right, and you are doing fantasticly! That is why they call it "feed on demand"...if she continues to bug you, I suggest you print out a few articles for her from the internet, to educate her.
drjacknewman.com is a great site... Good luck, and u have every reason to be pissed! But, u r doing fantastic!
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Seems like you are doing the right thing, just tell your mom that this is important to you and thanks for her concern but you have a handle on it, then if she keep bugging you tell her this is your choice and you would like it if she supported you, I think she doesn't want you to BF is that she might want to be able to feed the baby, I think my mom was jealous when my daughter was born bc she wanted to hold and feed her, now with my son I think she is OK with it. When she got older i pumped a couple times and let her feed her.
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Mommyto! has some great advice...becasue your mom is so "hands-on", she probably wants to get MORE involved with baby. Please do not succumb to her demands to feed formula. Even giving a bottle of ebm is not necessary.
She can get involved in other ways...like diaper changes, bathing, or taking baby for a walk, for example. Ask her to watch her while you cook or clean, for example. THat way, you can keep an eye and make sure all is ok. Good luck!
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luckily she doesn't live near us... it is about a 5 hr drive so i don't have to deal with it all the time. I did let her feed her a couple ebm bottles this weekend and dh and i had a "date" we have just started giving DD an occasional bottle. thanks for the support and i have an will continue to stick to my guns :)
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