ENRAGED at Babytalk! - Page 4

[bvnms]

Originally Posted by Teyu

That's kind of odd considering that kids need to be held, rocked, cuddled and hugged regardless of how they are fed. So did she just want other people to do the holding of the baby for her? Sounds like sort of a cold woman, sorry!

Yes, sadly, she is. There have been many times that I wished I was from a different family. I pretty much did the whole thing with my brothers. Holding them and changing feeding, potty training. I had to quit school when I was 15 so I could do all of this. I am still a bit bitter about it, I feel like she shouldn't have put all of that onto me when these weren't my kids and sad because of how my mom is but I was well prepared when I had Steph. I held no illusions about what it's like to care for a newborn.

[bvnms]

Originally Posted by desertpenguin

just because a baby needs to be held regardless of feeding method, doesn't mean that is what happens. i've known plenty of ffing mothers who either held the bottle for their baby while the baby was in a baby bucket or bottle propped. it's easier to be a disconnected parent when ffing, and unfortunately i think being a disconnected parent is just "easier" for some people.

I hate it but most of the women in my family are like this. I have what I think is a very odd family and wonder sometimes why I'm so very different from them. The babies in my family (except mine, since I don't use bottles any more than I would have to) 90% of the time have the bottles propped up. I've kind of given up on trying to educate them, I don't think any of them are listening anyway.

[Teyu]

Originally Posted by desertpenguin

just because a baby needs to be held regardless of feeding method, doesn't mean that is what happens. i've known plenty of ffing mothers who either held the bottle for their baby while the baby was in a baby bucket or bottle propped. it's easier to be a disconnected parent when ffing, and unfortunately i think being a disconnected parent is just "easier" for some people.
~~
i think the babytalk comment about the suede jacket and all to be weird, to say the least, but i don't expect anything of much quality out of that magazine...i'm glad i don't receive it anymore.

Oh sorry I didn't mean that babies need to be held to eat. I just meant they need to be held in general. Saying "I don't want a kid hanging off my boob 24/7" doesn't make sense because a good part of that 24/7 is spent holding, rocking, cuddling and generally using your body to comfort your kid anyway. So I really don't understand the "hanging off boob 24/7" argument.

[desertpenguin]

Originally Posted by Teyu

Oh sorry I didn't mean that babies need to be held to eat. I just meant they need to be held in general. Saying "I don't want a kid hanging off my boob 24/7" doesn't make sense because a good part of that 24/7 is spent holding, rocking, cuddling and generally using your body to comfort your kid anyway. So I really don't understand the "hanging off boob 24/7" argument.

well, generally speaking a ff baby can go longer between feedings than a bf baby because formula takes longer to digest. bf babies going through growth spurts or high needs babies who want to nurse quite often can definitely make a woman feel like her child is "hanging off the boob 24/7." i know cuz there have been a lot of times that i felt that way with my ds (who is still bfing at almost 3.5 yo. ) so, if someone chooses to ff, it could potentially become very easy to get away with having hardly any intimate physical contact with that child, either by having someone else do all of the work or by just flat out ignoring the child. i've seen it happen. that's all i'm saying. though i think people like that probably shouldn't be having children to begin with....

[blazer]

ok so no one here has ever made a joke about their BF relationship with their children? Really? And for all those mothers that pump at work to continue to give BM to their children even though they work, pump cluster feed all night long and still have to get up and give presenattions at work and deal with leaking in a professional situation, trust me it lightens the mode to have a little humor about counting every precious drop of that liquid gold. It does not make it a bad thing, it just is what it is...But then again, myself having tried to BFAR and pumped for a long time to get what most people would laugh at and probably given up. I am around a lot of professional women who pump, so to me I get the humor, like a push present for BF. Hey whatever it takes to BF for as long as you can is my take on it.

I can understand not agreeing with the satire, but really have you never had any self depricating humor about your BF relationship or lactating in general? Honestly?

[Sugermama]

Originally Posted by Da WIC Lady

See, the thing is, it does effect your life how another woman feeds her child. It effects everyone. Higher food costs. Higher medical costs. Higher taxes. Longer hours at work to cover hers or her husband's shift while they take baby to the doc and then down the road when child grows up and has health problems that burden the system. It may not effect you directly, but it impacts society as a whole. Comments like the one in BabyTalk are dangerous. Ok, so they have come the furthest when it comes to mainstream coverage of the breastfeeding cause. They still perpetuate massive code violations with the bottle, formula, and infant foods ads. They still say formula for other than medical purposes is ok. Until they are publishing the dangers and risks associates with FF along with the benefits of BF, they haven't gone far enough. Sexist quips about a mom's milk supply are dangerous. I can't tell you how many women I used to work with quit because they were convinced that they couldn't produce enough milk. Little jokes about this are just one more voice that pressures women into measuring what goes in instead of what comes out as an indicator of their baby getting "enough".

Well my child that was almost all formula fed is rarely sick, my child that was EBF for 9 months and is now extended nursing is sick all of the time. So in my own experiance I have spent far more money medical wise on my youngest then my oldest. In our first year I often felt bitter that I was taking so much time to breast feed him and he was sick constantly, chronic ear infections and all. I felt I was getting the short end of the stick since I had been told that breast feeding = a more healthy baby. Perhaps we are not the norm though because now he also has developmental delays with OT & ST and will be seeing a specialist to see if he is on the spectrum. So I know MY experiences are not anyone else's only mine.

I would like them to do impartial studies excluding each sides of the coin and follow the children from birth to death to see what the outcome is. I believe genetics, family eating styles, family exercise routines, and much more go into these things in the long term along with how you are fed in your first year/s of life.. Breast IS best and I hope that the % of American women continues to rise strongly.

I choose to educate in a gentler manner and I try to see the humor in breast feeding perhaps I am doing it wrong. I don't know things for me to think about I guess.

[bvnms]

Originally Posted by Teyu

Oh sorry I didn't mean that babies need to be held to eat. I just meant they need to be held in general. Saying "I don't want a kid hanging off my boob 24/7" doesn't make sense because a good part of that 24/7 is spent holding, rocking, cuddling and generally using your body to comfort your kid anyway. So I really don't understand the "hanging off boob 24/7" argument.

I can see where it would feel like the baby was always nursing but I don't know how my mom or my sister could even say anything about it when neither of them ever tried to BF and really they thought I was gross for wanting to BF longer than a few months.

[Teyu]

Originally Posted by desertpenguin

well, generally speaking a ff baby can go longer between feedings than a bf baby because formula takes longer to digest. bf babies going through growth spurts or high needs babies who want to nurse quite often can definitely make a woman feel like her child is "hanging off the boob 24/7." i know cuz there have been a lot of times that i felt that way with my ds (who is still bfing at almost 3.5 yo. ) so, if someone chooses to ff, it could potentially become very easy to get away with having hardly any intimate physical contact with that child, either by having someone else do all of the work or by just flat out ignoring the child. i've seen it happen. that's all i'm saying. though i think people like that probably shouldn't be having children to begin with....

Oh don't I know it. I was so stressed out the first few weeks of nursing because he nursed all.the.time. If he was awake, he wanted to nurse. Our longest session was 8 hours with a few 5-10 minute breaks at around 2 and a half weeks old. I probably would have given up if not for support from my boyfriend and this totally awesome internet friend from another board [fellow lactivist and I think she posts here but I'm not sure what her name is. If you see me, hello!!!] who was like my guardian angel through those initial awful weeks. She always ended up giving me advice right after I posted too which was awesome.

Now my son nurses frequently [I stopped timing it/looking at the clock] but he is very efficient and gets done in about 5-10 minutes with the exception being if he falls asleep at the boob. Then he will do those cute little tiny comfort suckles where he's asleep and probably not getting much milk but it's nice for him anyway.

Yay!

[Teyu]

Originally Posted by bvnms

I can see where it would feel like the baby was always nursing but I don't know how my mom or my sister could even say anything about it when neither of them ever tried to BF and really they thought I was gross for wanting to BF longer than a few months.

Aw I'm sorry. That really is terrible. I know you know this but it's definitely nowhere near "gross" to nourish your child.

[Lisbeth..]

If she is 70 ish. there were no pumps available for working women. She sounds like she is a tad jealous of you. I feel sorry for all the women that missed out on breastfeeding their babies. My grandmother told my mom that the best part of her day was when she breastfed her babies, my mother was convinced by her doctors that she would not be able to make enough milk.