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Parenting
I miss you lite-brite!
FB/CIO/BFing & how to let it go?
This is a stupid ridiculous vent but maybe I just need to hear it from someone else besides my own head.
Backstory - DD was a very high needs baby, colicky, crying for hours and hours every day, not sleeping for more than a couple hours at a time until around 8 months or so. Also, my milk didn't come in for a week after I had her and my supply was always really low despite nursing and pumping religiously so we always supplemented. My milk dried up when she was around 8 months or so.
The issue - Pretty much all of my close friends are vehemently breastfeeding is not only the best but formula is poison, letting a baby cry will cause them to have a low IQ and anxiety for the rest of their life etc. They post articles on FB all of the time about how amazing BFing is or the awful things that will happen if your baby cries, then everyone else virtually high fives them, says they love their kids so that's what they did. I never did "CIO" but I read these things and think, my kid was crying hysterically for hours every day despite being in my arms, how do they not see that these articles are saying awful things are going to happen to my kid because of this? Or that since DD had formula she's going to be damaged for life?
What to do? Let it go and ignore, tell these friends that they should be a little more sensitive to people who had a different parenting experience than them or ____ ?
Again, I know this is such a ridiculous thing and a lot of it has to do with my sadness about how hard it was when DD was a baby, but the constant reminders about it are not helping.
I miss you lite-brite!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: FB/CIO/BFing & how to let it go?
I would have no filter whatsoever. If your so-called friends are making you feel like crap, TELL them. Say that you did your level best but your supply tanked and you feel bad enough without them rubbing it in. If they can't respect your situation, maybe they aren't friends.
I am pro-BFing for as long as it's a good experience. I managed to nurse both kids until 14 and 18 months respectively, but only because I am a stubborn beetch. My left boob dried up at 9 months the first time and 7.5 the second. I nursed on one side and it was TOUGH.
I didn't do CIO until after a year with DS and I may have made things harder for myself. Some of the girls around here might remember my sleep trials with him-- he would wake up 7-10 times a night and I was afraid to drive I was so tired.
If your baby is healthy and relatively happy, you are doing a good job.
DS - December 2006
DD - December 2008
Uh no. This is classic nestie reaction of making people's personal opinions about them. Their parenting decisions aren't about you.
Personally, I'd probably hid their status (isn't that possible?).
Or you can go to one that you are particularly close to and when the topic come up naturally explain how the postings make you feel. The word may get around.
I was crushed when BFing didn't work out for #1. I remember having a big cry about it when she was 4 months old after a friend taking about her BFing (and not meanly to me). It got really tough being around here back in those days...but I am over it now. She's healthy and she's fine. The alternative would have been to try to BF her after birth when she was gasping for air.
Thanks, that's what I needed to hear :-). I know that they aren't personally attacking me, now I just have to make myself stop being bothered by it.
I miss you lite-brite!
agree.
I think when you feel more confident in your own decisions that kind of stuff will matter less. I know that was true for me at least.
Ditto Aggie. I'd hide those friends from my news feed if I couldn't let it go.
Alex (11/14/06) and Nate (5/25/10)
"Want what you have, do what you can, be who you are." - Rev. Forrest Church
How old is your daughter now? I think eventually you will be able to feel more confident b/c it will be obvious to you that she is a happy, healthy child. I know, for me, after not being able to BF Jackson, my guilt was non-existent once I was out of the first year or so haze of feeling like every decision is life or death.
In the grand scheme of all things parenting, BF/FF matters very little, if you ask me. It will not make or break your child.
I'd also decide my course of action based on how close you are to these people. My SIL posts a lot of crap like this even though she did CIO and FF her oldest (didn't w/ her youngest so she has some sort of weird self-hate/regret thing going on), and I just ignore it b/c I honestly can't think of someone whose opinion matters less to me. If it was someone I truly respected and cared about, I might ask them to be a bit more sensitive in their rhetoric and I think a true friend would do that. For example, I have plenty of issues with my mom, but she was super, super supportive of me FF my son and daughter, when she was a militant extended BFer herself. If things I was posting and/or saying were hurting someone close to me, I'd want to know.
You need new friends.
I have a friend who's as granola-eco-save the planet-spend $300 for organic groceries-cloth diaper as you can get. However, she is also the most non-judgemental person I know and was like, meh, FF is what some need to do.
Christmas 2011
If these are close friends, I would privately email them (through email or a FB message that is not shown to the world) and just nicely point out that while you know they mean well with all of their posts and comments, that not everyone is able to breast feed and that some babies do cry no matter what you do. Point out that you made the decisions that worked for your family and that their repeated posts are hurtful.
If these are not close friends, unfriend them and be over it. I had a friend who was always posting stuff that was very political and not politics that I believed in. This was an old HS friend that I never saw in real life so I just unfriended that person and let it go.
I would have a very hard time saying nothing if this was someone that I saw in real life a lot of the time but I know saying something is also really hard to do.
If your kid is healthy and happy, you raised them right. You did the thing that worked for your family, so it is time to let the guilt go. I had both a colicky and non-colicky babies. You don't know what a colicky baby is like until you get one. I know that as a parent we just had to work through it-holding her all night-for months-it sucked. I BFd my kids, but my milk dried up with #1 when I got pg with #2, so she got formula. So be it. She is a thriving 7 year old now. I also did CIO after a year of not getting more than 4 hours sleep at a time with #2. I was a walking zombie and a sucky mom because I was so tired. I don't feel bad for CIO with my 15 month old and honestly, it was one of the best things I did. We all were much happier once we got some sleep! Again, it is doing what you feel is best at the time an not feeling bad about your choices. Looking at your kids will let you know that you did the right things for you. They are parenting as they feel is best, just like you did.
Mommy guilt sucks!
Ignore/defriend/block...your choice.
Bottom line: it is none of their business. They can have all the opinions in the world that they want, but it doesn't mean you need to listen to them.