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| Tips For Discreet Breastfeeding In Public |
The breastfeeding 'debate' - I'm not sure it's ever quite as civilized as that - is a perfect example of the way parents are bombarded with advice, much of it cancelling each other out, and are then made to feel guilty when things don't work out for them. Of the half of British mothers who give up breastfeeding within six weeks, 90 per cent are said to regret it later. This is the worst of both worlds. Baby doesn't get the goodness of breast milk, and mother beats herself up about it afterwards.
By the same token there are experts telling you to demand-feed, other experts telling you to feed to a timetable ... Everyone knows they are right - except the poor bloody parents, who end up thinking they are wrong about everything. The fact is that bottle feeding is never going to do anyone any harm. Bottle-fed babies are not going to get fewer 'A' levels or fail to win Olympic gold medals (well, not because they were bottle-fed, anyway).
Breast may be best, but bottle is fine. The main disadvantage, of course, is that your workload will be drastically increased by bottle-feeding. Because you no longer have an excuse not to, you will now be the one getting up in the middle of the night to answer the infant's cries. The main advantage is that once milk production has ceased - which happens of its own accord - your access to said breasts will no longer be denied.
Of course, some men actually enjoy bottle-feeding.
ANTHONY: Astrid didn't find it easy feeding R, and she was back at work after three months so I did quite a lot of bottle feeds with him. We were lucky he swapped between the two at will; so I did a lot of feeds myself, especially when Astrid was back at work. I enjoyed it. Very peaceable. But I was jealous I couldn't breastfeed - honest.
Did I mention the exploding breasts? I just think it's the most amazing reflex that lactating mums start to lactate as soon as they hear a crying baby. So Astrid's breasts were going off all over the place, even when I was feeding R. Our second one has been breastfed throughout, so I've barely been involved. But now we're in the middle of weaning and trying to get him to take a bottle from me. He's slowly coming round. When he's desperate I'm sure he will.
Many parents go for a mixture of breast and bottle, depending on circumstance. There's the issue of breastfeeding in public and to many people it is, still, an issue. Countless times I have been with my girlfriend in public places when she has flopped out a milk-heavy breast for a small child seeking dairy fulfillment. And countless times people have turned and stared. They are often older, with pinched mouths (if women) or pinched beards (if men).
'There is a time and a place for that,' they appear to be thinking, and may even say out loud. That time is not now and that place is not here. But baby is hungry now and here. Many mothers are intimidated by people's disapproval. Some use bottles to avoid potential embarrassment. I can understand that; what I don't get is why anyone else should disapprove. Who are they to judge? And would they seriously prefer the child to scream its head off, just so they can be protected from the briefest flash of womanly flesh? In this century?
Breastfeeding does change breasts. Firmness is the first casualty. A well nibbled breast will be more pendulous than it might once have been. If I had eaten a biscuit every time a mother has told me that her breasts now 'hang down to her knees', I would now weigh 19 stone. They don't, of course. It's just what they say to taunt and terrify you. After all, unless your breast experience is wide, you may never have encountered post-feeding breasts before. You certainly don't see them in popular culture.
Tilda Swinton is the only actress I can think of who has appeared in a film with bare breasts that have obviously seen baby action. (I saw them in the 2003 film Young Adam. You may well have spotted them elsewhere.) And there's nothing wrong with Tilda's.
Cosmetic surgeons like to imply that breasts are in some way deformed by breastfeeding and should therefore be renewed by expensive surgery. These people prey on the vulnerable and unconfident and must be resisted, at least until the law is changed to allow us to murder them in cold blood. To find out more, you can check out Tips For Discreet Breastfeeding In Public.