I’m struggling with breastfeeding my one month old currently. It’s a huge deal to me to breastfeed, and it’s just extremely important to me and that’s the only reason I haven’t given up.
I have zero support which makes it even harder.
No support + my MIL trying to convince me to quit breastfeeding and just move to bottles and formula.
She HATES that my baby is always on my boob and she can’t take her from me and she wants to bond and feed my baby
When I was still pregnant she was trying to scare me out of breastfeeding period but she’s trying to pretend it’s coming from a place of care but it isn’t.
My boyfriend just keeps telling me to ignore her but it’s so hard because she’s so insistent. Today she was testing me about giving up breastfeeding bc “nobody wants a fussy baby” as if my baby is fussing bc she’s being breastfed and magically formula would change her….
I dunno. Mostly venting but it’s very annoying and I’m just so lonely feeling in this journey that I refuse to give up on š
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Other posts from /u/wickedanxietyy:
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I really sympathise. My ex MIL was the same. She was very anti (me) breastfeeding.
Joke was on her.
Spite is a powerful motivator. I ended up breastfeeding my two way longer than I intended to (2 years and 3 years), in no small part because I wanted to prove her wrong and annoy her.
Clearly not the only reason, but it was a lovely extra.
Keep doing what makes you and the baby happy. Her opinion is worthless.
Your boyfriend needs to take a more proactive stance in defending you against his mother. Ignoring does nothing when they are relentless, and all it is doing is causing you stress you don’t need which probably affects your milk supply. (Which is essentially taking food out of your child’s mouth. Does the baby only deserve to be fed when she does it? š) You already know what her motives are, so it’s obviously she is doing this on purpose to discourage you. Don’t fall for it.
Her complaining needs to be met with consequences. Every time she brings it up, I would leave the room. Let your bf know he needs to deal with her. She makes any more comments and the visit is over. She needs to be grateful of any time she is allowed (yeah I said it because she is NOT the parent and therefore has no say) with your child and respect that you chose to breastfeed, or she can stop coming over. Only you and your child’s comfort matter.
well if anything was going to motivate you to keep persisting, that would be it. Instead of support, she is trying to sabatoge and manipulate you. Can you limit how much time you spend with this woman?
Did she end up getting her Tdap? (Referring to your last post)
I’m not sure where you are, but here there are nurses that can help, the maternity hospital might be able to provide either advice or some time with a midwife for tips and help.
At a pinch a doctor might help, or should be able to direct you to were you can go. There may even be local volunteer groups in your area, mums groups where mums with similar age bubs that can offer support help and tips (and a a place to vent)
As for your MIL, I would suggest making it clear to her that if a medical professional suggests you move to formula (we had to for our first, as much as we didn’t want to) then only you will be feeding her, your baby will not be passed around and feeding time.
Be clear and firm in repeating yourself and boundaries.
Good luck.
See her/have her around WAY less. If she canāt be supportive then Iād not have her in your space. This time is for you and the father to bond. Grandparent bonding can happen later. She just wants to be as important or more important than you. Iām petty, so Iād power through and breastfeed that kid till they were 2!
Hey, first off, mad props to you for pushing thru this with zero support – legit warrior stuff. Ur doin’ what u believe is best for ur child and that’s final. Let MIL huff and puff, stick with ur guns. Ur in this for ur baby, not to keep people comfy. Keep doing u and let ’em adjust. Remember, U GOT THIS! šŖ
Nobody wants an annoying fussy nosy pushy mother in law
Tell her if she mentions it again she won’t see you and baby for a week. If she dies it again, it will be a month etc etc. Tell her you don’t want any input from her on this topic either in person, via your partner or anyone else, by text, smoke signal, telepathy etc. Then both of you stick to it.Ā
Your boyfriend can put on his big boy undies and tell her to kindly stop with any and all comments.
Talk to a lactation consultant. They can help you. A friend of mine did that and now breastfeeding is finally working.
Stop inviting your MIL over for a while. Tell her you want some time alone, you have other plans or that you’re sick until you figured out the breastfeeding issue, so she can’t intervene.
And when she finally comes over again and comments on quitting breastfeeding tell her that the issue is finally solved and how happy you are that you can continue to exclusively breastfeed your baby. If she still pushes you to bottle feeding say “We decided that this is not an option.”
My MIL also tried to convince me to stop by trying to make me believe that i won’t lose the pregnancy weight if i breastfeed. First that’s not even true, second I don’t care. She bottle-fed all of her children because she wanted to start smoking again right after birth and I think she’s trying to sabotage me because she’s afraid that i will be a better mother than her.
Anyways, stay strong !!
You know how for the first few months (or years) after having a baby you are absolutely full of hormones? Well this means that you can get away with saying whatever you like to anyone with unsolicited opinions. So just look her in the eye and say “Shut the F up about breastfeeding or you can get out.” Let her act all shocked Pikachu face and then just pretend like it never happened. The next time she mentions it you just say “Get out”. Job done. If you continue to ignore it will eat you up inside and you’ll end up exploding anyway so might as well just be direct in the first place.
Good for you for persisting with it being important to you. If it helps, I also found it very challenging and it took me about 4-5 months of persisting until it felt completely pain free and easy! We had the lactation consultants, had their tongue tie fixed (which didnāt help), and it was mainly about baby learning how to feed and milk taking a while to come in! I persisted and breastfed for over a year. We did combi feed at the beginning to give me a break so it didnāt deter me full stop with the pain, but then eventually progressed to exclusive breastfeeding after 5 months (though early combi feeding did help baby take the bottle with expressed milk when I wanted some wine later on š).
Your MIL can stuff it. Iād literally say ābreastfeeding is a priority for me and you need to stop pushing your thoughts on the issue. Your son has told me to ignore you but I respect you enough to give you the chance to change your behaviour. I need you to hear that youāre making me uncomfortable and with any slight comment you make about breastfeeding going forward will lead me to remove myself and my baby from the situation, away from you. You are welcome here, Iād love you to have a relationship with my daughter, but I wonāt tolerate being made to feel uncomfortable in my own homeā.
I cant understand this type of MIL/grandmother.
My son and his partner live with us. Due nowish as in tomorrow, with baby number 1. She, of course, wants to breastfeed. We do have a couple of bottles and a steriliser in case. But I do not have any desire or want to take this from her, and if she can’t breast feed, it will be babys father feeding him from a bottle. (Unless they are both totally wiped out)
Your boyfriend needs to tell your MIL: “Mum, the constant comments about breastfeeding need to stop. If you bring up how the baby is fed again, we will ask you to leave.” If he thinks you can be asked to ignore her comments, then surely she can be asked to ignore her feelings, and stay quiet. If not, then she can leave.
Otherwise, each time she brings it up, get up and walk out of the room – with the baby. After all, your partner told you to ignore her.
I know this probably feels rude, but it really isn’t – it is about being clear about what you need in order to do the best for your baby, which includes reducing stress, anxiety, etc. You’ve got this mama!
This took place in 1984.
I, regretfully, give up breast feeding because I felt I wasnāt giving her enough nutrition. She went from every three hours to hourly by eight weeks. I had no one around me, no family and new baseāmilitary doctors really donāt care. I made the decision to switch. She did NOT like the new flavor profile but settled in. Except the frequency didnāt change.
I decided to try adding a small scoop of rice cereal to her evening bottle and cut the nipple a bit to allow it flow a little better, it thickens a bit.
That little bit each night flipped her back to every three hours! She just needed a little stick to the ribs food. This was during a time when we (new moms) were told to not feed the baby anything but breast milk/formula for the first four months. So I did what I needed to do for her to not be hungry. I didnāt introduce spoon feeding or jarred food for several months, just that bit of cereal in her evening bottle.
I wish I had not stopped breast feeding and just added cereal. I later saw they had short bottles with special nipples just for this.
Did MIL get her tdap by now?
Hey, just so you know you can refuse spending time with her. Tell your boyfriend that you are taking a break from her and her criticism for the next week while you establish a good breastfeeding routine. You will consider resuming contact once she apologizes, and keeps her opinions to herself.
DONāT GIVE UP. I had so much difficulty establishing a good breastfeeding routine. With first baby I pumped and breastfed for the first four weeks because of a painful latch. I went every week for the first three weeks to a BF clinic, finally a lactation consultant assessed and fixed the issues. Yay success. With my second I figured it would be easy peasy, but nope. By week four saw a physician/LC who clipped a tongue tie (for the second time) and fixed some positional issues.
If itās important to you than keep trying. Fed is best so no pressure, but donāt stop because MIL is shaking your confidence.
You are doing amazing mama!! Baby is so LUCKY to have you.
No one ever tells moms-to-be that breastfeeding can be hard and can take some time to be well established. I wish someone had told me.
Do what YOU want to do. As others have mentioned, there’s plenty of assistance out there.
BF and MIL can be supportive or shut their mouths. Good luck to you, you can do this!
A Lactation Specialist Nurse could be very helpful. It could be a medical issue such as reflux or tied tongue. Find out!
Ignore family and friends who tell you to give up. You are not there yet. Good luck. Xxxxx
On pure technicality; you’re through the absolutely critical bump where baby gets the most benefit from breastfeeding. That’s true.
But it’s not like formula is a better solution. There can be contaminations, shortages, spoilage and bad mixes. Transitioning babies between breast and formula (or from one formula to another) is a stressful process for babies, and should involve your pediatric care provider or your lactation advisor, not a person whose experience is just ‘I’ve gotten a baby to adulthood’.
If your one month old baby is already fussy or struggling, lord fucking knows swapping food sources to please one person who isn’t even the baby or a primary caregiver isn’t worth doing.
Now if you wanted a break from feedings (ideally so your partner would be doing it; if bub is always on you, when do you rest and relax? When is he bonding? You’re not the only new parent here), or if you suspected lactose intolerance, that would be different and it would be reasonable to deal with all that, because it would actually be for your baby’s benefit.
But you actively want this. Get a lactation expert (they can give you advice to improve latch, your nutrition to feed baby better while supporting yourself, and tell your mil to pack it in), cut down MILs access to you and baby and make sure she understands its because you’re done being bullied about how you’re feeding your baby.
Your partner is being a deadbeat though by the sounds of it. This is his kid too. He needs to bond and support you, or find you help who will.
Breast feeding is so beneficial for the both of you, your MIL is selfish, negative and jealous. End of story, f her. She wants to put you down and get you to give up. But there’s no need for her to bond with the baby that way and this is not her issue to talk about AT ALL. Also guess who loves a fussy baby? Baby’s mom does and everyone else who understands how babies are š what an annoying and unsensitive thing to say. She can stay away if she doesn’t like a one month old being fussy ffs.Ā
Talk to your boyfriend once more and tell him just how horrible she’s making you feel and that you cannot “ignore” her (unless she stops coming around š). He has to tell her to give it a rest, there’s no need for you to put in the effort of ignoring her or dealing with it emotionally, she can just stop saying these things. It doesn’t hurt her. Simple as that. And you can just take baby to your room and stay there to breast feed or if MIL says dumb shit until you can work up the courage to tell her off. I get that you’re in a sensitive spot right now.
Trust yourself and persist and bf will work! See if there are support groups in your area, maybe the hospital can refer you to sb that can help. There’s also breast feeding subreddits for quick questions.
It’s normal that it’s hard in the beginning! It was for me too but we kept going and my 7 months old baby is on the 90th percentile now and I’m having trouble getting her to eat solids because she’s just not that interested š
You’re awesome for knowing what you want and keeping it up!! Congrats on the baby š
Why isn’t your BF telling her to SHUT UP?
Well done for getting through that first month of BF, itās definitely the hardest! I would reach out to bf specialists/support groups. They can be so useful in your bf journey with latch and positioning and any worries you have! It definitely gets easier as the weeks go on!
Your MIL is weird and selfish, she should be praising you for giving her grandchild the best start! She obvs jealous and wants to play momma!