Previously: The Comment Section For Every Article Ever Written About Intimate Grooming and Tipping and Recipes and the Third Trimester. Nicole is happy to report that after not being able to breastfeed Kid One, Kid Two is breastfeeding like a champ. LIFE IS A RICH TAPESTRY.
Breast is best.
Your issue sounds like a tongue tie, go get it snipped.
Three pediatricians have examined him and said he doesn’t have a tongue tie.
It could be a posterior tongue tie.
It COULD be a lip tie.
It’s obviously a tie of SOME kind. Just start snipping things inside his mouth until the situation improves.
Have you spoken to a lactation consultant?
Yes.
Is she an IBCLC? Because if she’s not an IBCLC, she’s basically a barista.
I think it’s offensive for someone to say breast is best bc I personally did not breastfeed, and anyone who breastfeeds or encourages others to do it is doing it AT me.
Look, I’m a modest person, that’s just me. Not all of us feel comfortable with people knowing we have breasts, not even our own children.
My kids were adopted, so I didn’t breastfeed.
How selfish. Did you not even try to relactate? There are a variety of weird drugs you can order from Canada and it should only take six to eight months of taking those drugs and constantly pumping and using an SNS that leaks all over you in order to produce roughly half an oz of liquid gold a day.
Breastfeeding is great, but don’t whip those things out in public.
I routinely see more tit on teenagers working at the mall then when I try to feed my shrieking baby in order to avoid having people yell at me for having a shrieking baby.
Lol my breasts belong to my HUSBAND thank you very much.
I make my own formula from corn syrup and skim milk to save money.
Formula should be prescription only, it is a MEDICINE, not a food.
If formula were prescription only, more people would be making their own from corn syrup and skim milk
I just get so mad when women don’t TRY to breastfeed. As long as you TRY, it’s okay.
All I ask is that if a woman is feeding her baby formula, she present me with a binder with the contact information of three lactation consultants she worked with and photographs of her latch in progress and a urine sample to demonstrate she is full of fenugreek. Then I won’t be mad.
Anyone can breastfeed if they try hard enough, so I am literally always mad.
Nothing matters! breastfeeding doesn’t matter! i dangle my baby off a bridge so she won’t get spoiled and feed her tuna I run through a blender bc TO HELL WITH HER.
ALSO, if you don’t provide changing tables, I am FORCED to change my baby’s diaper in the booth.
Shut up.
Everyone hates you.
No one agrees with that.
Fix your life.
Tags: babies, breastfeeding, comment sections, the internet
“You’re doing it wrong” – everyone, with all kid-related stuff, ever
I’m child free by choice and I feel so, so bad for my friends with kids because it is VICIOUS. Ironically I’m the one my baby having friends want to spend time with because I freely admit I have no fucking idea what the right thing to do in any situation is. You could hold your baby by the ankles and vigorously shake it over a tub of holy water while explaining you’re treating his colic and I’d just nod and ask if you need me to pre-heat the water.
Come be my friend. One lady the other day started giving me lactation advice and I reminded her that I have some other things I am worried about before lactation, since I am only 14 weeks pregnant.
YES! Being that friend is the best, too – I love my friends’ kids, so I’m Aunt Packedsuitcase and I get all the snuggles I want and since I’m basically just nodding going “Okay, tell me what you want to do,” and saying things like, “Hey, do you want a half glass of wine or are you not doing that this pregnancy” with bottle in hand and no judgement in my tone I get to drink freely of their wine and goof off with their kids.
And then go home to my Netflix and sleep the deep sleep of the single and childfree.
The idea of that sweet, sweet sleep made me whimper out loud. I spent my night with a sharp pain in my hip and a toddler on my chest, snotting and fevering and crying her way through the night. Dream a little dream for me tonight, please?
And with pushups.
Corollary: “I’m doing it right! But only me.”
“What worked for me was…”
“Forcing a sexual appendage into a child’s mouth is just wrong!”
Overly serious response to a very funny piece: I work in public health, and the thing that I find so irksome about the whole BF noise is that, once you control for socioeconomic status, the clinical effect of BF is minimal to nil. What’s much more pronounced, in every socioeconomic stratus, is the negative impact of maternal stress. So, basically, when I see these harried moms making themselves bonkers to BF when it’s not working, all I can think is: in terms of outcomes, your baby would be so much better off with a relaxed mom and some Enfamil.
THIS. When I’m in my more angry-about-social-pressures moments, it seems like the emphasis on breastfeeding is designed to make moms miserable and make the first year of a baby’s life impossible to navigate while working. Like, “MOMS STAY HOME” but under a thin veil of concern trolling.
And like, yes, BF is a wonderful choice if you can make it. It’s an amazing function of the body. But some women get pressured to half-kill themselves with stress and bodily discomfort for what is, in the end, not the only way to raise a healthy, happy child.
I mean, most of what mothers hear is “FEEL BAD FEEL BAD FEEL BAD HATE YOURSELF WHY AREN’T YOU GLOWING WITH THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD?”
The first three weeks of my kid’s life I was fucking miserable. Gave up, bought some formula, and now we’re having a wonderful time.
You win at parenting! *applause applause*
(and just in case I sound like I’m being a sarcastic cow, no, I totally mean that. Go you.)
Oh my god, seriously? I had no idea! (Since I am not a parent. Hopefully I would have known this if I had a baby.)
I love you. Please say this loud and often.
best reply ever.
Yes! Thanks for posting this.
Can you post the references to show that please?
“once you control for socioeconomic status, the clinical effect of BF is minimal to nil”
Also in public health, with a focus in maternal/child health. I totally agree with every single other word in this comment, but there are absolutely clinical benefits to breastfeeding; they just don’t always outweigh the benefits of letting parents make the best, most sustainable health choices for their family. Certainly it doesn’t negate the impact of the stress imposed by a culture obsessed with policing moms.
For reference, I’m always the person in my public health class whose like “can we please not demonize moms for not breast feeding? thanks peeps”
No, absolutely. I understated the benefits (in part because proponents are always overstating them). It’s clear that breast milk is good for babies. It’s also clear that it’s better than formula. It’s just that, in the mix of all the messaging we give new moms (and pregnant folks), we don’t adequately tell them, “Your well-being is going to be a critical component in your child’s well-being, in measurable and concrete ways. So as you’re considering what’s best for your child, know that what’s best for you is a part of that.” And, at the same time, we rarely take SES into account as much as we should. I’d love to know how a low-income mom with little paid maternity leave is going to build a strong nursing relationship with her newborn…and yet, like you said, we tend to demonize these moms (and others) rather than identify structural impediments that shape their choices.
But you are absolutely right: the benefits of BF are real, they just don’t justify increasing family stress to the point that it interferes with healthy care and bonding.
Agree 110%!! Awesome comment!!
Clearly you’re not educated…..or if you had enough support you would’ve been successful……or if you would’ve held on just a little bit longer. Or that’s what (if you posted this is in a group full of BF’ing supporters would say to you. I almost freaked out on some people yesterday because I saw this in like 5 of the comments…My patience is wearing thin if you can’t tell. LOL
Despite the fact that I’m drawn, like a moth to flame, to almost every horrible mommy board out there (and made myself miserable in my pregnancy Googling things), I somehow avoided the BF groups. Slowly back away from the trolls!
Incidentally, my favorite part of nursing was that I really only had one working breast – one nipple is sort of a dud, so I nursed unilaterally…leading to one breast being a full cup size bigger than the other. A few equilibrium and blouse-buttoning issues aside, it was hilarious, though I’m sure I would have been shamed for some unforgivable failure on my part that led to this outcome.
My right was very enthusiastic and my left was sort of lazy and undisciplined. Was definitely a tiny bit lopsided till we weaned, but I tell myself that I’m the only one who really noticed. I AM SURE THIS IS THE TRUTH
I felt like everyone was gaslighting me when they said, very supportively, “No one can tell!” But my asymmetry was so pronounced, it was actually a relief when a physician friend admitted she saw it – “but only because I spend so much time noticing bodies!”
“Have you tried steel cut oatmeal? It has to be STEEL CUT. Drink lots of water! Eat brewer’s yeast! Get lots of sleep! Have you tried fenugreek? IF YOUR PEE DOESN’T SMELL LIKE MAPLE SYRUP YOU ARENT TAKING ENOUGH FENUGREEK.”
“Does anyone have the lactation cookie recipe?”
lactation cookies taste like wood shavings mixed with oats and a faint memory of chocolate chips
I gave up and just mixed ground flaxseed and yeast and started dumping it straight onto my oatmeal. I got more of it that way and wasn’t eating three tablespoons of butter a day.
And also if you eat enough of them to affect lactation you will be spending any time you aren’t nursing in the bathroom, because flaxseed and oatmeal will do that to you.
(That said, I had a good recipe and I wish my store would carry brewer’s yeast again because they make a good quick breakfast.)
Okay, but. But! I found a lactation cookie recipe that is actually delicious, and my husband eats them all before I can if I don’t watch him like a hawk. I have honestly shared them with many people who are not lactating who then asked me for the recipe
‘All I ask is that if a woman is feeding her baby formula, she present me with a binder with the contact information of three lactation consultants she worked with and photographs of her latch in progress’ blah de blah.
I have worked in a few public health environments where this seems to be the unofficial policy when dealing with new mothers. Oh, your right nipple fell off? Uh-huh. Uh-huh. But you still have the left one? Okay, try that.
My good friend’s son is 2 weeks younger than my daughter. She breastfed until he was 2 months old, at which point she got severe mastitis and a fever of 104 and ended up in the hospital on central-line antibiotics. She still got grief from some of our friends when she switched to formula after that. There aren’t enough eye-rolls in the world.
Or like this woman who had a double mastectomy, and was told by nurses/lactation consultants that she probably had milk glands left in her armpits she could use, so she could at least try. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-sci…
Sweet fucking fuck….I…armpits? Is she supposed to jab a spigot under her arm and have the milk collect like maple syrup?
WHAT?
But of course. What could possibly be more natural?
Buckets are the new black.
“Have you tried leaning over the baby on all fours and dangling your nipple in her mouth? I call that position the Pornstar, and it always worked for me, especially in public.”
“Personally I breastfed all 6 of my dear ones till they were 1.5 years each. I guess I just found it very easy, perhaps because I am a very loving person, maybe just more naturally loving in general? Just a thought.”
UGH FLASHBACK
“I think it’s because I had a totally natural home birth! :)”
yasssss
“Just a thought” PERFECT
Wait … is that position a real thing? The mental images of my dear best friend doing this with her newborn son has left me giggling in horror. But, also, what about choking risks? Oh god.
It’s real, and it can be helpful in certain circumstances. It’s not that comfortable though, so it’s more of a desperate act than an everyday position. And it’s not really a choking risk since breasts aren’t faucets!
Yeah, it’s something you do when you’re desperate to clear a clogged duct (ow ow ow). It is awkward and weird but sometimes is the only thing that works (hello, parenthood).
Yup. It most definitely can be a position of desperation. I did it when I was trying to get my second kiddo to latch properly. What can I say, I was desperate!
“Delete your account”
“I can’t breastfeed bc of this medication I’m on.”
“WHOA it was super selfish of you to have a kid in the first place knowing you could pass this medical condition on to them!”
“You should try it anyway! The benefits of breastfeeding far outweigh the risk of your child absorbing potent drugs through your breastmilk.”
You know what? This is the worst one.
“I have a condition called D-MER that makes me ACTUALLY WANT TO KILL MYSELF every time I breastfeed. Like, I sit there and stare at all the things around me and try to figure out how I can use them to kill myself instead of having to endure another second of breastfeeding.”
“how selfish SUCK IT UP”
“Just think positive thoughts, it’s much more important for your baby to be breastfed than for you to be happy while she does it.”
ACTUAL RESPONSES I HAVE RECEIVED
Oh wow thank you for posting this. I thought I was the only one. I spent all my time debating between methods. It was so hard to decide, do I want to be nice about it, or do I want to be more end-of-Fargo about it and actually express my true feelings? It’s quite likely that the best thing I ever did in my life was throw the pump tubes away and have a huge glass of whiskey.
Yeah! Have you heard of D-MER? AKA Sad Nipple Syndrome, which is hilarious especially because I had Sad Nipple Syndrome AND Irritable Uterus, so my sexual organs are just a bag of fun emotions.
Finding out that it was not all in my head and that lots of other people had suicidal ideations with every letdown made me feel slightly better about things. It didn’t make me keep breastfeeding, but it made me feel less like an alien!
Who named those conditions? Eesh.
Seriously. I was imagining how you could hit the inappropriate names trifecta – Not So Thrilled Ovaries?
Kidney of ennui
Existential Angst Appendix (it’s just realized that it’s a useless organ and doesn’t know what to do with itself anymore).
The Joyless Vulva
Malcontent Spleen
Shy bladder and lazy bowel here.
Men. Obviously men.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome (my personal sad-organ condition) used to be called Spastic Colon, so… improvement?
AHHHHHH holy shit you mean i’m not a mutant? jesus christ. in retrospect it was kind of funny when i discovered i had this courtesy of my high school boyfriend but really i could have done without that life experience.
hmmmm i have read the wikipedia article and maybe i am just a mutant, because while the name ‘sad nipple syndrome’ describes me, it’s certainly not caused by lactation in my case.
this is apparently a thing even for people who aren’t breastfeeding! You are definitely not a mutant. A lot of people get a weird rush of negative emotion – sadness, anger, I think for some people it’s even nostalgia – when their nipples are touched. And whenever it gets mentioned online it’s in the context of “what is wrong with me??” until people start commenting and going “OMG same.” I think there seriously needs to be more awareness of this because it is a very upsetting feeling, and even more so if you don’t understand it.
It doesn’t happen all the time for me but it happened a ton with my last gf, though in retrospect maybe I was just really unhappy in the relationship.
I thought I was just being weird and crazy when nipple-related things made me feel sad! This is a relief.
(My boyfriend, reading the last sentence of your comment, said, “Maybe you just hate me”. I have assured him I do not.)
What femaelstrom said. I noticed this before I spawned, particularly when I was in the shower and hot water would run down me – I would want to just break down and cry. Breastfeeding is like that, but worse!
Sorry. Hope you weren’t planning on doing that anytime soon. Consider wellbutrin if you do!
thank you both! i knew i wasn’t actually alone but it is nice to hear.
also, hello internet, let me tell you about my nipples.
There is also a thing called incompetent cervix! Why are all the names for lady-associated maladies so JUDGY?
Because men, Perdita!
Given that doctors (male obviously) used to think Wandering Uterus was a thing where a ladies womb would go full Chistopher McCandless, hitchhiking around a womans body trying to “find itself” by sleeping in the old abandoned school buses that litter her anatomy, it’s not that unusual that every other lady specific malady was given names suggestive of the fact that lady parts are basically untrustworthy, flighty and prone to emotional outbursts, just like the broads they reside in!
Well, “impotence” is pretty bad too…
Did you have an Incompetent Cervix? I mean, maybe that’s what was making your nipples so sad and your uterus so irritable.
I wish, because then they would have gotten that baby out of me a in a lot less time than 42 weeks.
(Not really. Incompetent cervix is a terrible thing that its name really belies. It should really be called Tragic Second Trimester Miscarriage Causer or something equally serious.)
Nipple’s all, “y u gotta be so mean” and sobbing, while Irritable Uterus is screaming and chucking things at her head and telling her to stop making all that noise.
I hated it too. It was so freaking painful….I cried every single time. I hated it. I was so happy when I turned to formula. And it tried twice with my oldest and my youngest and I really wanted to with my youngest. Apparently I just don’t love my kids that much…..LOL. although with being on some of those thread I actually thought that once or twice.
I had a c-section and was chock full of morphine, demerol, vicodin, percocet or some magical combination of those for the first several weeks after my son was born. All the nurses and doctors cheerfully reassured me that it was 100% fine to breastfeed because the drugs wouldn’t “cross over” into the milk. After insisting that I spend my pregnancy purifying my diet and transforming my body into a perfect nutrition factory for my spawn, this seemed a little cavalier.
I don’t know why they tell you that! They gave me so much percocet after my daughter was born and it was GREAT until we got to a point where she was sleeping 12 hours at a stretch and not gaining weight. At one point we had to take her into the ER because she wouldn’t wake up and the doc was like “yeah maybe lay off the narcotics a little?” so the OBs who prescribe those just don’t care, I guess?
Man, I was not happy to lay off the narcotics, though.
Ugh, me either. I would happily have developed a prescription drug problem if 1) I could have afforded it, and 2) my conscience wasn’t such a jerk.
…or maybe you were referring to the pain…? *shrug*
Nope. Not the pain.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at this. Instead, I’ll hold my ten pound, formula fed baby, and enjoy a boozy, full-fat, fully caffeinated mocha. Suck on that, haters.
(This may be a bit of a trigger for me, I guess.)
Boozy coffee is the best coffee, I fully support you in your life choices.
Wait, I mean how dare you drink when you’re supposed to be caring for your child, etc.
No, it’s okay, she’s doing it responsibly cause the booze is offset by the caffeine. Also the full-fat milk helps her stomach absorb the alcohol.
I love science.
I’m sorry people were shitty about this! A fed baby is a fed baby, regardless of how it happens.
(I’d happily join you in that mocha, despite breastfeeding. It’s actually okay to drink while nursing, and I’ve never seen any effects of my mocha consumption on my little one… except now that she’s a toddler, she begs for tastes of them.)
Boozy coffee is great. Although you can drink boozy coffee and breastfeed 😉 I formula fed my first and breast fed the next two, and my oldest is a pretty great kid. Do what works for you.
So when my wife and I have a baby, she’ll be the one who carries it. We’re hoping the timing works so that I’ll be home on summer break once her maternity leave is over – save on daycare for a bit! But I’m already worried about what people will say to me if I feed the baby with a bottle in public, and I can’t stand the idea of never leaving the house so as to avoid feeding the baby.
The idea of telling a terrible lie about how I lost my breasts in a terrible boating accident and the ones I have now are fake has crossed my mind.
“My breasts were carried off by BEES. Think about what you might not KNOW before you EVER talk to a woman about her body OR her baby.” *swans off, leaving confusion and shame in her wake*
I want my breasts supported by bees, rather than carried off. A bee-bra. No chafing, just getting stung a bit whenever I sit down too quickly (no kids, no breastfeeding, no further input here).
A bumblebee-bra, because they’re so soft and fuzzy! (And don’t sting.)
Actually, getting stung by your bee-bra might provide some natural breast enhancement, which could be a fun bonus.
For some reason I am imagining this as an overly-optimistic FAQ answer from the makers of the bee-bra:
Q: Will my bee-bra sting me?
A: Most of our users do not report being stung by their bee-bras. However, if your bee bra does sting you, it may provide some natural breast enhancement. A fun bonus!
Carried BY sounds a lot more pleasant than carried OFF. But the buzzing might get distracting? But the constant tugging towards nice fields of flowers sounds great! idk I give the idea high marks, would try.
The buzzing would be soothing. I imagine it more like a hive, so that there would always be loads of bees and those inclined to fly about could do so without dragging my tits with them. Honey is good for the skin, isn’t it?
The bees had me rolling. But seriously, it’s not as scary as it sounds. I breastfeed our little bugger. When I’m not with her, my wife gives him bottled breastmilk. The most negative thing that has happened so far was a couple of teenage girls giggling and pointing as they walked past me nursing at the fair. Yes, people can be assholes–and that’s true whether you’re nursing or bottle feeding–but I think the publicity the negative incidents receive kind of makes it look like it happens more often than it does. Like being a lesbian in south Alabama–yeah, some people are assholes, and I have run into them. But far more people are either kind or just don’t care.
This would work for Jupiter Jones. Bees recognize royalty, especially their breasts.
Pretty sure I’ve seen that fic. Oh, internet.
Bees don’t lie!
OH MY GOD THERE IS NO WINNING. When I was breastfeeding, I spent all my time out of the house terrified about finding a place to feed. I spent half of every outing hunched over in the backseat of my car, trying to breastfeed. Then I stopped, and now I spend all my time out of the house terrified of all the shitty looks and judgemental comments and THE WORST, running out of formula mid-errands trip.
You really can’t win. There is only sadness, and judgement, and losing and a hungry ass baby screaming at you.
But good luck! CHERISH EVERY MOMENT
That’s so much pressure 🙁 it sounds miserable 🙁 Why on Earth do people feel entitled to be so judgmental? Well, I don’t know if it has any impact, but I know that if I saw someone out in public feeding a baby, my sole reaction would be, “Man, babies sure do love WHATEVER FATTY HIGH-CALORIE THING YOU’RE FEEDING THEM, GROW BABY GROW.”
lol for the contrast of the last two lines of your comment! Everything about parenting comes across that way – this is so terrible/amazing that it’s amazing/terrible. 😀
Cherish every bloody moment indeed. Especially the 3am still screaming after 6 solid hours moments. Those especially, because midnight cuddles are the best, right? Also the moments of trying to cook with a screaming toddler hanging on your knees, because togetherness is so *precious* and they grow up so fast and soon enough he won’t even *want* your attention, so count yourself lucky. All the moments. So much to cherish.
Yep. Scraping poop out of diapers. Scraping poop off the changing table. Scraping poop off my clothes. Scraping poop out of my hair. ALL CHERISHING ALL THE TIME NO WORDLESS SCREAMING
This sounds like my personal hell for the first year of my son’s life, especially in the beginning. He was a summer baby. I had insufficient supply and combo fed. He refused to eat under a cover, and his latch was pretty bad, so I had to see him to persuade him to latch on anyway. Every time we were out, I had to think, “hmm…do I wrestle my sweaty H/I cups out of my bra so people stare and glare and laugh and sneer and make comments about cows and porn and take surreptitious photos and complain to the barista? Or do I take out a formula bottle and run the risk of at least one woman coming up to me and telling me breast is best and she can help me out and formula will kill my baby?” Which all did wonders for my postpartum depression. Honestly, if I get to have another baby again, and anyone does any of the above things, I will tell them to go and die. (It may be obvious that I’m still angry.)
Congrats on making it a full year… between that kind of struggle and Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (AKA Sad Nipple Syndrome AKA Suicidal Ideations with Every Letdown) I only made it to three months. I’m sure that’s why my baby will never be president.
What is it with these disorder names? “Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex” sounds like you squirt when you get upset. Like squid and ink, or sea cucumbers and viscera.
Another solution is to attempt the gross-out. ‘Well, I gave it a try, but my Ob-Gyn finally said that there was just too much pus and blood and that wasn’t good for the baby. ‘The colour and consistency of a raspberry smoothie’, she said….”
OOOOH that’s good. Yes, I’m saving that. Maybe with additional comments about my fear of creating a vampire, if I’m real bored.
‘Yeah, he started trying to bleed the cat dry – that’s when we got the formula. And the garlic.’
I always fantasized about just saying “none of your fucking business you horrible asshole monster” but never had the courage to say it.
THIS IS THE THING. That’s exactly what I WANT to say, but generations of my ancestors would haunt my every waking moment forever-after! Terrible lies seem like an acceptable middle ground, in comparison.
*horrorlaugh*
“Blood is extremely nutritious, when you think about it. In the end, it’s more important that your baby gets breast milk than the possibility your baby becomes a vampire.”
*Snerk*
Your baby will be a bloodsucking vampire WHO NEVER GETS SICK.
Or ages.
Or sees the sun.
But most importantly: never gets sick!!11!!1!!
Just clutched my own breasts in horror. Fortunately I’m alone in my office.
You know what, I had never until this moment even thought about the possibility that people will say disparaging things to me if/when I feed my future kid (my wife will be the one to carry) with a bottle in public. Based on how angry I just got at the very idea, I hope someone DOES try it. I love a good telling-off-a-stranger!
Oh yeah! It’s possible that my anxiety problems are the reason it occurs to me at all, and in reality no one would ever dream of hinting at disapproval. BUT. Just in case it isn’t anxiety, I want a backup plan! A ferocious backup plan. How does one tell-off-a-stranger? Is there a trick to it? Or do you just let go and enjoy your own wrath?
I have this occasional knee-jerk reaction to strangers being rude that results in me basically ranting at them (in a calm and serious but angry tone) until I have said anything and everything I want to say. It’s very unlike my actual personality, so friends who have seen me do it are often a bit scared. Mostly it happens when people are being rude to others, though – I have yet to explode at someone for being rude to me, but the scenario you propose just might do it! I certainly hope it doesn’t happen to you, or at the very least that you find your inner wrath if it does!
Someone once wrote in to Miss Manners after she (the LW) was feeding her pre-term infant a bottle of pumped breast milk and a woman tapped her on the shoulder and said “Breast is best”. The LW burst into tears and clutched at the woman while talking endlessly about attempts to get her child to eat something, anything, and all the possible side effects. The awful woman eventually backed away slowly, and the LW wanted a way to prevent the entire thing from happening again.
Miss Manners said “If your nerves can bear it, this is the most effective way to prevent such people from being so rude ever again. Consider repeating this scene as needed.” (And then actual advice)
I have spent a whole entire year just waiting for someone to be a jerk in public about feeding my kid via boob or bottle, and wouldn’t you know it, everyone in my general vicinity has been disinterested if not polite and nice.
How about “oh this? I bought this baby off the internet. It’s actually a very realistic robot. I’m not feeding it, I’m lubricating its gears.”
Then come back and tell us all about it. And good luck!
I LOVE THIS. Maybe I will go back and forth between my vampire baby story and my robot baby story! Ooooh vampire baby robot! Love it. Will report back.
I’m pregnant now and I plan to steal this comment and adapt it for any and all disapproving remarks I get on any aspect of baby-raising.
Don’t worry though about what people who see the bottles will say, because it’s not the stuff people say to your face when they see what you are actually doing, it’s the shit they say about THOSE OTHER TERRIBLE AND SAD PEOPLE when they think they’re among their kind. So because you are obviously a nice lefty woman you no doubt also feel awful for those poor people who don’t know enough to breastfeed and their kids will have asthma. Or whatever.
You can’t pump for 30 minutes out of every hour at your job? You mean your boss wouldn’t be happy if you spent literally half your workday crying in the conference room while hooked up to a milking machine?! If you were a REAL MOTHERtm you would quit your job to spend more time lactating!
I think it was in the Dr Sears book that suggested women ask their dads to give them money enough to quit their jobs to stay home and breastfeed on demand. LOLOL I MAKE MORE MONEY THAN MY FATHER.
Sweet Jesus on a popsicle stick, don’t even get me started on Dr. Sears, because he is THE WORST. THE WORST, I say.
lol WHAT
And the new Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, which straight-up suggests that you quit your job to breastfeed. MOTHERFUCKERS HAVE YOU CHECKED YOUR PUBLICATION DATE IT SAYS 2014.
Also, there are so many ways that jerk employers can loophole employees who are pumping– if you’re not hourly they don’t have to provide a space, which meant one of my friends was pumping in her car in January and now she has a lovely smart formula-fed daughter whom I adore. One of the locations I sometimes work has only a bathroom so I sit in my car on a public street and pump, which is just so relaxing and not at all Feelings Burrito time for me (I really did eat a burrito while pumping in the car on friday and wondered what my life had come to).
I can’t complain – I work for a nonprofit that happens to have a 95% female staff, including the executives and my manager, and they were super tolerant. I was given a private room with a door lock and free reign to pump at will, but with how much I got per pump and my baby’s needs (she’s now 7 months old and the size of an 18 month old) it was just too much… I got to the point where I wanted to be at my desk, doing work stuff, and not pumping. It’s the pits!
I have not idea if my employer would be supportive, but our office is made up of open space and all-glass offices. I can literally see everyone who works here at any given moment. So . . . my choices would be the bathroom down the hall, or my car.
Gently Mama, take a look at your household budget. You probably wouldn’t need to work if you got rid of unnecessary luxuries – check out how much you’re spending on cable tv, eating out, pet food, and cell phones. If you didn’t have a job, you could probably get rid of at least one car, and that’d save you a ton of money.
Once you quit your job, you will be able to sit home and breast feed all day. Alone. In the only clothes you’ll be able to afford for the rest of your life. Until the bank forecloses.
You win the thread.
This is the first time I’ve been exposed to the idea that some people think formula should only be available on a prescription basis and I just… wow…
“Lol my breasts belong to my HUSBAND thank you very much.”
wow I did not expect that infusion of rage this morning
Husband to squirmy nursing 19mo last night: “Hey! Why are you groping my wife?”
(VERY MUCH kidding.)
A Person I Know cited this as a reason for not breastfeeding. I think she told a mutual friend that “breasts are primarily a sexual organ” which, nope. Breasts do not exist to solely please your husband.
I mean, personally, mine exist mostly to cheer me up when I’m having a bad day.
Thank you for summarizing this so beautifully! My first one was not able to nurse, my second one dominated my breasts for a year. Life is a rich tapestry indeed!
Have you done childbirth? You could just copy the comments section from this NPR article: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/03/09/390977…
I thought I’d find the comments on that article funny but I am now so angry I need to go lie down.
All I want from heaven is to never have to wear a bra again. ESPECIALLY not a nursing bra.
There’s a woman whose kids attend the school where I teach who has set the display name on her email to say “human milk for human babies.” I guess it’s important to remind us where she stands regarding breastfeeding every time she has a question about something going on in class. Her kids are teenagers, poor things.
Good lord.
Oh, those poor kids.
She is affiliated with this group I guess: http://hm4hb.net/
This isn’t nearly as horrifying, but my mother is a La Leche League leader and a major advocate for letting kids nurse as long as they want. Therefore, all of her friends and also anyone who attends an LLL meeting with her knows exactly how long I nursed. She will occasionally tell them IN FRONT OF ME. People I have JUST MET. I am ALMOST TWENTY-FIVE.
The cute part is that she uses it as a “look how well-adjusted and stable she is!” tool. Joke’s on you, mom, I spent Friday night drinking wine from the bottle, eating cookie butter out of the jar, and buying a vibrator.
Is that…not how well-adjusted adults spend their Friday nights?
My mother was a La Leche League leader when I was a kid and our house was like, a breastfeeding hotline of some kind and lots of people did not understand it was also a house, so I would answer the phone and some lady would be going “My baby won’t latch!!!” and I’d be like “cool, I’m 8”. Did that happen to you, too?
OMG. No, not that I remember, but your comment made me laugh so hard I dribbled gummi bears out of my mouth. (See, mom?! Well-adjusted, stable adult, eating gummi bears at her desk at 3 in the afternoon.)
And drooling. All well-adjusted adults drool candy at work. (Says the prof who accidentally dropped chewed-up Snickers out of her mouth this afternoon…onto a student paper.)
I know it was probably a typo, but you said “cookie butter” and literally all I can think about right now is how one might make cookie butter and where I can get some and JUST HOW DELICIOUS IS IT, why haven’t you shared this before??
Trader Joe’s! It’s like gingerbread and graham crackers (or more technically, speculoos cookies) transformed into a peanut butter form, and it is delicious as it sounds. It even comes in crunchy and smooth!
I meant what I said and I said what I meant. Cookie butter is real, one hundred percent.
The new(?) thing is Cookies ‘n’ Creme cookie butter. Love the original stuff, love the chocolate swirl stuff, but I managed to eat literally an entire jar of the Cookies ‘n’ Creme in under a week. Not on anything. Just straight out of the jar.
“In my country every woman breastfeeds until her children are 4, so I’m not sure why you all seem to have so much of a problem with this.”
WHAT IS TONGUE TIE
i’m very confused about this too, i’ve been sitting at my desk feeling around in my mouth thinking “what is there to snip???”
Do you REALLY want to know? You don’t. Trust me. It’s to do with the shape of a baby’s tongue making latching on difficult and the solution is to do with “snipping” and, again, the baby’s tongue. Do not search.
It’s when that little flap of flesh connecting your tongue to the bottom of your mouth (a.k.a. the lingual frenulum, the one co-axial with the tongue that can feel it if you fold your tongue backwards) is too short, thereby “tying” your tongue down. I’d never heard it with respect to breastfeeding, but I remember when I was in elementary school a bunch of kids had to get theirs “snipped” because it is a contributing factor to some speech impediments.
I think lip-tie is made up, but it might also be the same thing with the flaps connecting lip to gum. Kids got those snipped for braces. Was my elementary school just a hot-spot for kids getting their mouths cut up?
It’s a current recommendation for babies who are having difficulty breastfeeding — it was one of the recommendations given about my (now eleven-month-old) very colicky niece, though her parents decided against it.
Fun fact – I was thoroughly tongue tied but never had speech impediments, so it was never snipped. Rather, it RIPPED while I was making out with my boyfriend during a Game of Thrones marathon. So technically, I had a DIY frenulectomy.
Mine ripped while kissing my boyfriend too! (Not sure I ever had a proper tongue-tie, but it has definitely felt freer since it healed.) He sucked on my tongue in a fitof youthful ardour, I felt a pop, and there was blood. Fun.
Until I was 14 yo, my frenulum literally went all the way to the tip of my tongue–I couldn’t even stick my tongue out at somebody because it wouldn’t poke out enough to not look stupid. When I started orthodontia at 14, my ortho asked me if I wanted the frenulum snipped when he extracted my impacted wisdom teeth. I said sure, why not. My whole mouth (but esp my tongue) hurt like hell for about a week afterwards, but I can speak/eat better now than before I had it done.
I’m a speech-language pathologist, and evidence in our field states that clipping is *not* necessary for a kid with tongue-tie (aka ankyloglossia) to produce speech sounds correctly! I can find a citation later in the day. Like Jennifer said below from experience, surgery can make talking/swallowing easier, but leaving the tongue-tie intact won’t stop the kid from developing intelligible speech. Although stirringofconsciousness’ story makes me wonder whether it may be better to cut than to rip–ow! Anyway, my main point is that speech shouldn’t be the reason someone opts to get their kids surgery if they’re otherwise doing just fine.
I think* it’s when the tendon attaching your tongue to the bottom of your mouth is just a little too long (extends from back to front too much) or too short (not enough vertical tendon), so the baby has trouble latching on. My brother has a mild case, so he has a mild lisp here and there as well as bottom teeth that jut out ever so slightly, but we were both adopted and therefore bottle-fed so I don’t know the frustration it must cause in mothers trying to breastfeed.
*!! I do not have kids !!
Formula doesn’t contain antibodies! The antibodies will stop your children from getting any disease ever, you won’t need to vaccinate them. Also because of the antibodies you can spread breastmilk on any rash or wound and it will heal magically!
Your 6-year old has the flu? If you were still breastfeeding she’d be fine because ANTIBODIES! ANTIBODIES!!!
oh so THAT’s why no babies in the time before formula had any diseases, ever!
Wait, do people really say the thing about spreading breastmilk on rashes? Or did you make that up for the funny?
They really, really do.
Yep. It supposedly cures diaper rash. And is also great for cleaning. Seriously. I read a woman suggest using it to clean your dryer to get rid of the cloth diaper smell.
NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE
You know what else gets the cloth diaper smell out of your dryer? DISPOSABLE DIAPERS.
on a slightly less flippant note, making sure THERE WASN’T ANY CRAP LEFT ON THEM worked really well for me
Yes! I bet that works, too. I’m just too lazy for it.
I only wish I had more thumbs-up to give to this comment. 🙂
And it’s supposedly good for pinkeye.
ANd they tell you to squirt some in someone’s eye if they have pink eye. Seriously.
I wonder how they could explain my still breastfed 11 month old who constantly has a cold and just had to get tubes put in for all of the ear infections she’s gotten?
I’m tandem nursing my toddler and my infant and my 3yo said the cutest thing about the taste of the milk after the baby was born!
I was waiting for you to tell us what the cute thing was that your toddler said, til I finally realized you were parodying a breastfeeding-article comment. I’ll see myself out.
Well, although I BF my sons for 30 months each, they’re over 4 years apart, so I never had the pleasure.
I will tell you what I’ve learned from tandem-nursing mom reports, which is that the milk starts to taste sweeter when the baby comes along. I think it’s kinda cool that my breasts were once capable of creating a unique flavor profile. Like one of those soda machines where you can add a shot of lime or cherry!
I may have just thrown up in my mouth. Just a little. Carry on.
Ooh, also
“Take a nursing vacation! Stay in bed naked, with your naked baby and Nurse! All! Day! For 2 days, actually maybe a week! Nothing in the world is more important than nursing this baby! Not personal hygiene, eating, work, your other children, etc!”
THAT DOES NOT SOUND LIKE VACATION TO ME.
Where are the fruity drinks with umbrellas?? D:
This is why women marry: to have someone bring them fruity umbrella drinks and stout beer during nursing vacations. There is no better reason.
Is that bed a four-poster draped with billowy white linens placed on a tropical beach while someone brings me nonstop fancy drinks? No? Then this is NOT A FUCKING VACATION.
Oh man this reminds me of some “documentary” on breastfeeding I saw on TLC here in the Netherlands, where (among other things) there was this woman who was breastfeeding her now-5-year-old. She had an 8-year-old who she’d stopped breastfeeding at 4 months because the kid wasn’t into it, and you could tell that she clearly favored the younger kid because younger kid breastfed for long enough to give the mom kudos in the world of people who are really into breastfeeding. The mom was saying stuff like “oh I’ll stop when she says she doesn’t want it any more!” but the younger kid was bright enough to tell that her mother was clearly happier with her and breastfeeding got her so much more attention, compared to her sister. It was terrible but kind of amazing.
Oh god, that poor older kid.
SCREECH I swear I saw this one in the 90s
i am particularly proud of my answer to this asinine okcupid question: where should breastfeeding be allowed?
oh is this you? I follow your tumblr!
…
I was about halfway through this story when my reaction hit me.
“God, people are fucked up.”
I stand by this reaction.
If you’re feeling guilty about not breastfeeding, it must be because you aren’t really comfortable with that decision.
Have you tried to relactate?
Crumbs literally fell out of my mouth with awe. This is my favorite recurring article.
Oh well … my aunt is usually a 36A … but when she was breastfeeding she flourished to a 44F. She would walk around and say “Look at me, I can feed all the babies of the world with my magnificent breasts.”
This is exactly why women look like rabbits in the headlights when I mention that I breastfed for 15 months.*
*Entirely unplanned. Turns out I have tough nipples & cheap-as-free feeding was the more budget-friendly option!
Yup. At 16 months here, no clear end in sight. I breastfeed primarily because I’m lazy and cheap. If I had to pump or mix formula, she’d have been weaned ages ago. (All respect to pumping and formula-feeding parents!)
Here’s a few….
Are you sure your milk is strong enough?
Just give your baby a bottle of formula You will sleep better.
Some mothers just can’t breastfeed;
Happy mum-happy baby!
You should wean when they can ask for it.
After 12 months it is all for the mum’s benefit.
We don’t want to see that
. Be discreet That is what bottles are for.
Why don’t you try formula.. .they are almost as good these days.
Those breast feeding nazis will pressure you into breastfeeding and guilt you into breastfeeding which will immediately lead to PND ..
Here’s our formula delivered to your door!
You don’t drink milk? Then how will you be able to make milk for your baby? SMH!
There is a certain age where a baby really should drink from a a bottle (an age determined by me, of course).
“Mothers who eat junk food while pregnant/breastfeeding are guilty of child abuse and should have their baby taken from them by Child Protective Services.”
Can you really not breastfeed after eating fenugreek? Is this why my pee always smells weird after I eat it?
Supposedly it helps increase your milk supply? So I think the point of that comment was that if this hypothetical woman has not tried LITERALLY EVERYTHING to make breastfeeding work then she is just a pathetic quitter.
I think that fenugreek is supposed to help lactation, which is why having clearly eaten 5 lbs. of it is an indication that you’ve tried, but that nothing, nothing has worked.
I see NEITHER of you answered the important question, the pee question.
YES.
I’ve only eaten fenugreek as part of a heavily spiced stew, so I don’t have any reliable basis for an opinion on the subject
A side effect of fenugreek is that it makes you smell like maple syrup, supposedly. No idea on the pee, though.
the comments on here are funnier than the article. And clearly demonstrate why women are scared to death to even discuss breastfeeding.
If you breastfeed past a year your kid will remember breastfeeding and then will have sexual feelings about your breasts as an adult and never have a normal sex life.
I see some version of that one ALL THE TIME.
I breastfed for a long time and now I’m into ladies, so……
INCONTROVERTIBLE!
Wait – since I nursed my sons for over 2 years each, did I doom them to being hetero?
Ha me too, so maybe it’s correct.
Wait….
Wouldn’t they… just think of tits as for feeding kids?
SO UNHEALTHY
WE HATE PEOPLE WHO ARE INTO BUTTS OR LEGS OR SMILES OR ANYTHING BUT TITS
OR TITS BUT ARE OKAY WITH THOSE TITS FEEDING A BABY
I’m breastfeeding RIGHT NOW, while reading this article (true story).
And I am bottle feeding organic formula as I read these comments!
When I had to go back to work after having my son and was considering continuing to breastfeed, I cam across an online article that said you don’t need to pump at work, instead you just feed your baby every two hours through the night (i.e. your baby could slide by without any breastmilk during the day). It enraged me that this was considered good advice for exhausted, stressed out mothers about to return to full-time work — that they should wake themselves every two hours five nights a week to breastfeed the kid. I still get mad when I recall it.
I think that all this pumping/you-don’t-need-sleep-because-sleeplessness-is-par-for-the-course shite must be a collective way of punishing women who reproduce and dare go back to work (even though many don’t have a choice, and some need to for their own mental health). It’s like, if you’re not so self-sacrificing as to make yourself absolutely exhausted and miserable, then maybe you’re not such a good parent. Or some dismal shite like that. Also, if you don’t or can’t go back to work, you suck because you’re a parasite who’s not providing for your kid. No matter what, it’s your fault (and no the fault of creators of bad policy that doesn’t allow for mat leave (or for feasible mat leave).
Not to mention that most parents are into schedules. Read: the kid sleeping when they sleep WOOO POP THE CHAMPAGNE!
So I feel terrible about all these wonderful people getting grief in public either for breastfeeding or for not breast feeding. I am nursing my 2 1/2 year old, because he really likes it and likes having something that he can do that his big brother (4-y-o “I’m first!) can’t. I haven’t nursed my littler guy in public since…oh actually I did last week at an Art Gallery in order to forstall the dreaded late afternoon meltdown. Officially I will tell him he’s too big to nurse places, and that we can have a snuggle right now and then nurse at home, and this is almost always acceptable to my little Irish prince (not his real family nickname, but an apt enough description I think). I feel badly because no matter what things I have done with my kids in public, I can count on one hand the times I’ve gotten so much as a look, much less been called out for my choice. I consider myself lucky because of this, but I am also mystified: the Internet tells me the outside world is full of judgy people who won’t shut up, but none of them ever seem to find me. Is it something about me? Is it the region of the country I am in (the PNW)? I would tell off strangers getting in your business for/with you, fellow mums! Also I am grateful not to get harassed a lot.
While I admittedly thought this piece was hilarious, I too have never seen or heard anyone confront a stranger and be so rude. I’ve heard behind-the-back snark and of course the internet is a cesspool, but maybe NorCal is working to keep people in line. One place I worked (a shoe store) made the playroom for the bosses’ kids available to women who wanted to breastfeed in relative privacy, and I thought that was pretty nice. It used to be a milk speakeasy situation, but then they worked it out with the city to advertise so people could find them (and presumably buy shoes).
And just to show that breastfeeding moms get plenty of haters too, these are all comments I’ve experienced.
“Just so long as he isn’t old enough to ask for it”.
“Still?” (at 4 months)
“Well I guess I can’t have the baby over” (no, I guess not, but mostly because you are psychotic to think that my 6 week old is ready for an all-night Dirty Dancing marathon.
“It must be your milk-switch to formula or add cereal” (said a million times over by doctors as the go-to default source of unidentified or normal baby issues.
“I have no problem with breastfeeding but [insert puritanical, suppressed woman-hating, sexually obsessed condition under which a woman can breastfeed without shame)
“You’re being a martyr/rabid feminist/pedophile/judgmental against any other kind of feeding every time you put your tit in your kid’s mouth” (Yes, I know, this was on the La Leche League pamphlet and is the primary reason that is driving my lack of sleep and bleeding nipples. Because it’s so cool, like a slicked back pompadour).
“Exhibitionist; whip out; look at your bared breasts; showing off; disgusting like urine or feces or sex; immodest; disrespectful” (if none of those comments can apply to you eating a hamburger, don’t say it about my kid eating.
and oh, my all time favorite: “maybe he’s hungry/teething/grumpy/crying because he’s not getting enough milk. How do you know when he’s had enough?” Because he stops eating.
PS: Love and virutal martinis to you all you moms out there, breastfeeding, not breastfeeding, whatever. We’re all sleep-deprived, strung out heroes.
Sorry this is like DAYS late but have you read Afterbirth by Elisa Albert? It is amazing, in very many ways, but my favourite moment is when someone says to the main character while she is breastfeeding her 1 year-old, “You know, you can breastfeed that boy until he’s twenty, but you’ll fuck him up for life” and she replies “Oh, don’t worry, he isn’t mine.”
I didn’t get the sense of the extreme slut shaming for NIP that I find so enraging in the comments.
Preach Renee. Anyone who doesn’t think that kind of insane vitriol is live and didn’t read them.
I love these comments: “My son had an undiagnosed tongue-tie and reflux. I had mastitis 4 times, thrush, bloody nipples, vasospasms and had my appendix removed when my son was 2 months old. I worked 80 hours a week and breastfed until my son was 3. If I can do it, anyone can.” Great work, but not all of us are that amazing.
I have a common first name and a common last name and an email address that combines them, and it turns out there are a lot of people out there with my name who don’t know how to type their own email addresses, so I get all kinds of random email that people have inadvertently signed me up for. The latest: someone in Florida used my address to register for the “What to Expect” message boards. She’s having a baby in October, and before I managed to unsubscribe I got a long list of posting titles that looked terrifyingly like the “All the Posts on Every Third Trimester Message Board” installment in this series.
I am never, ever, ever having children. Or if I do I’m moving to a remote island where I can’t get on the internet.
Your child has an eye infection? Rash? Some sort of other oozing condition that would normally require medication? You don’t need to take them to the doctor. You don’t need meds. Just squirt breast milk INTO the eye…INTO the ear…ONTO the wound…etc.
Urinary tract infection? HOLD STILL LITTLE ONE!
I don’t even have children, and yet, I have seen ALL OF THESE COMMENTS.
And drooling. All well-adjusted adults drool candy at work. (Says the prof who accidentally dropped chewed-up Snickers out of her mouth this afternoon…onto a student paper.)
Urinary tract infection? HOLD STILL LITTLE ONE!
The idea of that sweet, sweet sleep made me whimper out loud. I spent my night with a sharp pain in my hip and a toddler on my chest, snotting and fevering and crying her way through the night. Dream a little dream for me tonight, please?
I mean, most of what mothers hear is "FEEL BAD FEEL BAD FEEL BAD HATE YOURSELF WHY AREN'T YOU GLOWING WITH THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD?"