Fed is Best: Feeding Choices and Support

In this episode of Chat with Charlie on Mum Matters, Charlie shares honest and compassionate reflections on breastfeeding, bottle feeding, combination feeding, and making baby feeding choices without guilt or pressure. From early feeding struggles to rediscovering confidence across five children, this episode reassures mums that fed is best, support matters, and your mental health matters too.

Perfect for pregnant women, first-time mums, and parents navigating newborn feeding decisions, this episode encourages you to make informed, pressure-free choices that work for you and your baby.

If you’re looking for ongoing mum-to-mum support, reassurance, and real-life guidance in early motherhood, you can join the Mum Matters Community via my website below.

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Transcript

0:25

Hello and welcome back again to chat with Charlie on Mom Matters. Today we're talking about feeding choices, and I wanna say this clearly right from the start. This is not a breastfeeding versus bottle feeding episode. It's not a competition. I want you to leave this episode with information so that you can make an informed decision for yourself about your feeding choices. This is about a Fed is best episode. This is about choice. This is about informed decisions, and this is about protecting moms from shame In any direction I've breastfed, I've bottle fed, and if I'm completely honest with you, I've mostly been a bottle feeding mom, I wanna talk about that openly, neutrally, and without any guilt. because a big thing for me when being pregnant that I have noticed is that bottle feeding is not really spoken about. Definitely not as openly as I feel it should be, and I think breastfeeding is absolutely incredible. If it's good and right for you and your baby. Feeding is one of the first big parenting decisions that you're gonna make. It is tied to identity, pressure, hormones, vulnerability, and I think that we're. Definitely led in the direction of breastfeeding. All the information is out there. When you have your midwife appointments, it's are you breastfeeding? Not what are you choosing to do for feeding? what are you thinking of doing? I I will come to my story because I think it's important for you to hear what I went through with my first baby. But when I've gone to midwife appointments, I have had midwives when I've said, I wanna bottle feed this baby, trying to talk me out of it, breast is best. here's some leaflets. I really think you should consider breastfeeding without really understanding the reasons why I've chosen to bottle feed. So if you are somebody that. Loves breastfeeding and has breastfed before, or somebody that's new, a first time mom or mom to be and you want to try breastfeeding, then absolutely 100%. Go for it. That's what I was doing with my first baby. That was my plan. But if you are listening to this and you are like, I don't want to breastfeed, it's not for me. It doesn't feel right, I really wanna bottle feed, Then that is okay too. Perfectly. Okay. Fed is best, and you'll probably hear me say that a lot during this episode because many moms feel judged before they've even held their baby. And I think that is so wrong on so many levels. Somewhere along the way, feeding stopped being about nourishing babies and started being about measuring moms. that's why I feel so strongly about talking about both sides. So you can make an informed decision by the end of this episode, whatever decision you've made, if you've decided to breastfeed and that you change your mind and you want to bottle feed or vice versa, you are allowed to change your mind. You are allowed to do what works for you. You are allowed to protect your mental health. I wanna tell you my story with my first baby, I wanna tell you slowly and honestly so that you can understand the full picture. I was pregnant with my first baby and I wanted to breastfeed. In fact, all the information that I'd heard about feeding. Was about breastfeeding, but I was so positive about it, so confident that I wanted to give it a go. I wanted to bond with my baby in this way. I did feel if I could breastfeed that it was definitely something that I wanted to try. I went to all the prenatal classes. I dragged my husband there too. we couldn't have prepared more if we tried to breastfeed. I wasn't informed about any alternatives. I was definitely encouraged in that direction. So my birth plan didn't go to plan as many don't, and my baby boy arrived two and a half weeks early, and he was very, very small. Every time I tried to breastfeed, he fell asleep. And I kept persisting. I kept trying. I tried different positions. I tried different ways. I took professional advice. It was very stressful, but I felt that I really wanted to crack this, I really wanted to get it right. I really wanted to do this with my baby. I guess there was an element of pressure that breast is best and this is what you should be doing. but nevertheless, I persisted until, uh, had a health visitor visit on one of the early days, my baby was losing over 10% of his birth weight. The health visitor literally shouted at me, telling me off that my baby had lost so much weight that I wasn't feeding him properly. with tears literally rolling down my face, I asked her, is the bottle really that bad? To which she responded and said, well, no. So I turned to my husband and I said to him, hand me a bottle now. Now we bought some of those pre-made little bottles that you can buy that are already made up. He gave me the bottle. I gave it to my baby and he drank and he was so happy to drink from his bottle. This moment traumatized me, not because of the bottle, but because of the fear, the shame, and the feeling that I had failed my baby. I did what I was guided to do. I tried my best. I wasn't ignorant. I just was so unsupported in the options that were available for feeding. So naturally after that, with baby number two and baby number three, I absolutely refused to breastfeed. I didn't even wanna try. I was so traumatized what I'd gone through. And then seeing that the bottle had. Not only solved the issue, it had taken away the pressure from me. My baby was eating. He was then growing. He was happy. I was happy, and all that stress just went away. It was so unnecessary. Now I have shopped around for hospitals, so baby number two was born in a different hospital and I had decided that I was bottle feeding this baby. So when the midwife came around after I gave birth to my second baby, I explained that I was bottle feeding. I wanted to bottle feed, and this midwife turned around to me and said that this is a breastfeeding hospital. Now I don't even know what that means. What does that even mean? This is a breastfeeding hospital. But I was very strong in my answer and I turned around and I said, I don't care what kind of hospital you are. I am bottle feeding my baby. Babies need feeding. Mothers need support. My confidence came from lived experience, so I knew what I was dealing with. I knew what I was doing, so I trusted myself more. And I protected my wellbeing, and this is the message that I want to give to you listening. If you are in a similar situation or if you want to bottle feed and you are feeling shameful because you are being told that you should be breastfeeding, it's okay to bottle feed. whatever choice of feeding suits you and your baby is the right choice. Now by baby number four, it was 2020, it was locked down. I gave birth in a different hospital. Yet again, like I've told you, I shopped around. There's nothing wrong in trying different hospitals if you're not happy as well. It's a key point. You don't have to go back to the same hospital if you're not happy, and on that note as well, if you are with a midwife that is belittling you or doesn't make you feel happy either in your appointments or any point of your pregnancy, you are allowed to say that you don't want to see that midwife anymore, that you don't feel comfortable. I'm just saying I'm putting it out there because I've also been in that situation too. So baby number four was lockdown. No visitors are allowed calm environment in a different hospital with really supportive midwives. And at that moment by my fourth baby, I felt confident enough to try breastfeeding again And I was successful I think it had a lot to do with the environment that I was in, that it was very calm. I was sitting there, I'd had a C-section, so I wasn't going anywhere for the first day at least. I had good breastfeeding support within the hospital as well, and it was an absolutely beautiful experience, and it showed me something really important. Okay. Breastfeeding success often depends less on the mom and more on the support. And like I said at the beginning, this episode is not about putting breastfeeding down or bottle feeding down. It's about making sure that you are making an informed decision that's right for you. Breastfeeding isn't automatic. It doesn't just happen. You need to learn how to breastfeed Your baby needs to learn how to latch on. It is the natural option, but it's not always easy. So make sure that you're getting the right support. If you do want to persist with breastfeeding and if it feels right and it feels good for you, then do persist because it may not come straight away. But once it does come. It is the most incredible experience and for those people that do try breastfeeding and don't carry on with it and go to bottle feeding, bottle feeding isn't the giving up option. It's literally the option that felt right for you and your baby at that time. I think the problem with pushing one way or another is that pressure creates shame, then shame harms. Your mental health and the stress of all of that affects the feeding and the bonding and the recovery. So all of those things together are such a negative experience when it doesn't have to be like that, there should never be a hierarchy of feeding methods, only a focus on what works for that baby and that mom a well supported mom is best a nourished baby. Is best. So let's go through the benefits of both options of feeding, breastfeeding, can offer immune benefits, convenience, once established hormonal bonding, and cost effectiveness too. Bottle feeding. Can offer a shared feeding responsibility so you are not the one that's feeding all the time. Dad can help too. clear intake reassurance so you know exactly how much your baby is drinking. It protects your mental health. If you are struggling with breastfeeding or you don't want to breastfeed. It gives you flexibility and rest relief from pressure too. Neither option guarantees a better baby or a better mom. I wanna give you an action step for this week. I love to do that on my episodes because it gives you something to go away and do after the episode so you can take all the information that you've learned from this episode and put it into your real life. Do an informed choice. Check-in, have a think about what do I want, not what I feel pressured to do. what support will I realistically have, how will this choice affect my mental health? An important one, what is my backup plan if feeding doesn't go as expected? So even if you are planning to breastfeed, I would definitely do the research on bottle feeding, sterilizers, and a little background What's involved in bottle feeding and baby milk? Just so you've got that information. If you need to switch it last minute, like I did, I didn't have that information and it really, really affected me. So I want you to have all the information that you need for when baby comes. So realistically, if you could. Learn how to breastfeed and how to bottle feed before birth, know how to prepare bottles safely, I've got loads of videos on bottle feeding and preparing bottles safely on my Charlie's Parenting pages Instagram page, so you can check those out too if you need extra advice. Know where to get feeding support from and give yourself permission to pivot. I really want you to go away from this episode. Knowing this, how you feed your baby does not define your worth as a mother, how you respond to your baby and your baby's needs, does how you care for yourself. Does. You are allowed to choose. You are allowed to change your mind, and you are allowed to feed your baby without shame. As I keep saying, fed is best. A supported mom is best, and you are the best mom for your baby. Thank you for listening to this episode. Be gentle with yourself and always trust your own instinct.