Mum Puts A Stop To Bottle Feeding Guilt With One Picture
'Never doubt your choices'
By Kayla Burke
November 29 2016
The common saying in the parenting social media world is ‘breast is best’. However, an Australian mother is challenging the statement with the powerful message of ‘FED is best’.
Mother and blogger Siobhan Rennie has called out ‘mum shaming’ when it comes to the decision to breast feed or bottle feed your child.
At first glance, Rennie's post appeared to an innocent post of a mother feeding her baby, but the picture was actually posted in a bid to fight against mum guilt that often accompanies a parents breastfeeding decisions.
”I still feel guilty every day that I’m not breastfeeding Aoife anymore,” Rennie wrote in the caption.
The mother of two stopped breastfeeding her youngest at four months due to latching problems and mental health concerns.
“At four months we called it quits, and it was such a painful decision,” she wrote. “Life definitely got easier; we were all a lot happier. But I still, eight months on, think I gave up too easily. I didn’t, I know that, but I still can’t help being really hard on myself...”
Rennie regularly promotes the importance of mums supporting each other instead of ridiculing every decision they make.
”There’s too much judgement out there about the different choices a mom can make,” she said. “As long as it’s safe for the baby, why should we judge another mum for however she chooses to ‘mum’?”
The mother has been the subject of online bullying over her nearly three years of motherhood. When it came to the decision of increasing her first bub’s daycare hours, one mum wrote, “Why have another baby if you can’t even take care of the one you have already?”
Whilst Rennie’s wish of mothers to stop judging each other seems simple, it’s certainly one that many would like to see fulfilled.
“Daycare or not, breastfeeding or not, it’s all the same ― we make the right choices for us and our family, and it’s no one’s business but our own,” the mum said.
