Here are some things you can do to deal with criticism.

Be positive: It is hard for someone to argue with a happy, positive person. If you are excited and enthusiastic about breastfeeding it can be contagious . Try to educate them: Find information on benefits of breastfeeding to mom and baby and share this with them. You don't have to "push this down their throat". Just be enthusiastic about your decision to breastfeed and share with them why you decided to.

Be sympathetic: A lot of times women are defensive because breastfeeding did not work out for them. If you sit and talk with any woman that really wanted to breastfeed, you can hear sadness in her story. Try to be sympathetic and non-judgmental. Don't say things like "you could have or should have". Share your experience, be positive, and let them know you care. Try not to get angry: Breastfeeding conversations can get very heated. Getting angry with someone is not likely to change her feelings. It will just make you and her upset. If you don't feel like you can talk about breastfeeding with this person change subject or avoid talking about it.

Use your doctor as your advocate: Sometimes best thing you can do is tell someone that this is what your doctor recommends. What you think means very little to some people but a doctor's word carries weight.

Don't be sarcastic or insulting: Belittling someone is likely to make someone defensive. It is not a good approach to winning someone over. You may turn an opportunity to educate someone into a personal attack.

Stand your ground: Do not let someone else decide how you are going to parent. If they are uncomfortable then they will have to come to terms with it. You do not have to change way you parent to suit someone else.

If nothing is working then you may just let person know that you do not want to discuss issue with them any more. Hopefully, it doesn't come to this.

When blaming anger comes up, healthy option is neither to dump it on another in an attempt to control them, nor to squash and repress it. The healthy option is to learn from it.

Our anger at another person or situation has much to teach us regarding personal responsibility for our own feelings and needs. As part of Inner Bonding process that we teach (see our free course at www.innerbonding.com), we offer a three-part anger process that moves you out of feeling like a frustrated victim and into a sense of personal power.

THE ANGER PROCESS

The Anger Process is a powerful way to release anger, as well as to learn from source of anger.

Releasing your anger will work only when your intent in releasing it is to learn about what you are doing that is causing your angry feelings. If you just want to use your anger to blame, control and justify your position, you will stay stuck in your anger. This three-part anger process moves you out of victim-mode and into open-heartedness.

1. Imagine that person you are angry at is sitting in front of you. Let your angry wounded child or adolescent self yell at him or her, saying in detail everything you wish you could actually say. Unleash your anger, pain and resentment until you have nothing more to say. You can scream and cry, pound a pillow, roll up a towel and beat bed. (The reason you don't tell person directly is because this kind of cathartic, no-holds-barred "anger dump" would be abusive to them.)

2. Now ask yourself who this person reminds you of in your past - your mother or father, a grandparent, a sibling? (It may be same person. That is, you may be mad at your father now, and he is acting just like he did when you were little.) Now let your wounded self yell at person from past as thoroughly and energetically as in part one.

3. Finally, come back into present and let your angry wounded self do same thing with you expressing your anger, pain and resentment toward your adult self for your part in situation or for treating yourself way people in parts one and two treated you. This brings problem home to personal responsibility, opening door to exploring your own behavior.

By doing anger process instead of trying to control others with your anger, you de-escalate your frustration while learning about real issue – how you are not taking care of yourself in face of whatever another is doing or in face of a difficult situation.

Whenever anger comes up, you always have choice to control or to learn.