DH and I made the painful decision to stop breastfeeding my four month old a couple of days ago after almost two months of struggling.
My DD was 11 weeks old when she first went on nursing strike. Since then I've got her TT divided, breastfeeding support, nursed in a dark room while sleepy, stimulated letdown before feeding etc. Nothing's really worked to get her back on the breast full time - she's screamed at every breastfeed and I've ended up having to make up a bottle and try to swap it for breast midfeed. I've got clinical depression and it's only got worse since - I feel so rejected each time she screams on the breast. I can't find time to exclusively express as she's quite a high needs baby and DH works full time.
In my head I know this is the right decision for both of us (she's no longer distressed at every feed and seems to be much happier overall) but it's so hard to reconcile this with what is said to be the best for baby. Everywhere I look there's things telling me EBF till six months. I feel like such a failure and I can't help but feel that other mums will be judging me.
Is it just me or is everything out there designed to subtly shame mums who FF? The Aptamil advert made me cry today.
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Infant feeding
Stopping breastfeeding before 6 months - guilt and shaming
45 replies
blueberrypudding · 04/08/2014 21:52
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