Ttc and extended breastfeeding

[verybookish]

Hi! I am still happily nursing my 18 month old from between 4 to 8 times a day, including nursing him to sleep every night. I would like to start ttc but am worried about a couple of things:

a) is the nursing frequency too much for my body? I am tired though I think every parent is.

b) I am worried that first trimester tiredness or nursing aversion will mean that I will have to wean abruptly which might be tricky for dc and me. However,

c) i don't want to wean preemptively so to say unless I don't absolutely have to. Mostly because I am a lazy parent and breastfeeding works for us in case of sickness, tantrum or sleepiness. Also we both really enjoy it. I think coming up with an alternative strategy would probably be even more exhausting.

d) equally, I am not sure I could tandem feed. How does that even work?

So my questions are: Has any of you bf throughout ttc and pregnancy and beyond? How was it for you? Are there any strategies to reduce nursing a bit? Any advice on how to make sure nutrition is adequate for me, toddler and hopefully baby?

[gardengirl88]

Watching with interest and ditto...so no advice I'm afraid!

[teaandbiscuitsforme]

I breastfed DD throughout my pregnancy and we've carried on. It didn't really affect BF to be honest, not unless I actively intervened.

DD was 12 months when I got pregnant. She BF a few times during the day, depending on whether I was in work and she was at nursery or not, and she always BF a few times overnight (we coslept). By about 14 months I started discouraging her from feeding much during the day (morning, before naps, fed to sleep). We moved when she was 16 months so we moved her into a single bed (still BF to sleep and I would BF and cosleep in her bed if she woke) but then we did some night weaning over a few weeks.

When DS arrived, DD (21 months) wanted to feed a lot more because she was seeing him feed all the time. After 2 weeks I decided to limit her to morning, before nap and before bed (not BF to sleep any more). Now at almost 2 she has some in the morning and before nap and she knows she only BF upstairs and at those times.

I think from a nutrition point of view, you've just got to make sure you eat and drink properly. When feeding 2, obviously the baby gets priority but I think the research shows that your milk changes depending on which child you're feeding.

Not sure I've actually answered any of your questions in all that!

[littledinaco]

I nursed through pregnancy and tandem fed. There are stratergies you can use to reduce nursing (depending on what you want to do and age of child) but I always felt feeding whenever they wanted was much easier. I was happy to do this though. Everyone is different and some people find cutting down/limiting feeds works best for them.

Your milk adapts depending on whether you are feeding baby or toddler. I think it's the saliva that tells your body which milk to make, the same as it tells your body to make certain antibodies if baby is sick, etc.

I found it easy to comfort/occupy toddler while feeding baby. I didn't have any problems feeding during pregnancy and was really greateful to be able to spend time with toddler sitting and feeding as I felt guilty I was unable to take them out/play as much as I was really ill when pregnant.

Like PP, toddler increased feeds massively when baby was born (stopped eating completely and put on loads of weight!) but I just went with it and he cut down himself. I found the tandem nursing groups and 'breastfeeding older babies and beyond' on Facebook really helpful.

[Writerwannabe83]

Me and DH TTC a second baby whilst I was still breast feeding DS.

I fell pregnant on our first cycle but unfortunately miscarried two weeks later. I was obviously disappointed but accepted that it's quite common.

We continued trying but as the months passed I started to get a bit frustrated and some people did say that maybe me still breast feeding was preventing pregnancy.

DS was over two years old at this point and typically had 2-3 breast feeds a day but none overnight. Due to my shifts I was sometimes away from DS for a few days so at least once a week he'd be going over 48 hours without a breast feed. As his feeding was pretty infrequent I brushed aside the idea it may be causing a problem and just carried on trying.

After ten cycles of trying and failing (whilst still breast feeding) I then decided to look deeper into the effect that BF can have on pregnsncy. I learnt that in some women the act of breast feeding means that the endometrium layer of the womb is not of a good enough quality to maintain a pregnancy so women either can't get pregnant at all or if the egg does implant it will most likely end in an early miscarriage. I was told that potentially I'd been conceiving on every cycle (I.e the egg and sperm fused fine in the fallopian) but that the fertilised egg then hadn't been able to implant properly to enable a pregnancy to develop.

After almost a year of repeated BFNs and having the early miscarriage I made the decision to stop breast feeding my toddler and I'm really pleased to say I caught pregnant the first cycle afterwards and am now 20 weeks

Many, many women get pregnant easily whilst breast feeding whereas for other women it just doesn't happen.

I'm so glad I wasn't still breast feeding during early pregnancy because I was so ill between weeks 8-16 that God knows how I would have managed it

[Priscilla907]

Writerwannabe83, I’m in the same boat as you described - 10 months of negative tests ttc a second baby but still breastfeeding a toddler who’s turning 2 next month. I suspect after lots of researching that I might just be one of those women who can’t breastfeed and conceive. We’ve cut down to three brief feeds in each 24-hr period, but still no luck. My cycle returned three months after giving birth and has been pretty regular since, so that doesn’t seem to be an issue. How did you go about weaning and how long did the weaning process take? My DS looooves his nursing time, so I feel like this is going to be really difficult.