Does breastfeeding honestly help with weight loss?

[whatdoyouthank]

Am I going to turn into a slim goddess over night or is it a myth?

Not for me. I was sitting down so much. I only lose weight when I'm on the go all the time.

I did but I think it’s different for everyone. I ate like a pig during pregnancy and put on loads of weight, lost it quickly during breastfeeding.

Yes it does help IME, especially when the baby reaches 5-6 months old and is taking in a lot of milk calories. At any rate I lost all the baby weight whilst feeding each of my two babies, despite eating a fair bit of cake along the way.

100000% yes!

Not me and i fed my Twins 😭😭😭

A myth sorry.

You eat too many biscuits because that's all you can eat with one hand

I didnt... used it as an excus3 to eat 24 hours a day though 😂

It did for me. Look at it this way...you have to use calories to produce milk however if you eat more extra calories then it won’t help!

Not for me, I didn't loose any weight till I stopped breastfeeding.
Felt as though my body was holding onto all its (plentiful) fat reserves. Sorry

Regretting the biscuits and cakes now I can't stop!

Not for me. It made me ravenously hungry. I've been bf for over 3 yrs straight now (2 babies back to back) and am fatter than I've ever been.

Definitely helped with me. I had to drastically reduce my food intake when I stopped!

I lost 4.5 stone in the first 8 months after DS was born, he was a ravenous infant and shot from 50th to 98th percentile in 12 weeks, and stayed there. I've put 2 stone of it back on since weaning him onto solids though!

It worked for me but I’m of the opinion that 9 months up = 9 months down tbh so I didn’t pay too much attention to it.

I didn’t do anything else to lose the weight though

It made me put weight on! Like Nottalotta it made me ravenously hungry all-the-time (and miserable if I wasn't sating the hunger).

Well I found I was completely ravenous because the baby is sucking every calorie out of you (and I also had huge babies) so I can’t say I was losing weight, keeping enough food in me was struggle enough! I did lose weight though while I was breastfeeding as soon as I added exercise (walking). It was harder with the second and third children because it was very difficult to find the time to exercise.

Not for me. With the breastfeeding plus having a shit sleeper I found myself loading up on toast just to get through the exhaustion. I put on a good stone in that first year!

It was brilliant. I could eat absolutely loads and not put weight on. My younger son breastfed until 2 (he was taking a full feed on waking and before bed by then, but not during the day) and I ate a lot of New York style cheesecake during those 2 years.

I lost over a stone within a month (and I'd only put on a few lbs during pregnancy anyway due to HG) despite suddenly having an insatiable appetite. My DD is nearly 18mo now and I've put it all back on in the last few months but that's because I haven't decreased my calories with the amount my dd breastfeeds. I've never been someone who loses weight easily either so I was really surprised with how much weight I was losing.

I think it probably would have done if I wasn’t stuffing my face with cake at every feed

Yes for me. I only put on about 10lb in pregnancy and within a month of having a very hungry baby I weighed a stone less than I did pre-pregnancy. It was great being able to eat any amount of cake and know I'd burn it off while feeding!

Not at all for DS1, I had about a stone I couldn't shift no matter what until I stopped breastfeeding and it dropped off.

Wierdly with DS2 it does seem to be making me lose weight despite not doing a quarter of the walking I did with DS1.

I was zipping up pre-pregnancy jeans after just a month

Yes!!! And I ate cheese and cake non stop while breastfeeding. The weight kept dropping off- it was great.

Didn’t breastfeed and was back in the pre-pregnancy jeans 8 weeks post partum. I think how quickly you lose the weight is mostly genetic (and how tempted you by cakes/biscuits ). Just focus on looking after yourself and your baby and try not to worry about it too much.