To ask about your experiences of breastfeeding and weight loss...

[Gennz]

DS was born in November (he's 20 weeks). I put on approx 3 stone while pregnant, and about 2 came off in the weeks following his arrival. Have since lost a few pounds both nothing substantial - have about a stone to go to my pre-preg weight (which wasn't super skinny, just average/healthy BMI).

DS is largely BF, though he gets one formula bottle at bedtime. Is it likely I will see a sudden dramatic decrease on the scales anytime soon? Just as a resul of breastfeeding I mean. I'm not constantly stuffing my face or anything but I'm definitely not dieting or hitting the gym, though I try to swim or walk regularly ... but there's a fair amunt of grazing happening & a steady reliance on chocolate at about 4pm.

Or do I need to accept that the remaining weight won't move til I wean him & make more of an effort with diet & exercise? My sister BF-ed her DS2 til a year and reckoned it took til 9 months to get the miraculous weigh loss at which point she lost a stackload.

Had convinced myself I would be one of those people who get down to their high school weight while stuffing face 24/7 with dairy milk choc.

BTW when you start looking at how many calories in ONE chocolate bar, you will be surprised at how much difference it makes just cutting that out.

Its not a drastic change and not one that going to rob you too much of the vitamins you need but should help you loose a fair amount if you stick to it.

I don't think I'm insulin resistant ... I think I'm eating too much! I'm just so hungry all the time. My meals are healthy but it's the constant grazing in between that's holding up the weight loss I think

I'm going back to work 3 days a week in 6 weeks - I'll still be BFing, so hopefully it will mean I might make some progress ... I won't be constantly picking through the fridge to see what I can eat.

Yes RedToothbrush that's totally it - the tiredness means I'm more susceptible to the chocolate etc.It's a vicious cycle! DS' sleep is actually not too bad - usually wakes at about 4am. Annoyingly, my sleep habits are now totally fucked - dreamfed him at 10, couldn't get to sleep til 11.30, woke at 1am, 2am, then woke by DS at 4am to feed/change nappy - he went straight back to sleep & I toosed and turned. So, so maddening.

With both of mine I lost the weight and more pretty quickly. I've heard how some women seem to retain the last stone or 1/2 stone until they wean but this was not my experience at all.

A few months in I was below my pre-pregnancy weight which is too low for me so I had to make sure I ate loads.

BF does use more calories of course, but as with everything else, we all retrain and lose weight in different ways.

This is one thing about BFing that really used to wind me up! I BF all three DC for a year to 18 months; and exclusively for the first 6 months with each. And not only did I not lose weight, I put on weight each time.

With my youngest I hardly gained any weight at all during my pregnancy due to health problems, but as soon as she was born I started to gain weight .

For me I think the problem was that BFing made me absolutely ravenous. And it wasn't the sort of hunger you could ignore, or stave off by drinking lots of water; if I didn't stuff my face I felt faint and shaky.

Every time I saw an article about a 'celeb' telling the world how all her baby weight just 'fell off' because she was BFing I wanted to scream....

Just adding my voice to those who have said that they lost very little weight while BFing.
It was when I stopped feeding (with my first 4 DC) that it all came off for me. And with minimal effort, too. I hate that expectation that it is easy to be back to pre preg weight within weeks, or that we should aspire to it.

I might add though, that DC5 was a different kettle of fish: I never lost the weight and put even more on! I was over 40 by then though, so that may have been the reason.

I held on to a lot of weight which just fell off after I stopped breastfeeding, mainly around my tummy and arse areas

I've struggled with my weight all my life but it absolutely fell off breastfeeding. I'm currently 1.5 stone under my pre pregnancy weight and DS is six months.

Maybe it happens more if you're fatter to start with?

Gennz Mon 13-Apr-15 10:36:20
Yes RedToothbrush that's totally it - the tiredness means I'm more susceptible to the chocolate etc.It's a vicious cycle!

Oh yes! I started looking at what I was eating a week ago. DS's sleep hasn't been great all week but Saturday night was horrendous and guess what happened yesterday... I even knew I was doing it, but I was so tired I just wanted to eat more.

So I do think in part that it will settle down a bit when DS's sleep gets a little better as a result.

Rather than going on a diet, which I don't think is terribly appropriate whilst still breastfeeding, I'd start a food diary as it will make you more conscious of what you are eating. It's probably worth keeping a note of how you are sleeping too to compare the two. (An investment in something like a fitbit is worth it imho as it has somewhere to do this as well as monitoring how active you are).

If you know what your habits are like and where you are falling down with what you are eating its much easier to do something about it. It also means if you have a really shit day like I've just had, you know why and don't feel as bad as you could about it. I've definitely written yesterday off as a day that was just about coping with the tiredness rather than a day when I 'failed' as such.

I didn't gain much in pregnancy (other than the baby and placenta weight) so a week or 2 after ds was born I was back to normal jeans but with bf the weight did slightly creep on as it gave me such a tooth for cake and biscuits which I never had an interest in before. So yes I burned a huge amount of calories with bf but I put too many cake calories in! Ended up a tiny bit heavier I'd say overall but not an issue for me as I'm always a very healthy weight anyway. If you want bf to help with your weight, just be careful with the cakes and eat healthily to produce milk but don't overdo it.

Another EBF'er here who lost no weight breastfeeding because it made me so SO hungry - for anything! I also had a terrible sleeper from 4-10 months so I survived the evil fog of sleep deprivation by eating cake and toast which didn't help. As did the utter exhaustion that meant I had to give up the running club I'd started going to and any other exercise. Wondering what DD2 will bring now (36 weeks and counting)!

I am currently pregnant with DC6. With my previous 5 pregnancies I put on approx 10kg and lost it all within a few weeks, ebf them all until 12mths and as soon as I stopped bf started to gain weight. Then it was time to diet and exercise - this DC will probably be my last - could I bf forever to stay slim??

I EBF for 6 months and in that time went from 12 stone to just under 9 stone - too thin for me at my advanced height. I wasn't excessively hungry, had masses of energy, and didn't exercise. DS meanwhile grew exceedingly buddha-esque (he's now normal, I must have lardy milk).

As soon as I stopped breastfeeding however, I gained quite a bit, quite quickly. I also lost my energy and felt hungry a lot. It took me until DS was approximately 18 months to reach a happy medium.

My point is that you will lose the weight at some point. I don't think anybody gets off scott-free, but equally nobody is engineered to hold on to it forever.

I was hungry constantly while BF, I lost nothing in the first three months then between 3 months and a year went from 56kg to 43kg all while stuffing my face (I just could not eat enough to keep up), my pre pregnancy weight was 46kg.
3 yrs later (ds2 still breastfeeds) he's down to one feed a day but I have gained back a couple of kgs (now around 47/48kgs) due to him feeding much less and me being used to scoffing huge amounts of food.
So for me I did lose weight while breastfeeding but not straight away. The amount of milk ds2 has now will probably be so little it has no impact on my calorie intake so I'm trying to eat better now.

I totted up my chocolate intake yesterday and it was excessive! That's what's swallowing up the BFing calories. I'm not going to post a list but suffice to say there were chocolate and/or biscuit breaks at 11am, 4pm and 8pm...

DS and I both had a much better night last night so I'm going to try a bit of discipline, for novelty's sake. (By discipline I mean just chocolate after dinner, instead of at intervals all day. Yes I know, impressive aren't I!)

I am afraid you will most probably need to stop the grazing and chocolate and start going for long walks. To lose a stone you need a calorific deficit of around 26,000 calories and you cannot achieve that in a short time only with breastfeeding, especially not skipping a feed.

I breastfed fully and exclusively until 6 months for both of mine and found that I was not really back to pre-pregnancy weight until 9-10 months. This was having gained 15-17 kgs in pregnancy and having a reasonably healthy diet and lots of walks. Very little exercise due to post-delivery issues, but that is another thread.

Stopping breastfeeding had nothing to do with weight loss for me as I fed them both for over a year after reaching pre-pregnancy weight.

Gennz, its a start and WILL make a difference. Just don't expect instant results. My fitbit says if I cut 500 calories from my diet every day I'll loose a stone by the end of June. If you are having three chocolate breaks a day, that could account for a big slice of those 500 calories. I personally think its pointless aiming to cut out all treats from your diet anyway as you end up craving them even more. Its better to cut back and appreciate what you do have instead. It does sound like you are in a similar place to me though. A couple of weeks ago I clocked up £20 of chocolate in a week and didn't realise until DH grumbled about it.

I went from 8.7st to 10.7st with dc1. Within 1 weeks i was 8st10 while bf. Ebf till 6m and continued till 14m.
I found the weight crept back on when my periods started so about 11m.
I have pcos so this would be when hormonal imbalance came back.
But also i think after the birth i became hyperthyroid hence the constant hunger, restlessness etc but by a yr my thyroid had gone underactive, where it has stayed.
So not sure what will happen this time while im on thyroxine, maybe the weight wont fall off, but maybe it also wont start to creep back on.
Dc1 was also a difficult baby, wouldnt nap except on me/in car until 11m so the exhaustion probably played a part.

Oh I have been exercising. It's just autumn here so have been going for long swims/walks several times a week. I just eat all those calories too.

I don't think it's terrible, Ds is only 4.5 months after all - the last few montsh have been pretty shattering so I'm not going to beat myself up about shovelling shit into my mouth 24/7 doing whatever it takes to get through the day. But now that things are getting a bit easier and I can generally count on 6 - 8 hours sleep a night, even broken, I need to check myself and make sure being a greedy hoover doesn't become the new normal. Plus I don't want to squander the (shallow) benefits of breastfeeding while they last!

RedToothbrush I reckon I would totally give you a run for your money on the chocolate expenditure.

Walking is a great start. To keep it benefiting you, make sure the pace pushes you. Toning / weight based exercise is also helpful and is fairly simple to add in at home.

Chocolate definitely breeds chocolate cravings. That's how I gain the pregnancy pounds in the first place.

I feel your pain! DS is now 11 weeks and EBF and i have such a huge appetite! I don't know if I would always describe it as hunger ...just a huge appetite. I really want to take control this time as feel so squidgy, started yesterday to just cut out snacking in the day but allowing myself one SMALL 'treat' in the evenings when my energy level is lowest. I do lots of walking anyway (several miles a day) so its not lack of exercise, though i do lack formal exercise if you know what i mean.... i need to find a way to fit that in somehow.

It really depends on the individual. Some women lose a lot of weight through breast feeding. Other women won't lose the weight until they stop breastfeeding, as their body wants to hold on to the fat reserves to ensure it has enough energy to breast feed.

The only thing you can do is try to avoid empty calories (like in the chocolate) and go for healthy foods, and try and keep active. You may well not have the energy to go to the gym, but making sure you do thirty minutes of SOMETHING a day, like walking, or some low impact workout video (providing you have permission to exercise again) can only help.

I put on 5 kilos in pregnancy, over 4 of which was DS. He was a hungry baby too, and I think breastfeeding him definitely helped with weight loss. I was back in my skinny jeans within 2 weeks of giving birth and a month later they were too big for me!

I put on 3 stone in each of my pregnancies. I'd lost 4 stone a year after my first and 4 stone 15 months after my second. He's 19 months now and still feeding morning and night. Every time I have a period I lose a few more pounds. Am thinking of expressing when he stops just so I can keep on eating what I like! 4.5 months is nothing. 9 months on and 9 months off is a great way of looking at it.

I didn't lose the last but till I stopped last time. At least that's what I'm telling myself is the reason I've not lost the last bit this time