To ask if you think breast milk after 12 months is very beneficial?

[Skatingonthinice16]

Dd is nearly 14 months and I'm starting to feel like I'm going to have to stop giving her breast milk soon for my own sake. I spoke to my dr about it and she said that really all the benefits would have happened by now.

I just feel selfish stopping something which may benefit dd for my own sake. But does it make much difference now? Does it ever make much difference in reality?

YOU have done amazingly. And ultimately it's up to you to make a decision...

But... if the opinion of a random person on the internet helps. Any benefit from breast milk at this age is unlikely to be as much as the benefit of a mum who is more rested and isn't spending the time expressing.

And yes, you're right, you're making more of it than there needs to be, but I've found that that's what bfing does (currently wondering how far I'll go with DS2)

It doesn't make you a bad mother to want some sleep. If you want to stop, stop - your DD will be fine.

Maybe think about cutting down rather than out if you are uncertain

I went back to work at 11 months old and continued to BF til DS was two. However by the time I went back to work he had one quick feed morning and bedtime. During the course of the year I cut that back to one feed in the morning and eventually that wasn't every day. I guess it just gets over that feeling of being tied and also got DS very used to a bottle of cows milk from someone else so that if I did want to be away or just not do it I could.

Guess I'm just saying if you're unsure it doesn't have to be all or nothing.

Oh god just seen you're pumping. I'd stop!!

Breastfeeding is amazing but I think by now the child is able to derive nutritional benefit from other sources and immunity has been passed on over the previous 14 months of bf! It is fine to stop.

In the nicest possible way, you're mad for still getting up in the middle of the night to pump

Even if you're not ready to stop completely, please stop that one, your boobs will be fine and if not then you've given her breastmilk for over a year! That's amazing! Give yourself a break.

Hope you're ok OP

Of course it is beneficial, there isn't some magic switch that knows when your baby turns 1 and so it is less beneficial after that time. You've done brilliantly to carry on for this long, don't make the decision to stop based on the wrong information, make it based on what you feel is right for you and little one.

In the nicest possible way, you're mad for still getting up in the middle of the night to pump

Agreed! I'm exclusively pumping for my, much younger, DS and I would not still be doing it if I had to pump in the night. I pump three times a day at the moment and it's not too bad but it is quite restrictive - it's a massive faff for us to go anywhere overnight as I have to haul around the breast pump and steriliser bags and ice packs and insulated bottle bags and, for that reason alone, I'm planning to cut down pumping once he's 6 months old and stop entirely most likely by 9 months (have lots in the freezer so he'll probably still get some breastmilk for a few weeks after that.)

I am lucky enough to get all he needs from three pumps a day but, even if I didn't, I wouldn't pump more often than that because he benefits from time spent with me, interacting etc, and I found (when I was getting my supply up and pumping more) that I was much less patient with him. Your DD is so much older - I bet she'd love more time with you and a less tired, more energetic you, way more than she needs the breast milk

Its beneficial in that infants are designed to drink milk until at least 2, and human milk is always going to be better than animal milk.

However, its not going to make a massive difference to a toddler's health, so the question is whether the (small) benefits are still worth the drawbacks for you.

Personally I would definitely drop down to about 350ml a day from a cup. Toddlers often massively reduce their milk intake once off the bottle anyway. Don't make life harder for yourself!

Wow! expressing for more than a year, you deserve a flipping medal. Most breastfed toddlers are just suckling as a comfort thing really. If stopping pumping gives you more sleep, more energy and more time to cuddle your toddler and sit down with a story, and your baby will take cows/follow on milk happily from a cup or bottle then I would say its time to make the switch.
Do it gently though to give your poor boobs time to adapt over a few weeks, maybe start by dropping the night pumping, gradually cutting down and topping up the bottle with the alternative milk? If you just stop suddenly you could get blocked ducts or even milk fever/ mastitis.

I stopped at 12 months. I was having to be 100% dairy and soy free and my mental health couldn't take it any more.
No regrets.
I would start by dropping your night time expressing sessions (one at a time - don't get mastitis!)
Then see how you feel about the day time. At 14months, they should have 400-500ml of milk a day so you'll still have plenty.
Get some sleep first. Then decide about day time.
Stopping felt brilliant for me once I'd actually done it!

How about weighing the benefits of continuing to express now (minimal; some immune benefits, nothing which you'd actually be able to measure) vs the time and energy you'd gain in stopping?

In fact if you're running your own immune system down with overwork, it might be that you're more likely to pick up viruses yourself, which you'd bring into the household therefore potentially cancelling out any immune benefits anyway.

www.babble.com/parenting/viral-image-breast-milk-petri-dish/?cmp=smc%7C803422823

This is interesting op, it's breast milk from mum feeding 15month old and mum feeding a 3year old.
Not saying for one minute you should continue to express, just as you asked for benefits over 12 months.
There are benefits to continuing but also benefits to you stopping. Ageee you have to weigh up the pros and cons of both and decide what you think is best.
You've done fantastic expressing for this amount of time.

Does baby sleep through? Can you justify it to yourself (not that you need to but could help?!) that baby wouldn't be feeding at night anyway so you shouldn't be pumping? Just a thought

She'd go through until about 5am I think but I tend to feed her at 2am otherwise I'm up at 2am, 5am and then 6am...

If I feed her at 2am with the milk I've just expressed she then sleeps until 8am. She doesn't go to bed until about 9pm though, seems to be an owl rather than an early bird!

Skating you are only going to make yourself more ill if you continue with this. I'm not familiar with you but another poster made reference to your health anxiety around your daughter? Is she currently unwell? You're clearly ready to give up but unless someone can categorically say it's detrimental to her health then you won't stop because any benefit is still a benefit.

I think you should stop. For your health. It will have no change to her but a massive benefit to you.

Take care of yourself. She needs a well mum more than she needs to negligible benefits breast milk gives a child who is eating a full and varied diet

If you stop the 2am expressing and she has slightly less milk, she's not losing out on anything at all. Nearly all children her age don't have breastmilk or formula at all, and only in the daytime, they'll be having full fat cows milk which is fine.

It's not selfish for you to have a bare minimum of sleep. Waking up to express at 2am is well beyond what is reasonable.

What time do you go to bed op? Could you express then and dreamfeed her so a bit earlier than 2am and then not express again until the morning? Would that work a bit better maybe.

Normally about 11. I express at 10 and that takes half an hour and then I sterilise the pump etc and by then it's usually 11pm. So I get three hours sleep before 2am, im up for an hour then until 3am and then I'm up at 6am to express again and I have to be up at 7am anyway to get ds off to school so the longest unbroken sleep is three hours.

I'm breastfeeding my 7 month old and I had 6 hours unbroken sleep last night between a feed at about midnight and 6.30am. I really don't think you need to be up all night expressing for a 14 month old.

Do you have a partner around in the evenings? Could they sort out sterilizing the expressing equipment so that you can go to bed half an hour earlier at least?

Dh isn't helpful unfortunately.

I'm sorry you don't have a supportive partner. Would he really not wash up and sterilize the expressing kit?

Can you get a spare set so you don't have to wash up and reuse the same set? I was expressing earlier on and had about 4 sets of equipment so I didn't have to wash up and sterilize in the night. This was when I had a very young baby and he was feeding 2 to 3 hourly through the night.

But, really, you don't need to be expressing so much.