How long does it take to 'dry up' after stopping breastfeeding?

[Sarita75]

Hi Everyone

I stopped breastfeeding my toddler in March but have not yet 'dried up', 5 months on. This seems a very long time!

The only thing I can put it down to is that I breastfed baby number 1 for 15 months and by the time I stopped feeding him, I was already pregnant with number 2. I then fed number 2 for 15 months as well.
Therefore, my boobs have been producing milk non-stop for around 3 1/2 years (including both pregnancies).

I was under the impression it would take a few weeks to dry up, not months. Has anyone experienced anything like this before?

Is it normal to take so long to dry up?

Any advice would be great!
Thank you! x

Yep - still get a bit now having given up in February with DD - even after 18 months could still squeeze a bit out after DS

over 2 years since I stopped feeding ds, and I can still express some milk

I fed DS2 for 22 months and I went on producing milk for nearly a year after that. I found that warm baths particularly would make me fill up!

Thanks for all the comments so far, it sounds like it's totally normal to have some in there still! When did you eventually dry up? X

My youngest DC is 5yo and was BF for 2 months from birth. My milk only dried up completely about a month ago. About 4 months ago I could've squeezed out about 5 ozs easily, but then it started to dry up very quickly.
Never went to the GP though, as I knew it would dry up on its' own eventually.

I breastfed my DD for 10 months. Dropped to just one feed a day and finished altogether a couple of weeks ago. I'm still able to express quite a bit of milk more than two weeks later. Hoping it won't take too long to dry up, but have been reading a few different threads and it seems it can go on for years

Well you learn something new everyday

News to me too.

Notwithstanding you can express milk years later, I assume your breasts don't get engorged?

ooooooooh didn't know this! I stopped feeding DS at just over 6 months - gradually over the course of about two weeks, he was only on 2 feeds a day then anyway so was literally 5 mins less a day (and 1oz extra) iyswim.... boobs now (nearly 2 months on) are completely back to normal, shrunk bag and dried up