Feeling quite drained, think I want to stop bf

[alfiemama]

My lo is six months, and I am just starting to wean. I have finally got lo to accept a bottle, but she is still obsessed with boob.

I am feeling quite drained and well to be honest run down.
My little girl seems an all or nothing type as gets confused and refuses a bottle if I try and do bf and expressed milk, I have started to introduce formula slowly (hipp night time milk, which she loves), but she is still hankering after me.

What is the best way to stop or slow down on the feeding? My little girl will scream and fuss (arch her back, go rigid, pull on my top and root), and I end up feeling guilty.

I think I have done well. I relacted after a five week break from bf and have managed to feed her to six months, now to be honest I think I'm ready to stop, even though I know I will feel sad about it and guilty but as I said I feel quite drained and need to claim my body back. (sorry if that sound selfish)

Any advice appreciated.

No advice as I haven't reached that stage yet, but am interested to now how you relact? Also, I don't think you sound selfish, I can totally understand the need to claim your body back. My DD is only 6 weeks and at times I've felt how you do.

Thanks Sarah. It is hard at the beginning but I can honestly say it gets better, its just me ifykwim, lo feeds beautifully.
I bf until 4 weeks then tried formula due to reflux (severe) I relactated at 10 weeks. I pumped every 2 hours 20 mins each side, had fellel seeds for brekkie, lunch and tea on top of porridge and then eventually had domperidone, but only for a week, then went cold turkey and exclusively bf.

sorry typing one handed whilst feeding boob monster.

alfie completely get the whole drained feeling, and sympathise. you're at an important milestone though, and one that brings a lot of changes with it. If you are already weaning, her feeding will change a bit anyway - she'll be more interested in food, she'll start drinking from a cup/beaker and bit by bit you'll become less integral to her feeding process anyway. In relation to that, for the last six months you have been her EVERYTHING. Which might explain why you are feeling so tired and drained - sympathies, honestly, i have felt the same. However looking ahead to the next couple of months, it won't be like that - she'll be interested in her food, she'll be beginning to move around a bit more and she won't be the boob monster she's previously been.
What i'm saying is..... how about carrying on as you are - with a bit of formula and some boob and seeing how you go? you are not looking down the same barrel as you were six months ago - you could end up weaning naturally and gradually and it being a lot less painful emotionally/physically as a result....
also - my god you relactated!! genius woman. Why give up that hard work right now when you could just give up gradually after such hard hard graft? give it a week. i bet it's a bit more settled by then than it is now...Can you get some rest? Do you need some sleep? I seem to remember DH and I realising at 6mo with DD2 that actually, we were KNACKERED. A week of 8pm bedtimes made us realise how much sleep we'd lost...

Thanks MummuyElk appreciate your comments.
I am trying to wean, going to try blw as lo not interested in traditional method, also I have a child who food phobic and was trad weaned, but he is autistic, so this could we why.
I am tired, lo is very attached to me and also since bf not agood sleeper, she used to sleep 10-8am on the formula, so been hard as now wakes every 2hours since introducing a bottle she doesn't seem to have much milk during the day but makes up for it at night. She only ever has 3oz from a bottle, so think she is a snacker.
I am getting colds after colds, sore throats and generally felling blurghhhh

Lo was diagnosed as having floppy larynx so we struggle with cups and bottles.

I totally understand. At 8 months DD was still waking every two hours to be fed. I felt like I was going insane with lack of sleep. I tried to move to formula at 6 months, but she wouldn't take it so I ended up BF until she was 12 months.

As MummyElk said, once DD starts on solids you should be able to cut down on the BF.

Good luck.

Thanks Pinktoenails. I love bf just don't like feeling crappy all the time. Maybe I need some iron tablets.

It does get easier from here on in - ds is almost 9 months now and sleeps 8pm-6am and only has 4 breastfeeds a day. Plus, it doesn't really matter if I skip a feed now, if he's out with his dad or something, he doesn't even want a bottle he just waits til he sees me again.

Definitely look into taking some iron tablets/multi-vits. Are you eating properly?

Getting enough sleep makes so much difference. Once ds was 6 months I started doing a formula dreamfeed at 10-11pm and then not feeding again til 6am. If ds woke in between I knew it wasn't hunger as he'd had a good bottle feed, so DP went to him and rocked him back to sleep - it didn't take long to go from 2 hourly feeds to getting 7 hours solid sleep.

I second the suggestion that it might all ease off soon after weaning starts. I've been weaning my twins for just under two weeks, and I've found that one of them has really slowed down with the bf. The other twin hasn't, but that's life!

No idea how you go about switching to formula, but it might be more effort then waiting a week or two to see if the weaning affects bf.

The liquid iron tonics are Floradix and Spatone. If you are feeling very rundown it might be worth just having a chat with your GP. It may well be lack of sleep but there are other things like an underactive thyroid which can affect women in the year after giving birth and make them feel extra exhausted. A blood test to check your iron levels and thyroid function might be worthwhile.

You don't sound selfish at all you sound tired. I'm afraid I don't have much advice on slowing down bf-ing as I'm currently attempting the same feat with my 1yr old. But I just wanted to say 6m was hellish for us. DD had a huge growth spurt and her first cold and a big developmental leap all at once and because we co-slept she simply fed all night long. At the time I described her as a baby piranha! It did calm down in a couple of weeks.

If any of these things are happening for you right now then you may find things easier in a couple of weeks too.

Are you taking a multivitamin? All bfing Mums should take vit D at least.

I also think you need to get your iron level checked as well as thyroid, etc.
My almost 1 yr old ds2 is a poor sleeper, frequent bfer, etc adn I haven't had more than 2 hrs kip in a row for a year now, but I don;t feel drained. However, I felt like crap when I was anaemic when ds1 was a baby even though he slept all night long! (DOn't get me wrong - I am tired, but not drained iyswim?)

If you have had enough of bfing though, don't feel bad about it! You have done fantastically well. You should be very proud. But don't expect stopping to be the 'cure' for your exhaustion.

Thanks everyone. On holiday at the moment and on phne hence spelling and gramma. I take pregna care bt will have a look at that hron drink thanks. I give lo a bottle of goodnight milk at 8 and she will sleep till about 11pm then bf then up at 3am bf then again at 5 whch i will bf and cosleep but she feeds constantly from then on. She seems to cluster feed.

Grammar lol. This was last nights anyway initially from 11pm she sleeps quite well itwhen she wakes up at 3

Feeding constantly from 5 is what my DD did too. If you read up on sleep cycles it makes sense. Early in the night your DD's sleep cycles are longest and she sleeps for longish stretches without rousing and needing you. In the couple of hours before dawn her sleep cycles are short (no more than 20 mins) and at the moment each time she rouses she needs you to help her go back to sleep. The only way I survived it was by popping DD on the boob and letting her feed and sleep whilst I tried to doze beside her.

Once she learns to sleep independently this early morning waking will calm down of its own accord. This is important because it means you don't need to 'train' her out of the morning wakings, which is a terrible time to change anything because you presumably desperately want another hours sleep. Once DD learnt to fall asleep by herself in her cot at night her night time wakings dramatically reduced. She now generally sleeps through till about 6:30.

Have you read the No Cry Sleep Solution? It has loads of suggestions on helping your child learn to sleep independently. None of them are magic bullets, but I found overall the approach worked well for me (although we did some controlled comforting in the evening when DD stopped feeding to sleep and I was finding it impossible to get her into bed at all).

In the meantime at least while you are on holiday can someone else take her at 7 so you can get a bit more kip between 7 and 8. I found that helped loads.

My ds did the waking at 5am thing - I'd bring him into bed and we'd doze/feed til 7am. Nowadays (9 months) he usually wakes nearer to 6 but often is ready to get up then. I still try to persuade him to snuggle up in bed for another hour but it doesn't always work unfortunately.

I did things the other way round to you, and breastfed at bedtime and then did a bottle of formula at 10-11pm - that way I could go to bed early. Around 6 months when ds was eating better in the day we worked on dropping the 3am feed by having DP going to him with water/cuddles/dummy and I wouldn't feed again til 5am. It worked quite quickly and at 8 months we managed to drop the 11pm feed too. Now he tends to go 8pm-6am.

Wow some fantastic advice. I will try swopping the bottle for a later feed. Its good to know its a normal stage. Veronica I will try and get hold of that book.lo likes white noise we have a soumd machine but doesnt seem to work aswell now. I have to let her cry for a little but not at night as important little boy gets sleep with him having asd