Is there an 'extended' breastfeeding support thread?

[Unrulysun]

Or would I be better off on LLL?

Just read the 'school-age children' thread with interest but didn't want to derail :)

dd is 1 today so it's not 'extended' bf by any normal definition but judging by the number of 'Are you going to carry on breastfeeding her?' (yes because otherwise she'll be composed primarily of grapes) conversations I've had inflicted on me in the last week I think I'm going to need all the support I can get

so proud we made it this far - ha ha!

:(

What brought you here?

We were in Kenya recently. Luuuurve the place. Spent some time in some children's refuges. Tough.

My DH!

i'm interested in your experiences of the bf relationship ending (as opposed to "experiences of stopping"!). as i mentioned in a previous post, my eldest stopped one night by just not feeding to sleep, which he had done every night since his birth. when i tried to talk about it with (the next day) him he looked at me witheringly, as though disappointed in me for not recognising his total over-it-ness. that night he went to feed, i reminded him of the conversation, and he rolled over and went to sleep.
i'm interested in this because of the complete lack of emotion i felt. i'm an extremely emotional person, but when this stage of my relationship with my child happened, i felt nothing - no sadness, nostalgia; equally, no relief, triumph. it was as though we had already reached that point in our relationship; as though the new stage was already happening, and the physicality of it just had to catch up.
a far cry from many peoples' experience i imagine.
anyone else??

also, for others treading the often-lonely path of fullterm bf, what resources etc have you found helpful? here's mine:
yoga
partner
likeminded friends
'the mother' mag
festivals
the town nearest me (v openminded - i'm the least of the freaks)

Wow this thread is huge - I can't keep up. How great that there are so many of us on it. I get led to sofas too when ds decides it's milk time, especially when I come in from work.

Someone asked about groups in sw London, there's LLL I think - I can never go as I work on Fridays. There's also a mothers naturally thing on Thursdays that a friend of mine goes to , I go sometimes, there are lots of long term breastfeeders there.

sites.google.com/site/mothersnaturallylondon/

Quick question. Do any of you know of any bf support groups in Middlesbrough? I know a mum to be who is keen to bf with GD and I think she'll need some extra support.

Just read through the whole thread. My DD is 14 months so relatively young compared to some of you. Not sure when I want to stop but I tend to choose the path of least resistance when parenting (co sleep, still feeding several times at night, etc) so I can't see her stopping any time soon!

Great thread, it's made me think of a couple of questions though...

I go back to work in a couple of months, and DS will only have 2 BFs / day at this stage (early morning, and last thing before bed). Will my milk supply be okay? ATM DS has 4 BFs / day, so I'll have to cut down from 4 to 2.

A couple of posters mentioned DC not being able to BF when their milk teeth fall out. I've not heard of this before, can anyone explain it to me?

Thank you !

Thanks for the virtual high fives :)

Just the other day I was bemoaning to DH (yet again) about how no one ever says 'well done' any more and then today at DD2's 3 month check the HV said just that! She was telling me about a BF course she'd just done and saying how rare it was to meet someone that had fed for over 2 years and/or tandem fed. I think she's new, I'd not met her before, but I am really pleased, not to mention lucky that I've got a HV that's clued up and supportive.

I haven't had time to read the whole thread either but I wondered if anyone had linked to Kathy Dettwyler's site yet, I'm sure it will interest everyone on this thread. GeneCity, I've looked on there but not found out any more about teeth. I wonder if it may be down to the size of the teeth.

How old will your DS be? 2 BF per day should be fine if he is, say 8mo or so. By this stage your supply is very much locally controlled and makes the milk in response to demand.

The shape of the jaw changes when children get their permanent teeth, and means that they are no longer able to latch on and suckle effectively.

Oh, I was MUmmyBerryJuice earlier. Have name changed and don't want anyone accusing me of trollery

DD1 self weaned when she got the gaps for her adult molars. A 1cm-ish sized piece of gum at the back of her jaw (top/bottom both sides) just appeared overnight (or it seemed like it!) and she just couldn't work out where her tongue went anymore.

Though looking back DD1 had been hurting me whilst feeding for about 2 weeks prior but I put it down to being pg, though DD2 didn't hurt me when she fed).

Her last (attempted) feed was 2 days shy of her being 3.6y/o and she got her 1st adult molars about a year later and lost her first milk tooth at around the same time.

DD2 is the same age now 3.6y/o but doesn't have those gaps and can latch fine so it happens at different ages for different children. I would imagine most children emotionally/developmentally self wean before they physically self wean though as DD1's dentist thought she was young to get adult molars/lose baby teeth when she thought he DOB was XX/XX/05 rather than XX/XX/06. She was slack jawed to find out she was only 4!

EauRouge, 'Well done' and thanks for the interesting link.

TheRealMBJ, DS will be 11 months when I go back to work. I can't decide how long to take to wean off the 2 during-the-day feeds, any thoughts? My feeling is that (unless he instigates it himself 1st; I can't say that he's fed on demand any more though, as I offer in order to feed 1 hour+ before lunch, then 1 hour+ before tea) I'd like to take it slowly.

Thanks all for the teeth info, I hadn't realised that there self-weaning might be a physical process.

Sorry, I can't help with the weaning thing. DS still kinda feeds on demand. (17months)

Gene - I've been back to work since DS was 6 months and he adapts pretty well to whatever is going on so you might be surprised.

I even work shifts so he has to put up with sometimes no morning feed and sometimes no nap time feed. I stopped doing a bedtime one unless necessary a few months ago to make it easier for DH (SAHD) when I work evenings. He sometimes feeds a bit more on weekends and holidays, but doesn't seem to bother what's going on.

One day I might get home and he's after 'molk' straight away, others he'll be more interested in whatever he's playing with.

DH says he does ask him for milk every day when he puts him down for his nap, but DS doesn't mind when he's told that mummy has the milk! I was a bit :( when DH told me that one - is that odd?

Hope it goes well for you. :)

Can't remember if I said he's 20 months, but he's been really good with me being around at random times from the start.

Gene I've been back at work nearly 2 months (DS is nearly 9 months) and although I'm expressing twice a day at the moment, there have been some days when I've not been able to and it has made no impact on supply at all so you should be fine.

I'd be inclined if i were you to leave the weaning off those 2 feeds till you actually go back - he'll be in a different situation so may not want the milk (DS refused milk from the CM for the first month) anyway, and it saves you having to actually do anything . You'll probably find you can do them when you're there and leave them on the days you work and it will be fine.

When DS was 11 and a bit months DH even gave him a wee cup of cow's milk on my evening shift weeks and I fed him all the rest and my boobs didn't mind. :)

Not that I was desperate to stop expressing after nearly 6 months! I'd managed to stop daytime expressing before that, I'd only kept on a few more weeks because I was covering a bedtime feed.

Boobs and baby seem to do pretty well :)

I went back to work (although only 1 day a week) when DS was 11 m.o. DS wasn't interested in EBM while I was away, even though he was missing 5 feeds. He wasn't even that excited about bf when I came home.

The first month, my pump died and attempts to hand express simply left me engorged, so I can identify with 'boobs of steel'. I was terrified I'd leak but it was fine, even when I got home and DS had just had dinner so decided he didn't want any milk at all.

Thanks everyone, lots of food for thought.

It's silly, but I hadn't thought about the fact that I could do something different on non-work and work days. In that case, I think I'll get him used to drinking milk from a free-flow cup before I go back to work, then he can have that when he's with the CM and when I go shopping, and can BF when he's with me.

I told DM and DSis that I was planning to BF for some time to come yesterday. They were actually both quite supportive and interested, and DSis asked what the benefits were. I told her about some of the benefits for DS and for me off the top of my head, but I'd like to send them a link to come clear and concise info online - does anyone know of anything?

I just found this, it seems quite good. I'm going to email a PDF copy to DM and DSis.

Hmm. Just flicked through the site you linked EuaRouge and although I agree with some of the basic principles, she could do without bits like this:

'Othertimes, though they do eventually fit the mold, it is at the expense of their sense of who they are, their self-confidence, their view of the world as a safe and trusting place, sometimes, even, at the expense of their health or life' (referencing to sleeping).

Its a shame because her research is so thorough and she obviously knows what she's talking about. No need for the scaremongering!

RidinOnAPig - If a young baby, very sadly, dies of cot death when lone sleeping, part of the myriad of reason why it happened might be that it was lone sleeping (a cultural phenomenon/human construct not known in primates in nature). Co-sleeping helps regulate babies heartrate, temperature and breathing. Lone sleeping leaves a baby without their mother's physiological cues.

Therefore it is at the expense of their health or life (lone sleeping).

If it wasn't then why do the NHS, WHO, SIDS charities all recommend baby sleeps in the same room as the mother/parents for the first 6 months if not for the fact that some constructs are NOT the right thing for babies but seen through the lens of human society (Western/developed) as desirable from the view point of the adults.

It's not scaremongering in the sense that she's not proclaiming 'if you do not co-sleep your baby will die' she's explaining that forcing a child into doing something before it is developmentally, emotionally or neurologically ready for might have negative effects on the baby/child. Depending on the age/development/temperament of the child those effects can differ.

I just think she completely loses her objectiveness and for me that devalues her writing.

Much better to focus on the pros of something than to bring up cons, especially debatable ones. A parent could then read and decide to co-sleep for all the positive reasons to do it, rather than be frightened if they don't they'll be effecting their child's 'health or life'.

For me this isn't about co-sleeping. I'd feel exactly the same if I read an article where somebody was promoting babies sleeping on their own by referring to cot deaths which happened whilst co-sleeping.

IMO there's no need for it.