Advice Needed :)

[rooks14]

Hi Ladies,
I've posted on the pregnancy thread without much response so I thought I'd come here!

Both mine and OH's mums couldn't breast feed us because of various reasons, that combined with the fact I have the most sensitive nipples ever and I'm a massive J cup, and am going to have to go back to uni when he's 8 weeks, so for the need for sleep and the fact he'll be more clingy, I thought that I'd never be able to do it from the start so never really considered it.

BUT, i'm now 33 weeks pregnant and my boobs have been leaking since about 31 weeks. It creeped me out so much at first that I was sat there squeezing them! At first it was just colostrum, but now at 33 weeks it's actually milky white. The problem is now that they constantly feel like they're going to explode, I get some relief if i squeeze them and quite a bit comes out. It's not really a problem with them leaking as such as I could use breastpads, but it's more the sensation of needing relief that I don't think I'll be able to cope with for 7 more weeks until I'll actually be able to feed him. (The fact that i'm actally producing milk has encouraged me to at least try).

Does anyone know why they feel like this, and whether it gets any better :S

Congratulations on your pg. :)

I'm afraid I have no idea about your main question (sorry) but I've never heard of any evidence that bf babies are more 'clingy' than ff babies. And research suggests that mothers who bf get 40 mins more sleep per night on average than mothers who ff. So don't write off breastfeeding on those grounds.

Hopefully someone will be along with an answer for your question soon.

Babies come into the world expecting to be loved, expecting to be close to the people who love them, and expecting to be breastfed - I don't mean they think it out like that, but I do mean their instinctive behaviour is geared to that. To respond to that by loving them, being close to them, and by breastfeeding is not make them 'clingy' but simply to accept that these are normal needs and that babies benefit from having their needs met.

There is no research whatsoever that bf makes babies too close to their mothers (if that's what you mean by clingy).

You need to speak to a midwife about what you can do about the milk production - she will probably say stop squeezing, as this is encouraging production....maybe a few days without squeezing will help things settle down :)

But see what she says, anyway.