I think BF has come to an end, and I'm feeling totally gutted! DD, 16 months is teething (big molar!), and suddenly refused to feed on Monday and hasn't fed since. I've been offering her the breast as usual for her bedtime bf each evening since, but she cries, struggles to get away, and has bitten me a couple of times! I know it sounds like a nursing strike as it's unusual for a baby to self wean at this age, from what I've read on here and Kellymom. I've tried offering her the breast at different times, places, positions, tried skin to skin, but she's just not interested in the slightest - would much rather suck her thumb!
I'm worried in case I have inadvertently encouraged this self weaning if that's what it is. DH and I have been TTC for 7 months now with no joy, so we had decided I would cut down on BF, with a view to stopping soon, to see if that might help. So about 3 weeks ago I cut out DD's morning feed (she had been on 2 feeds a day for a few months), and she seemed to cope well with just having the evening feed. But I'm having doubts now...maybe my supply started to dwindle after that - one BF a day not being enough to sustain BF?
I've been expressing since day 3 of this nursing strike/self weaning but I'm really not getting much at all, and I haven't felt at all engorged. Last night I struggled to pump about 20ml, this morning I barely got anything (5ml at most). So even if it were a strike I don't think I would have any milk left by the time DD decides/if she decides to end it!
Also, I've been taking high dose vit B6, for the past couple of weeks, and using natural progesterone cream for the past week (to help with TTC), and I'm paranoid now that this may also have had an adverse effect on breastfeeding. Anyone got any experience of this?
I know I said we were thinking of stopping BF in order to conceive, but deep down I hoped that we would conceive whilst bf, and DD could go on to BF for as long as she wanted, without any encouragement to stop from me. Maybe she has decided now is the right time for her to stop, which is great if that's the case. It just doesn't help with my feelings of rejection, dejection, just generally feeling emotional about it all, really! and it doesn't help that there's nobody I can talk to about it (DH wanted me to wean months ago, so isn't saying much - probably sees it as a blessing in disguise).
Jeez, I just feel like a selfish, emotional, mad woman - I even broke down in tears at the docs on Wed when I went to discuss problem conceiving, now to have this strike/self weaning on top of that!...
Sorry this has turned into a bit of a ramble. I'm not even sure what I'm asking! Thanks for reading anyway.