i am gaining weight breast feeding!

[jan2011]

initially after the birth i lost some weight, for four weeks i maintained it, and now i have started to gain. i am exercising a every few days and walking, and eating healthy with the odd 'bad snack' i just dont get it ive read for some people your body holds onto fat stores to make milk but its so discouraging when i thought it would help me lose. im really getting down about it has anyone had this experience or any suggestions

how old is your DC?

I had the same thing...dip post labour then a slow increase....I tried to cut out the crazy level of chocolate/cake I was eating but ended up feeling sick and my milk supply crashed. I hit the flapjacks and got the milk back! I think that breast feeding is not so different from being pregnant. There are still a lot of hormonal demands being issued and you go against their wishes at your peril. Its hard to precisely balance you calorie intake such that your body is happy to make milk but just losing weight a little. And if your body has the balance point wrong then there probably isnt much you can do!

My advice would be to ignore it as I am doing. This is a special time that will be gone in a flash so relax and deal with the fall out later. Or get pg again and then noone will comment :)

Are you drinking enough? With dd I did exactly the same, I was always hungry and ate well but put it all back on. When I look back I know I didn't drink enough, no where near.

yeh i guess i do feel hormonal sometimes too and more more hungry - i never really got hungry a lot in pregnancy, my appetite was a lot lower. its much harder now as i like sweet things, but i really havn't been scoffing.

i am drinking a lot of tea and coffee if that counts! went off coffee in pregnancy and now ican't get enough! i should drink more water! i guess i will have to stick this out and try to keep exercising so i don't keep gaining and gaining- scary!

i have / had this too. ime it's nigh impossible to get back to pre-baby weight while breastfeeding. as soon as i stopped the weight fell away. i'm sure it's to make sure you have enough calories to feed you and baby.

my strategy now is to not fight it and just wait until that phase is passed.

In my experience, it takes a while, but does eventually start to shift. I've noticed a big difference to my bum and thighs, but it took a few months. Not much difference to my belly though

I found that when I was breastfeeding I ate morethan I did when I was pregnant! Didn't put on much weight, but certainly didn't lose it all instantly!

i am eating more now but didnt eat enough while pregnant , but still shuold be maintaining if not losing, im so tired too. dd is 6 weeks. i dont want to lose much justa few poundds and really dont wanna keep gaining imscared to get on the scales now, especially when i thought the opposite would happen.
i am drinking a lot more coffee now, lattes etc maybe thats to do with it - i went off it in pregnancy and now am making up for it. still im running around so much after the baby and doing housework in between i thought i would have speeded my metabolism up but obviously not.