Is it true that breastfeeding makes you fat?

[vanillacremebrulee]

The NCT postnatal course leader says that breastfeeding mums have trouble slimming down because nature tells your body to hold on to all the extra layers of fat - just in case, you know...
It sounds a bit bollocks to me! If anything shouldn't breastfeeding help to slim down because you're burning more calories? I've put on an enormous amount of weight with the pregnancy and it's a bit depressing to know that I've got no chance of losing any for the mean time!

Some bf mothers have difficulties in losing weight ( prob for the reason the postnatal leader said); some don't. The evidence is that if you bf for at least six mths you are more likely than mothers who do not to get back to pre-preg weight. But experience is variable

It is really highly unlikely the NCT postnatal leader would make a sweeping generalisation - check when you see her again in case you misunderstood :)

And whatever.....she did not say bf 'makes you fat', did she? :)

I think (and I would love to do a study) that naturally slightly fatter better padded people like me lose weight like stink when BFing. Skinny people, their body tries to hang onto the spare weight (hence the earlier poster getting back to 8 stone). So, if you are naturally more earth mother looking, your body thinks, "what the hell, she has spare". If you are thinner, your body wants to make sure that you have the fat reserves to do your actual evolutionary job, feeding the baby.

I'm not sure it is bf itself which means I seem to find it hard to lose the baby weight each time. I suspect it has more to do with spending up to 10 hrs a day (thank you cluster feeds) sat on my arse mainlining Green and Blacks and juice in a desperate attempt to stay awake.
With DD1, the weight came off when I stopped bf but that coincided with my return to work, which meant more activity (walking on the commute) and less sitting around at NCT events (natch) eating cake.
It ain't rocket science, sadly.

I lost all baby weight by 9 months with ds1 & ds2 - around 4 stone each time. My normal weight is around 8 1/2 stone. This time, 5 months PP I have just over 1 stone to go. It's fairly slow progress but it took 9 months to put on.

I bf ds1 for a year and ds2 for 22 months.

I've been breastfeeding for 6 months & & have never been skinnier, even though I'm eating like a horse!

mrsterrypratchett, I'm not sure I would fit into your survey.

I am normally 8 - 8 1/2 stone, I was back to my normal weight pretty much straight after both births. I certainly had sweet cravings (like stopgap) but the bf seemed to mean that it didn't matter that I ate much more than usual.

Surely it depends a bit on how much you put on initially too?

I put on 9KG with DS1 and it was all gone by the time I left hospital (but I was a different shape).

With DS2 I put on a little more, maybe 12kg but he bf like a fiend and again it was gone quickly.

Well, it didn't make me fat. I didn't really put on any baby weight, I was all bump, so once the stomach muscles toned up I was back to pre pregnancy size and weight. I was ravenously hungry while breastfeeding but my appetite seemed to decrease as we began solids and the baby began dropping feeds.

I basically just listened to my body and ate what I wanted. I stayed
the pre pregnancy weight from six weeks postnatal, through a year of
breastfeeding, until I got pregnant again several years later.

Was possibly one of the lucky ones though.

Haven't read the full thread, but your NCT course leader is talking crap. I was size 8 pre-pregnacy, size 6 when I was at uni. (This is trousers size. I never got very big, so wore a pre-pregnancy dress the day after I gave birth. It's a wrap dress so can fit a small bump). I was back to size 8 in about 5 weeks, and down to size 6 around 3 months. Luckily I have a couple of pair of jeans and work trousers from a long time ago! Now 1 year on, I am still bf, and I am still size 6. I have resisted buying new trousers because I know I'll get bigger if I stop bf and I'm too skint to waste money!

tiktok you're right what she said is not that breastfeeding makes you fat rather that it makes you stay fat! She definitely said that after losing some weight immediately post birth most mums find that they hold onto the extra pounds while breastfeeding and they only fall off quickly once you stop.
The reason for my post was to understand if this is true because of a biological need to hold on to the fat or if it's just that breastfeeding makes people hungry and crave sugary foods which then accounts for not shifting the extra pounds.
I'm more inclined to go with the latter!

Bfing made me lose so much weight. 2 weeks after giving birth I was back to my pre pregnancy weight and 6 weeks after giving birth, I was nearly a stone lighter than my pre pregnancy weight. All my clothes are too big for me!

I meant to add, I put on 2 stone while pregnant. And I now do no exercise and eat pretty unhealthy. I hope I don't put the weight back on when I stop bf'ing! Although it would be nice for some of y old clothes to fit me again.

Makes me skinny (up to a stone below my usual base weight), but I never put on more than two stone when pregnant.

Got very muscly arms from carrying huge fat breastfed babies around though!

Um, tiktok is probably right. The average mum has problem keeping the weight off. But then couldn't you say the same about the average british women? I think we have more that wants to be skinnier than heavier in this country, isn't it?

I have to add I'm fairly active and was cycling to work right up till I took maternity leave. I also did at least one postnatal exercise class a week, from the week when the hospital leaflet says you can start exercising. (Can't remember if it's 6 or 8). I started with yoga and worked up to weights and floor aerobics.

I was lovely and trim while breastfeeding. I got very lardy when I stopped as my lovely child wasn't drinking the equivalent of a couple of chocolate cakes off my hips every day

I can't help wondering if there's a correlation between my rapid weight loss and my baby's consistent weight gain. He is always ravenous and in 75th percentile. I am back to pre-preg weight despite being sponsored by Mr Kipling

My experience with both children is that the majority of extra weight put on whilst pregnant dropped of quickly during the first few months of breast feeding irrespective of diet, however as time went on the last few pounds didn't shift until I had stopped feeding altogether at around 12 months. I'm sure I have read something about reducing calorie intake too much whilst breast feeding means that your metabolism will slow down to make sure reserves are in place for breast feeding - but I can't remember where I read this!

I lost my baby weight fairly rapidly while BFing and was lovely and slim by about six months. Fastforward to 20 months and I am still BFing but obviously not so much, and am several pounds heavier than I was a year ago! I am clinging to the vain hope that when I do stop some weight will magically fall off. However I know rationally it is likely to be the case that I will carry on eating the same amount and so weight will pile on.

I know they say BFing uses about 500 calories a day but it surely must vary within that. I read that a 10kg baby needs 1,000 cals a day and I was exclusively BFing him at that weight, so surely he must have taken 1000 cals from me? Now I would estimate that he probably has about 250 cals a day from breastmilk (so I still have licence to eat 250 cals more than normal...)

Well, I'm in the half that lost weight bf-ing and I ate like a pig for 13 months.

I call it natures liposuction.

I'm bottle-feeding and low-carb dieting - not a suitable diet for breastfeeding but the bees knees for getting rid of pregnancy weight! I know you can safely diet whilst breastfeeding, but not having to worry about nutrifying anyone but myself makes it a lot easier. And that my 3mo sleeps through the night already due to a nice full bottle-fed tummy means I'm not sleep-deprived either, win

Thanks for the clarification, vanilla.

So, no, she didn't say (cf your subject line) that 'breastfeeding makes you fat'.

And she did not say 'breastfeeding mums have trouble slimming down' (as in 'all') but 'most breastfeeding mothers hang onto the extra pounds while bf' (this is certainly true for some, but not others - and the individual experience is varied as we see on this thread). We have an 'obesogenic' society where it is easy to stay overweight because we are in the midst of plenty all the time. This is pretty much the same for formula feeding women, BTW.

So your header and post has misled twice, and provoked other posters into saying what she said was stupid, crap, and clearly, a daft generalisation because it's clear (and I would bet the NCT postnatal person knows this) that there is no way of predicting what will happen to individual women. The research indicates that it's prolonged bf (prolonged = prolonged in the UK where average bf time is short) that promotes weight loss that shows up in comparative studies.

MuslinSuit I'm not on any diet but bf is like liposuction for me. I struggle to maintain the weight unless I eat lots snacks. My EBF DD slept through the night before 3mo. She started to stop sleeping through the night after we started solids at 6mo. (Because of colds, teething, learning to crawl, stand etc. Also, she started to poo during the night, which upsets her). From my not scientific study of a mum of 1, I don't believe it's a full stomach that keeps them from sleeping through.