Cold Turkey on BF - when do hard boobs stop

[Flutterbye]

I've decided to stop feeding 5 week old as she's been a snack feeder (every 2.5 hrs) I need some energy back to play with ds1. Now that I've made the decision I've decided to go cold turkey on the feeding, how long until my hard boobs go soft again and return to normal? Any advice?

Babies do normally stop feeding every 2.5 hours, over time. (And maybe she'll still be a snack feeder on formula?)

At any rate, stopping breastfeeeding suddenly like that isn't really advised, you might get blocked ducts or mastitis. The best practice (from what I know) is to drop one feed per week, so you don't suffer so much ... sorry ...

To start with, every 2.5 hours in a 5 week old is not snack feeding, it's perfectly normal and actually is a pretty big gap between feeds. Over time they would naturally space out.

Given that you've decided to give up, though, stopping cold turkey is really not good for you. You risk developing a blocked duct or ducts, which can develop into mastitis and/or an abcess. It'll be much better for you if you drop one feed at a time and give your supply a few days to a week to adjust before dropping the next one.

Yes, agree 2.5 hours is normal, in fact rather infrequent IMO for a 5 week old. Obviously the decision to stop is up to you, but I feel sad to think you are blaming your dd for it, because she is not feeding in the way you think she ought to be.

Sorry your breasts are painful; you've had some good advice here on how to avoid this.

Flutterbye, I wouldn't advise just stopping, you don't want to get mastitis, that will certainly leave you unable to play with ds1. If you really want to stop, why not cut down slowly as the others have said?

My dd would still feed every 2.5 hours if I let her and she's two years old

If she wants to feed avery 2.5 hours, she may well want to do this with a bottle, as NQC says.

And then you'll have to wash and make and heat bottles as well, which won't leave you more time or energy to play with DS1.

And you risk mastitis going cold turkey.

I'd reconsider if I was you.

o.k. message received loud and clear. It was my origianal intention to cut down slowly but somewhere along the line got p'd off with BF and decided to stop completely. Will now try and back-track and reduce the feeds every few days/weekly.

Thanks all for your speedy response, wouldn't get an answer that quick from a HV!

breast feeding can be really restricting in the early days - but if you are at 5 weeks now it should be easing off over the next few weeks and settling into a pattern - and maybe you can cut down to a combi-feeding (mixed breast and formula) that suits you.

Agree if you go cold turkey you are risking mastitis.