Thank you MN & can I admit something about bf ?

[Levismum]

I never planned to bf dd. She's dc6. I never bf any of them more then a few weeks. Dc5, i expressed for 6 weeks. That was it.

I watched my sisters crying in pain bf their newborns. Feeding every 2 hours for months on end. Their baby's didn't sleep at night. Mine did from 6 weeks.

I was back to normal in a couple weeks bf wasn't gonna help me get my figure back.

I was out & about within a few days of all my baby's being born...

Then I found MN. I started reading the threads on here about bf.
I bought the bottles & steriliser when I was pregnant. As well as formula & a box of ready made milk bottles.

Dd was born & I tried bf after she was born. One day, two days & 3 days... 8 months later I'm still bf. I never had any real problems. She wakes once in the night now. She's eating solids & drinks water out of a beaker. She rarely feeds in the day now, all her own doing.

So Thankyou MN. If your worried about bf, take it a day at a time. I don't think bf is better then ff, it's different. I'm glad I have managed to bf my last baby but ultimately keep an open mind. Be kind to yourself!

What a lovely, inspiring post. You're right about taking it one day at a time and just having an open mind to options. And not feeling guilty. NEVER feeling guilty. I bf'ed my first to 18 months. I now have 11 week old twins who I breastfeed plus a formula feed at 10pm so we are guaranteed of a few hours sleep . I don't know how long I'll bf for; we'll just see how it goes. I do wish it was more seen as the norm though. You still hear some rotten comments about people not being 'discreet' enough. Boils my blood. Luckily it hasn't happened to me so far. But I'm yet to unleash tandem boobs in public!!

Wow twins! Your a great women. Everyone asks me when will I stop, I don't know, is my answer. Dd bit me once. Only once & she has 6 teeth so i really don't know!

It's been a good experience. I literally just take it a day at a time.

The information I got from MN was invaluable. It showed me what was normal in relation to bf. My sisters bf many years ago & only for a few weeks. So ff is more the norm in my family. None of my friends have young baby's as I'm an older then average mum now!

. Breastfeeding, when it's going well, is a lovely experience and it is nice you will have good memories of it.

Why thank you

Great post. I find the Internet and in particular, Mumsnet, invaluable. I actually said that to dh over the weekend, I'm not sure that I would be EBF were it not for MN.

I wish I'd known about MN when I was bfeeding DD1. We had a hard time getting established and there were many, many tears (mostly mine). My parents were lovely but my mum admitted that, since she had never bfed, she didn't know how to help. My sisters (who had both successfully bfed) live abroad - I remember one of them telling me that she wished so much that she could have just jumped in the car and come round to help me but it wasn't possible.

What did save our bfeeding relationship was two wonderful ladies from the NCT - the lady who listened to me crying down the phone late on a Sunday night, and who also set up the appointment for the other lady to come to my house the following day and sort us out (really - she saw the problem straight away and that was the turning point, 6 weeks in). Some years later, I 'found' someone on here who recognised who I'd spoken to on the phone that night, and it was a great feeling to be able to pass on my thanks and gratitude for what a lifeline she'd been to me, and to let her know that I'd bfed that first baby to 11 months, and my two subsequent babies for even longer. So, big thanks to the volunteers that man those phone lines/come out to struggling womens' houses to help them.

:) Poledra :)

Yeah I was scared of BFIng. Turned out ok in my case but as you say it's different strokes for different folks.
A fed and loved baby is the most important thing!

I think it's lovely that we don't have to be in one camp or another ie 'a breast feeder' or 'a bottle feeder' - sometimes one works, sometimes the other and sometimes a combination in between. And that we can support each other to do whatever is the right thing for our babies. That's a very heartening post levismum!

I was worried my post would come across smug.

I never understood why my sister tried do hard, I still don't! I would have given up.

Even now nearly 9 months later I find MN helpful. Like a few weeks ago when my breasts suddenly seemed to shrink as dd dropped all her day feeds. It literally feels like they are empty but i remembered reading a post on here & didn't worry too much. They obviously aren't 'empty'.

Due to work & other children i don't go to any groups so I've no support with bf. MN is my only source of support. I especially like Til To as she always seems to know a solution to any problems.

Excuse my typos! That was Tiktok not Til To! Lol.

Til To? Do you mean me??? :)

X post, I see you did

Sorry bout that! On my phone with a big lump of a baby feeding!