If you breastfed for the first 6 weeks or more, when ldid you stop, and why?

[Nessalina]

My first child is nearly 7 weeks, and I'm finding feeding a challenge. We used a nipple shield due to tongue tie initially, and after the TT was cut we carried on because it seemed to work ok. The last week we've weaned off the nipple shield, but I'm finding feeding quite painful...
His latch seems ok, but quite often he slips off a bit halfway through a feed so I get pinched, and despite slathering on lansinoh, my nips are still quite sore. In the evenings he likes to graze little and often and after a couple of hours it feels like he's sucked me dry and he's still not happy, so we've just (the last three days) started topping up with formula for a late evening feed. He often has a long sleep overnight thank god, usually 1-6ish, and I'm worried that that may have affected my evening supply, but I'm hardly going to wake him to eat in the middle of the night.
I'm a bit worried that starting to mixed feed is the beginning of the end, but I don't know if that's a good or bad thing... I've always wanted to be able to breastfeed and just whack my LO on the boob when I needed, but I thought that it would be easy by now I have to say.
So, does it get easier? If it hasn't yet, then will it? It is this the point that I give up?

What did you do??

(Sorry for the ramble, I'm sooo sleepy!)

DC1 was a nightmare, not gaining weight well, terrible latching, hours to feed, really painful for me. I started mix feeding at 4 weeks but didn't give up BF totally till 9 months, just morning and evening BF, better than nothing.

DC2 latched well and gained weight well, but it was excruciating for me for 6 weeks or so, I used nipple shells when not feeding to stop rubbing and allow air to circulate. After that it got easier and easier and she never bottle fed at all, we BF till she was 2yrs 9 months. Before I had my DCs I thought 6 months was an extremely long time to BF, I had absolutely no intention of carrying on past that, just the way it worked out.

OP - having exclusively bf my DC1 for 6 months & then carried on until 14 months, am now similarly feeding Dc2 at 12 weeks.

There are challenges & there are solutions you could try. And you can switch to mixed if you think that's best. But I do hope this helps:

1. As PP said - the golden rule is to 'enforce' the right latch. If its painful, slip in your finger & re-latch - as many times as it takes in a given feed. Babies learn...in a couple of days your DC will know what's the latch you prefer.

1. I've only recently started this, but its working great. Feed from both sides for every feed...it will take 30-45 minutes in all. But, it will give you a 3 hour window to help rebuild your milk & recover your nipples. Unless there is a great tantrum you need not feed in the interim, and if you do - keep it small...give the next proper feed exactly 3 hours after you started the first proper feed. This really helps you & the baby.

Am very sure if you do both the above - you will see a change...and regardless of whether you start formula..you will enjoy your bf sessions for a long time. Good luck!

Nessalina! Have you wandered over to the Nov postnatal thread yet? Lots of BF woes there!

I'm almost 7 weeks too and still finding it all a massive pain in the bum, tbh. I have to block feed because of massive oversupply issues, and every time I switch sides I have to first express about 100mls or DS will only get foremilk for about two feeds and gets Lactose Overload. I also have to be dairy-free and we mixfeed with special hypoallergenic formula as he has a dairy intolerance. It tastes foul so we have to add vanilla to it every time. He also feeds every hour and a half.

So its all a bit messy and hard work. I'm aiming to get to 3 months and then re-evaluate. Try to set a goal not too far away i.e. 10 weeks, thats my advice. I am glad I introduced bottles early though as he happily switches between the two. Not sure I'd be still BFing if I couldn't give him to someone else on occasion, tbh. I'd go mad.

Hey Ness. I think it does get easier - it's maybe just because you're used to the nipple shield. Your nipples will get used to it eventually - I do remember a point of dreading every feed as it was so sore.

I found mixed feeding did affect my supply but there's no harm carrying on with the mixed feeding if it's working for you both. Or also expressing if you find that more comfortable than feeding.

Don't beat yourself up either way though. It's much harder than anyone ever tells you.

Hi Nessalina. I wish more people would be open about how tough breast feeding can be!
I fed both my Dd's. DD1 similar story to you- nipple shield, mixed feed... Unfortunately this did hinder our experience as she became dependant on the shield and preferred the bottle and i stuck it out for 5.5 months (my aim
Was 6) as soon as i started weaning that was it! Bye bye boob milk!
I felt quite disappointed that we had never enjoyed the experience much at all like i had envisaged (those tender moments...the 'relaxed open palms) instead i got screaming, frustrated, sore nips, engorged cement boobs, milk spirting like a hose, back arching baby etc) finding help and support just seemed a little overwhelming and at the bottom of the 'to do' list.

When DD2 came along in June i felt adamant that this time it would be different. Easier.
I can say it wasn't to start with. Although she latched on with the ferocity of a piranha, it also felt as painful...but me being me i was determined not to resort to shields, pumps, bottles or formula.
I was engorged (sp?) for quite some time which made it even more uncomfortable, and i would say took around 16 weeks for that to settle. She is now almost 7 months and we're still going. Some times i think ugh! This is such a pain (literally and figuratively) especially now she has 2 teeth and things nibbling is a fun game...and those times when you're out and about and something catches her attention mid 'flow'...queue milk soaked blouse and an eye full for whomever happens to be unfortunate enough to be in eye shot. but other times i think wow, I'm proud of myself, and this is so much easier (not to mention more portable) than all that sterilising and bottle warming etc, and wow...look at those chubby legs! I did that! So while i want to say 'stick it out! There's a magical point where it all becomes rainbows and unicorns!' I also want to say, it does have some draw backs, it is quite painful at stages, even when you are 'doing it right' but it will get somewhat easier and just know that whatever you decide, you are doing an amazing job . Also if you can, try talking to a lactation consultant who can reassure you x

I fed all of mine for 16 weeks.

But at 5 weeks they all had a bottle (of formula) at around 9.30/10, kept up my sanity.

I think its a bit like numbers of children, I have 3 and I can't imagine having any more, but 2 didn't feel like enough! Everyone seems to have their breast-feeding limit! Try for another few days, and see how it goes, and then decide.

Bfing was incredibly hard for me for 9 weeks then miraculously got a lot easier - partly I think from age, partly because I finally gave in to cosleeping and discovered feeding lying down and biological nursing (bliss vs the tired nights hunched on the sofa trying to wedge a boob into ds's mouth!) and we both just got better at it

Meant to feed to at least 6 months, ended up being the hippy from my nct group still feeding at 20 months . The early weeks are now a foggy haze of sleep deprivation and bleeding nipples, it felt forever at the time but very short in hindsight.

All that said though, it's important that you and your baby are both fed and happy and less important about how. Mixed feeding is often seen as 'the end' here but is very much the norm in other places like japan - I think it's because for some women here mixed feeding is actually a preference to move to formula, rather than an actual long term choice, when in fact plenty of women can make it work well for 6 months plus if that's what they really want. Or full time formula is fine too!

Morning all and thanks for the advice!
I've asked for the thread to be moved to the feeding place - I couldn't find it when I looked last night!
Well we had a pretty good 1-2am feed (pretty painless) then woke at 7:30 and had a feed from quite engorged boob, which went fine, but half an hour later he vomited hugely! All over me! I think it was because I skipped the late night feed last night for formula, he must have had a bumper helping
It's reassuring to hear that it can still get better. I was worried that if it hadn't yet, that it wouldn't ever... I'll persevere for now, set myself an 8week goal, and see where I am. Maybe if we can get the latch better then the evening feeds won't be so bad, and we can avoid the formula for now. It's good to know it's there when we need it!

9 months I was stopped by; dramatically reduced after 3 months...I mixed fed from both as my milk never came in and I found bottle feeding easier.

just morning and evening BF, better than nothing.

Why does it have to be 'better than nothing'? It makes those of us that couldn't do it at all feel awful and that we are inferior, don't you see that?

Hi all! At the OP's request we're going to move this to Infant Feeding in a moment.

It is 'better than nothing' if bf is something you really want to do but can't manage it full time. If you didn't believe it was, you wouldn't bother breast feeding. I don't think the pp was trying to be antagonistic and obviously isn't anti-formula from the fact she mix fed. I think you're looking too hard for insults Porto.

Porto, if someone says two breastfeeds are 'better than nothing' it does not have to mean a criticism or judgement on others who did not bf. It is an expression that means if someone wanted to breastfeed and did not fully breastfeed, then the compromise of two breastfeeds maybe something worth settling for, because it is indeed closer to their wishes than no breastfeeding at all. To criticise someone for saying this, because it might be seen as critical of ppl who did not breastfeed at all is unduly sensitive, sorry. It's fine to be sensitive about feeding - but it's unfair if people cannot express themselves in that simple way. You may have good reason to be sensitive, but others should not be part of your resentment in this way.

OP, it sounds like you could do with help from someone who has time to listen and who understands about feeding. You have had sooooooo many problems. What you are doing now will impact on your milk supply, and make it less likely you will maintain any bf. Six weeks is very early for these long gaps to be withstood. It may work fine, but it is a bit of a gamble. It's worth calling a helpline and talking it through, and exploring how to make bf comfortable. Hope you find good help.

I stopped at 8 weeks as I was so ill with repeated mastitis, it hurt, none of the advice I got helped (saw Bf counsellors, spoke to La Leche, came on to MN Etc) ...I just hated it.

People kept saying 'it will get easier' but after two months, I just felt so ill, run down and depressed that I couldn't hold out any longer. I expressed and mixed fed for a few weeks longer, then stopped altogether. It was the right decision for me and I felt so much better after stopping, bar the first few days of feeling tearful/guilty.

I'm not sure I understand the argument that mix feeding is the "beginning of end".

In my experience it enabled us to carry on before we reached such a crisis point that a total switch to FF was inevitable. It did take us ages to drop the FF top-ups but we got there eventually.

Maybe we were lucky - DS has always been happy with breast or bottle, I think he was just spectacularly ineffective at extracting milk from the breast until he got bigger.

I don't think top ups are always the "beginning of the end" but they can actually make things more difficult in the long-run. It helps to read around a bit and understand the supply and demand nature of breast-milk production.

It's also important not to add extra top ups during a growth spurt because you really risk causing supply problems. Do you have someone helping you with your latch? Don't be sitting their in agony - try and get some help.

It was me that made the "better than nothing" comment, no offence was intended, but it was made in the context of a thread asking for the experiences of those who had BF, therefore those were the people in my mind when posting. I desperately wanted to BF and found it very hard to come to terms with it being so hard, my morning and evening BFs for DC1 were a very small part of his dietary needs, but it was something so important to me, once we dropped down to that level it soon became painless so we just carried on with it, better than nothing is how it felt. That is in terms of my personsl feelings though, I know formula when prepared correctly is a perfectly adequate means of feeding a baby. I was FF myself 40+ years ago, my DC1 is nearly 11 and in excellent health, it's been fine for him too.

It turned out that DC1 had dyspraxia which affects his mouth and tongue coordination and almost certainly was why he couldn't BF efficiently, but we couldn't possibly have known that at the time.

Well I think I've managed to improve things with DS - I'm being really strict with his latch and knocking him off whenever it's uncomfortable so my nips are feeling quite a bit better! In the evening when he's getting frustrated on one boob, I'm switching to the other to give boob one time to refill a little, then switching back again if he's still hungry, which seems to be working ok... We've done two evenings now without having to top up with formula, and he's still sleeping and filling nappies ok, so we may be over this hump at least.
I figure at this stage if we have the odd night where we give a FF (we probably will on NYE so I can have a guilt-free glass of fizz ) it shouldn't bruise my supply too much so long as we don't start subbing the same feed every day. Sometimes it'd just good to have the psychological crutch of a bottle of Aptamil in reserve!

That all sounds very positive, well done!

No need to suspend bf or give formula because of a moderate intake of alcohol. Would be a shame to feel you had to, when it's all going better :)

I stopped with both DC at 3 months simply because they were still feeding two hourly, I was knackered, had psychologically had enough and return to work was imminent.
No regrets. I soon felt much more in control of things, they started sleeping through and I could pass some more responsibility over to DH.
All selfish reasons really.

I allowed my kids to self wean- which was years rather than months. I have never used formula.

Glad to hear it's going well - and enjoy your fizz without worry, baby will not feel any ill effects from it, unless it made you fall over!

Oh your post today sounds much more positive. That's great. Long may it continue.

I had real problems in the beginning with dc1. Poor latch, shredded nipples etc. But I did as you are and took her off every single time and reattached (also got the reason for the poor latch sorted). By 12 weeks we'd cracked it. She was bf for years, not months. Never had formula.

Happily, second time round BFing was straightforward and 3yo ds is still bfing.

I never had problems getting breastfeeding started with either of my 2 so I was very lucky in that respect.

I did have ongoing difficulties with my 2nd though because he was always a very fussy feeder and would often refuse to feed for hours or even days. When he was 10 months old he refused to feed for a week. Every time I tried to latch him on he would bite me and laugh but not feed

I didn't know what to do and discovered there's absolutely no support out there for breastfeeding problems in older babies.

So I gave up way before I wanted to which was a shame. So yes you can still have problems further on, but of a different kind. And it depends on the child too, I never had any problems with DC1.