Dieting and breastfeeding

[HaggisSupper]

My DD is 9 months old and now has about 3/4 breastfeeds a day, plus one bottle of formula and her 3 solid meals. Is it ok to breastfeed and go on a diet now that I am not feeding her continously like I was at the start or does my body still need the extra calories. Does it really matter if you diet and bf?

I am planning to bf until she is 1 at least but my weight is starting to get me down.

You can certainly cut out junk/eat healthily while BFing... far best diet IMO.

I guess you can see how it goes, cut down intake graduaoly, and see if you feel tired... no point wearing yourself out xXx

*gradually

Tell me about it. I've started my healthy eating kick after gorging myself over Christmas, New Year and my birthday last week. I'm actually hating the sight of chocolate at the mo I've started running as well so I'll see how it goes

Be careful with dieting and BF. I have a five month old DD and am getting married in 3.5 months. I really want to lose another stone before the wedding and about a month ago I started dieting. Nothing excessive but no snacks and one helping at each meal and nothing too fatty. Since I started dieting DD stopped putting on weight. She seems happy enough but her weight has stalled. I feel terrible for doing that to her and have started to eat more again. Its a real catch twenty-two because I am desperate to loose weight and desperate to continue successfully BFing.

At five months, it's pretty normal for your DD to stop putting on weight. If she's happy, I'd suspect the weight plateau has nothing to do with your dieting.

You really do have to be starving for it to affect your milk, from what I know.

Oh, yeah, and for the OP, yeah, you can diet. From what I know, a sensible weight-loss program is fine from two months or so after the baby is born. Here is a good page on the subject, from a very reliable source.

Well, as long as you do this with common sense and only aim for 1/2Ibs maximum 1 Ib a week you should be fine and so should your Baby, but try to avoid large weightlosses, because our fat depots are the places where the toxins are stored, so, if we start loosing weihgt they are flushed out into the bloodstream and from there end up in the breastmilk, which isn't a great thing if it is large amounts, iykwim.
I started SW when I was still bf ms, at the time about 5 month, and whenever I had a too good weightloss week (by no means meant to loose more then 1/2Ib at teh time, and ate loads...)my son would become really unsettled, etc..., which was possibly a sideeffect from all those toxins...hth

Duh, should have followed that link , it basically says it all

Hey, more people agreeing is always a good thing!

There is absolutely no reason why you cannot 'diet' when you are breastfeeding, as long as we are talikng about a sensible eating plan. Weight watchers allows breastfeeding mothers more points than those not breastfeeding. It is an ideal time to lose weight actually because breastfeeding does use up calories. Better than exercising IMO

Thanks for the link, it was really interesting reading. I think a slow weight loss is the best way to go anyway, if you want to keep it off. I might consider Weight Watchers. Thanks for all your help.

Oh, can I just say something else, though...after someone mentioning how Breastfeeding is the right time, because of the higher calorific use...etc...
With ms, I did SW and lost weight fine, with ys I tried the same, again, whilest bf, and he was about teh same age as ms was when I started, and it didn't work for me...indeed, with ys it was only after stopping bf (he decided to wean himself off at 13m) that the weight seem to come off me, so, don't be to disappointed if you aren't succesful....I suppose my metabolism was just differnetly tuned with ys...