Breastfeeding opinions please!

[gentlemama]

I am training as a breastfeeding counsellor and was wondering if people would be able to share some opinions on breastfeeding? I am interested in hearing from mums who intended to breastfeed/started but did not carry on until 12 months why they ended up not breastfeeding? I'm not looking for any right or wrong answers, am just curious about what experiences people have had.

There are sooooo many threads on this. You could read some of them.

With my first I stopped at 7mths because I wanted to go back on my Meds when I went back to work and it wasn't compatible, this time round I'm on a different combination of meds and although I still can't go back on that particular drug whilst BF the other drugs are working better on their own than the ones I was on last time so I'm happy to continue feeding at the moment although this gets periodically reviewed with my health.
We now mix feed though as he has formula in a bottle on days he goes to nursery (morning & evening boob still) as although I expressed in early days I just don't have enough time to do this.
My first was mix fed from the start because it was what worked for him and me at the time.

As far as I was concerned, breastfeeding was the only way to feed babies. I fed dc1 for 20months, dc2 for 18months, dc3 for 26months. I obviously intended to bf #4 too. He was tongue tied and even though it wasn't too severe, was recognised relatively early (10days) and was snipped, by that time he had never managed to effectively transfer milk. He was extremely poorly and my milk supply had virtually disappeared. I had so much support from the tongue tie specialist, midwives, bf counsellor, bf consultant etc....but absolutely nothing could get him to latch. I tried every day for months while pumping every 4hrs. It just wouldn't work. I didn't think there was a bf problem that determination wouldn't fix but I was wrong.

I did manage to bf DS1 past 12 months and I'm still feeding DS2 at almost 19 months. I've been very lucky that I've had no issues or pain with either of them. They both took to it extremely well.
With DS1 I was totally unprepared for how much he would want to feed. I had the idea that he would go three hours between feeds but he was feeding much more than that. That was 13 years ago and it was harder to find stories of people's bf experiences to know what was normal. He had a bottle of formula a day from week 1. With DS2 I'd looked at Kellymom and mumsnet and a few other sites and realised constant feeding was perfectly normal. I was much more prepared and spent the first 3 months cuddling and feeding DS2 and not worrying like I had with DS1.
No one in my family has bf apart from me. A mix of worrying baby isn't getting enough and not being able to share the feeds has been the main reason. Also not realising that baby can want to bf 5 minutes after finishing a feed and having other children to look after is difficult.

I did carry on to nearly 12 months in the end but tongue tie nearly killed off BF for me (and many others I know).

If you are training as a BF counsellor please please please get really well trained to spot tongue tie - posterior as well as anterior. There aren't enough people out there who know what to look for, and too many who think they know but don't (and so wrongly dismiss it).

I'm planning to stop at 6 months. I'm going back to work when dd2 is 8 months and my job isn't compatible with expressing.

I bf'd dc1 for 22 months, though it was bedtime and morning feeds only after 12 months as I was back at work.

Dc2 was very had to bf at first, she had a bad tongue tie. It was very hard to persuade the hospital to act, I ended up paying for it to be snipped myself at 5 days. That resolved the feeding and weightloss issue. However, had I not bf'd dc1 then I would have given up for sure and switched to bottle feeding, there really was no support from the midwives for sorting the tongue tie and most new mums would've had no choice but to bottle feed.

Thank you to everyone who has kindly shared their experiences, it's all really useful. I am really keen to learn more about tongue tie; my son had it and it wasn't spotted until 6 months so know how hard that can be.

I breast fed both of mine for 6 months, they both had tongue ties which made it very difficult, my youngest had his snipped twice but he never got the hang of feeding properly and was not gaining enough weight so I was expressing and started topping up with formula which eventually lead to an end to breast feeding.
I tried my hardest and like to think I have them both the best start I could under difficult circumstances so I don't feel too bad about it.
I agree there needs to be more help out there especially around tongue ties.

I will stop at 6 months (if all goes well until then) for going back to work. No option of both working and continuing.