Getting to 6 months exclusively bfing - how was it for you 1%ers?

[babydriver]

Hi, my DS2 is 16 weeks and I'm hoping to continue exclusive bfing certainly into his fifth month and wd like to try to get to six months if poss before weaning. I started weaning DS1 at about 19 weeks but wd prefer to avoid the puree faff or at least put it off a while second time around!

What was it like for those of you who managed to bf exclusively for 5/6/7 months or so? Did you end up doing lots more feeds, or did feeds simply go on for longer? How did weaning go? Any impact on sleep? (DS doesn't sleep through at the mo anyway!) Wd like to hear what I might be letting myself and DS in for.

I never really noticed any big changes in frequency/length of feeds. If anything they got shorter, and everything was much easier since he could latch himself on without any help. DS didn't sleep through the night, but since he was sharing my bed that didn't bother me at all. He actually was almost-exclusively bf till about eleven months; I started offering him solids at six months but he barely ate anything till eleven, despite being a big baby. He kept gaining weight fine and has always been exceedingly healthy. Then suddenly at eleven months he decided he wanted to eat everything and started scoffing down whole platefuls of food where previously he'd only had a teaspoonful. No problems with pickiness so far. Now at 18m he has breastmilk three or four times a day and eats plenty of solids too. The main 'problem', like other people have said, was in other people's expectations.

Started my first on solids at 20 weeks but stopped and resumed about 5 months - that was nearly 8 years ago. Too much faff really so 2nd time round did to 6 months just on breast for dd. She was a big baby and 17lbs at 6 months. She did seem to need more feeds between 5-6 months, but it seemed to settle down again at 6 months and thereafter. Sleeping not really affected.

ds2 also b/fed till 6 months, he wasn't really interested in solids though and hardly took any till around 11 months - dopn't think the late weaning had anything to do with it, just his personality. Just kept on b/feeding in between.

Started on purees but didn't need to sterilise and soon progressed to lumps and finger food so yes it can cut out most of that stage.

Good luck.

DD was exclusively BF till six months (she's seven months and BLW). She now sleeps for eight hours straight and she is 21+lbs. I'm still bfing obviously.

Actually I still bf her mostly because I'm too lazy to do bottles and because it's nice for me.

She seems to like it too!

I bf Exclusively until 8 months because DS was just not bothered about solids at all, TBH I never really noticed what happened I just bf on demand so never knew really whether there was loads more feeds anyway.
If anything the feeds got shorter as as he got more efficient at feeding. No real impact on sleep although we did have the 4 month growth spurt with a huge feedathon night and day for a couple of weeks but someone with a formula fed baby riced baby of the same age went through the same thing at that age.
Weaning was sooo wasy never mashed or pureed anything just gave proper food and he has lapped it all up.

Thank you everyone for sharing your experiences - you've eased my mind a great deal that I won't have DS permanently attached to norks the size of hot air balloons, day and night. Bfing is going reasonably well at the mo, apart from teething days, and the feeds are certainly getting quicker. I'll look out for the 4month spurt - shd be coming along sometime soon!!

Babydriver, that huge norks thing seems to stop, I can't tell these days which side she had last when I'm getting ready to feed her (shame really, as I sure can't remember).

I've got to 5 months but now finding it a struggle because (1) exactly like oldwomanwholivedinashoe, he won't concentrate on it, especially in a public place where there's lots going on and (2) all my bottle feeding friends have lovely 4 hourly routines, while I have my boob out a hundred times a day. I have another thread going on this. Still, it's been pretty easy up to now if I'm honest. I was very lucky not to have any sore nipples or anything.

I weaned dd1 and ds at 4 months as that was the advice at the time.

With dd2 I went to 6 and a half months and it was so much easier - no pureeing, no fafing about, just 'here's your tea'. She helped herself to her first solids - broccoli off my plate! - and never looked back.

She's by far the least fussy eater of all three of them - 3y7m old now and eats really anything.