How long did you breastfeed your baby for?

[DancingDelli]

Just as the title says really!

I plan on weaning and continuing to breastfeed until I go back to work when baby is 9 months old. Would really like to carry on a bit longer though

Ds1 - about 18 months
Ds2 - about 18 months - he self weaned the instant I got pregnant with DS3
DS3 - 2.4 years. I tried to wean him about 3 times and he was having none of it

@BertieBotts

I think a lot of bf promoters have trouble acknowledging that maybe some people don't want to bf. Or that they don't fancy weeks of battling through pain and would rather just enjoy their newborn. Or that they're keen for other people to be able to feed them so they can get quality sleep. Or that they take medication incompatible with breastfeeding.

There is lots of support for bfing in this country. Lactation consultants, peer support workers, breastfeeding groups, La Leche League, the Breastfeeding Foundation, forums like MN, books, online tutorials, midwives when you're in hospital etc. In our area there is also breastfeeding one-on-one classes before the baby arrives.

I dont know what more people want. There are many areas of healthcare far more essential than bfing. Bottle feeding is a perfectly safe alternative. So I dont get why on MN it is treated as an area of utmost importance than deserves prioritising by the NHS, and that if only enough money was thrown at it, we could get the rates up to 99% or something.

I worry this constant discussion of breastfeeding leads to the lower rates, by scaring new mums into believing it is one long painful struggle with zero help out there.

@EasterIssland

Sorry it's a bugbear of mine, people describing toddlers as 'babies' or saying their age in months past the age of 1 😬 I'll butt out now and have my diabetic cookie 😄

12 months with DD1 - only ended as I was expecting DD2 and she didn't like the change in taste. DD2 11 months

@Wolfgirrl The support groups you mention either cost money or are no good for the first week or so of breastfeeding. I struggled with bf DC1 to begin with and there were people to help but they seemed to have very little training and would contradict each other. It was immensely stressful.

What I want is decent postnatal care with enough staff to truly take care of you instead of throwing you a few anecdotes about their experience of breastfeeding.

But OP - if you don't want to stop bf when you go back to work, just cut it down to 1-2 feeds a day, morning and evening.

I bf DC1 until she was 22mo and I got pregnant with DC2, still bf at 13mo but might stop soon as I've been pregnant or bf since Feb 16 and want my body back!

4 weeks with DS1, 8 weeks with DS2. Hated it both times, found it very suffocating and neither gained weight until they started having formula.

@demolitionbarbie

I think a lot of it is that mums are desperate to go home as soon as possible so leave hospital after a day or so. There is 24 hour help on postnatal wards, if they stayed in a few days they would receive more help.

The only thing that I think would make a real difference would be training HVs. But even then MN would be full of people complaining their HV was rubbish etc.

3months with my no.1, 20months with no 2.

No.2 had a diary allergy and wouldn’t drink any formula milk or anything from a bottle. I went to work when she was a year and on the days she was at nursery she just drank water and had a soya yogurt and waited for me to come home.

I stopped at just under 2 years. I was working 4 days a week from 9 months so it was mostly evening and morning (and in the night 🤦🏻‍♀️!).

Till 13months. And I would have been happy to carry on, DS just was over it and wanted more real food.

I went back to work at 9mo and had cut down to 1 daytime feed by then. Expressed at the office over lunch. And DS quickly dropped that feed once he was at nursery. So we just did the bedtime feed from 11-13mo.

Stopped day time feeds at 12 months and dropped night feed by 14 (he only fed once a night since 6 months, but was hard to stop that one. But he's slept through ever since). I knew I didn't want to feed past a year and was worried if I left it longer it would get harder to stop.

@wolfgirrl well, maybe - I was in for a week with DC1 and it was still hard to get enough help, they're just overworked and a ward is a stressful place, stress doesn't help breastfeeding.

I agree it should be acknowledged that breastfeeding isn't for everyone, but if only 0.5% of babies are still being breastfed at 12 months, I can't believe that's all through choice alone.

Never

I returned to work at 9m and breastfed until 14m.

By 9m dd was eating enough solids during the day that she only needed milk in the morning and after 5pm - which was good news as she completely refused formula and I couldn’t express much so wouldn’t have been able to provide milk during the day anyway. At 14m she was only having one comfort feed at night. We stopped that (took a few days of DH taking her to bed so she knew there was no chance of milk! ) and she started sleeping through the night almost instantly.

5 years

I would say if you're determined to breastfeed, research lots before hand and gain as much information as possible.

I had an EMCS, and my milk/colostrum didn't come in for 10 days. I had no support from midwives other than them getting annoyed that my starving baby was crying.

Had I researched properly prior to this, I would've known what to do and that I could have started breastfeeding even if baby had been on formula for 10 days.

We are TTC #2 and I will pay a specialist to be around after I've given birth for advice and support because quite frankly hospital staff are useless and don't have the time

@BertieBotts I think the drop in stats actually relate to how BFing is promoted. We're made to believe it's the only acceptable 'choice', that it's amazing, wonderful, liquid gold, works for all women etc etc. Then actually start doing it and discover that it's hellish - overwhelming, all pressure on the mum to do all the feeds, low supply does actually exist contrary to what we were told, no support for combi-feeding so mums think it's all or nothing, find BFing too much, that it hasn't matched up to what they were told antenatally, and then stop altogether. Yes, I breastfed to 3.5 years but I don't think it lived up to all the hype and hassle and was misrepresented by the promotion. It made my first months of motherhood absolute hell and gave me PND, as well as making my baby seriously ill.

There's a huge amount of BFing support out there. My area (pre-Covid) has shut children's centres to all families and the only thing that was still going was BFing support. All the HCPs round here push BFing and won't talk about using formula. It's impossible to find support for combi-feeding (I wasn't welcome at BFing support).

6 moths with both my kids .

@RidingMyBike

Thank you for your refreshingly honest post. I agree with every word. However if you express these opinions, people assume you hate breastfeeding and want to ruin it for everyone else 🙄

I agree, the 'encouragement' is very overwhelming. We are going straight from a bottle feeding society to one where we push women to EBF until baby is 2. It is too daunting.

I think a more realistic approach would be beneficial. We should be promoting the use of breast pumps, being honest about the health benefits (that most of them are imparted in the first 3 months of breastfeeding) and also encouraging combination feeding as another alternative.

I think if most women aimed for 3 months, a lot of them would continue afterwards as you have cracked it by then. But shouting at a sleep deprived woman 'WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION SAYS YOU SHOULD EBF FOR 2 YEARS' will have the reverse effect as at the beginning, 2 years in the early days is far too daunting and probably encourages women to give up early thinking they could never achieve it so why bother.

18 months. DS just didn't want it anymore.

15 months with my first and second, both stopped of their own accord over the course of a week or so. Current baby is 11 months so we’ll see. Went back to work with both the others though, with them just having milk on waking and bedtime.

Thank you @Wolfgirrl those are really good points. I always jump in now when people wonder whether to keep going just to let them know they can, and it doesn't have to be as intense as the first months. Whilst I do know one woman still BFing a 6yo as often as you'd BF a newborn, it's far more common to only BF once or twice a day, especially after returning to work. Trouble is, that's very hidden as you'd only know if they told you, and I doubt it shows up in any stats!

I agree re the way it's promoted. I remember thinking 'TWO YEARS?!?!? This is horrific, I don't want to do it another day, let alone for years' for the first few weeks. If women were given more balanced info about the actual benefits (I was horrified when I found out the actual figures for the breast cancer benefit and realised I'd been lied to) and encouraged to breastfeed with support for using formula too there would be much higher BF rates, I'm sure. And a lot better mental health for mums as well!

My experience - milk didn't come in after a difficult birth but MWs just encouraged constant cluster feeding, leading to me falling asleep and dropping my baby, a readmission for hypernatraemic dehydration and me spiralling into PND. With hindsight this could easily have been predicted - I still can't believe that HCPs were pushing EBFing at a weekly obstetric diabetes clinic without once mentioning that a)diabetes affects milk supply b) so does PCOS and c) being induced was likely to lead to a more difficult birth and that was likely to cause delay/low supply.

If they lost the obsession with EBFing so much would improve!

@RidingMyBike

Whoa, never knew PCOS affected supply!

I have PCOS and milk didn't come in for 10 days and from then I had very little

6 weeks mixed feeding with DC1 (mostly formula- early jaundiced baby so hideous issues), 3 months EBF then 4 weeks mixed then formula with DC2 (supply dropped hugely due to huge stresss and PND when lockdown happened and I was trapped with a newborn and toddler!!).

Whatever happens be kind to yourself. I beat myself up hugely with DC1, was over the moon when could feed DC2 and again so upset when it didn’t work out but I’m crap at BF. Needed nipple shields every time and even after 12 weeks every feed was a huge effort. I feel proud each time I persevered even though it was very difficult and am grateful to have two healthy happy small children.

Take the support (there is varying amount depending where you are- I had DC1 in London and it was crap but DC2 in the north and they were fantastic) try your best but don’t let it be the be all and end all. And as sad as you are (and I was) try and instead enjoy the benefits (dad helping out, more space between feeds, able to leave the baby and have time away or more focussed time with the elder child etc). Don’t make it all about your failure try and focus on the positive.