8 months and still stressful BF! Long!

[kaballie]

This is long, I'm sorry, it's 8 months in a nutshell!
My daughter is 8 months and BF has always been really hard. Her weight has slowly dropped off from the 50th% to the 0.2%. Its gone back up a % since starting solids and she has been gaining rapidly since then.
Now she feeds both sides for between 3-10 mins a side 4 times a day plus a bottle of formula at 10pm then she sleeps through. She is alert and happy and eats solids well - lots of them too. I have also started to give her a couple of ounces of formula at 11am and just before bed at 7pm which someimes she wants and someimes she doesn't. She won't drink water with her meals. When she feeds form a bottle sh sucks and swallows noisily, when she feeds from me it looks and sounds like she pretty much isn't getting anything but she doesn't complain. I have never felt a let down and only leaked once or twice months ago. I had recurrent mastitis til 16 weeks.LIfe has been stressful ever since I got pregnant - maybe this is the problem? Anyway !
My Qs are these!

1. Is she dehydrated or is the fact that she is happy, alert not crying after feeds or asking for more mean she is okay? Are there any signs I can look for for dehydration?
2. Is mixing feeds like this a good idea?
3. Should I just say sod it, stop worrying and put her on formula full time?
4. Is it possible that she is getting all the nutrition and fluid she needs from solids?
5. Should I probably go and see an expert and stop myself worrying??

Thanks to weveryone in advance. Who ever thought there could be so much to worry about!
Allie

I'm no expert, but my take would be:

1. What are her nappies like? If she's producing heavy nappies and her wee (if you see it) is pretty pale and fairly odourless then she's not dehydrated. What comes out must have gone in ;) Serious dehydration would be dry feeling skin that doesn't bounce back and a majorly depressed fontanelle, but I'm guessing she'd be much less cheerfull well before you reached that stage.

1. If mixing feeds like that is working for you then it's a good idea.

1. Difficult to say as its a very personal decision. If the BF is causing you a lot of stress and FF would be less stressful then yes. If you enjoy the BF, however limitted and with the issues, then no. For me BF has a strong nuturing component as well as a nutritional one so I think I'd be tempted to carry on as much as possible, but I've friends that have switched to FF completely and haven't looked back.

1. Not sure if there's any research on this. I would guess at not - I'm sure I read milk (BF or FF) is meant to be the main source of nutrition till 1.

1. If it would help you stop worrying then yes!

Hope that helps. Definitely agree on the worrying!

Kaballie,

Sounds like you've been having a tough time with the mastitis, poor you.

As for let-down and leaking, I have never really leaked and never felt let down. Oh, and my ds has dropped from 50th to 0.4th centile too. I started a thread for slow-weight gain support if you want to join us. It is here.

1. What Tangle said. Also if she is seriously dehydrated her fontanelle (soft spot) would be sunken.

1. It's up to you really. Just be aware that some women do find that their milk supply decreases with giving additional formula feeds. However at eight months your supply is more stable so this is less likely, iirc.

1. That's up to you; how would you feel if you stopped bfing?

1. Highly unlikely I'm afraid; as Tangle says until about a year babies get the majority of their nutrition from milk, whether breastmilk or formula.

1. Yes if it would put your mind at rest. Or ring one of the helplines.

1. happy alert and needing nappy changes sounds okay to me
2. if you are happy with the mixing feeds it is fine
3. only you can decide what you want to do sorry
4. no she is getting fluid from you
5. maybe

My LO is 9 mths now. I haven't felt a let down since about 3mths. Mine rarely feeds for more than 5 mins at a time and has about 5 feeds a day

I won't write out my answers as I agree with what the others have said. It sounds as though you've been having a stressful time of it - hope thigs improve for you.

cheers guys, am going to struggle on with bf. lovely to get some support and will c/o the support board when she is not wriggling on my lap!
allie
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