breast feeding and weight gain

[vannah]

For those of you who - like me- gain weight with breast feeding (i am constantly hungry)
did the weight come off as soon as you stopped breastfeeding?

this is my second child, and when I gave birth, I was actually fitting into my size 12 clothes. 3 months on, I cant get into a 14 and am buying 16.
wondering if all the exercising and 'sensible' eating is worth it right now if nothing is going to shift till bf ends.

i felt really hungry for the first few weeks, but am much better now (ds2 is 4 months).
have you tried filling up with stuff like porridge etc?

I think I probably gained in the first few months. It started to fall off after the first year though and I think I'm now back to pre-pregnancy weight, more or less. Was never skinny though.

I'm still bfing so not sure what will happen after I stop.

I was gutted by the way - one of my friend's had a baby a few months before me and was at the doctor's because the weight was falling off her. She literally couldn't eat enough to keep the right side of skin and bone.

Sadly while she is clearly a gas-guzzling porsche, I am clearly more of a skoda type lass and can get 50 miles to the gallon. Or rather 50 gallons of milk to the cake.

thanks for replying, perhaps the hunger will tail off...

Have to admit I'm starving as well. Not gaining weight but was not losing it so I joined Slimming World. Hope it works, as I want to it into a dress I have for friend's wedding in Nov, so need to lose 2 stone!

Do you have sugar cravings? Can't get enough cake, sweets, tea, hotchocolate, Jam on toast drool.....But i've just started walking loads to try and cancel out my huge calorie intake. Seems to be working 1/2 stone off pre preg size.

when dd was born, a week later i was lighter than before i was pg, which was amazing as i needed to lose weight. but a feww months later i put on a stone i am still hungry ll the time!

Really good to here I'm no the only one who seems to be stuck - eating pretty sensibly and yet not shifting an ounce. Was going to start WW or SW but had issues with DD2's weight gain/milk production this last week or so and decided I'm NOT going to stress myself out even more and certainly not cut down on my intake as I really want to carry on feeding and so don't want to risk reducing my milk even further.

Why do none of the books tell you this by the way - all the talk is that if you BF the weight will drop off as you use an extra 500 cals a day - maybe we're storing these up for when we finish BF and it'll fly off then? - oh look - there piggy flying past my window

You don't mention how old your baby is, but I have had the same problem with both mine. The stage from about 3-6 months with exclusive bf I was ravenous and put back the weight I'd managed to lose at 0-3 months. Now DS has been eating solids for a couple of months and I can keep my appetite enough under control to lose a bit again.

my baby is 11 weeks old and I have been at ww for a month and lost 7lbs. Today the bridesmaids dress for my friends wedding (december) arrived, it is a 20 and we can't get the zip to fasten. There is no size 22 to be had in the country, the woman in BHS checked for us . I reckon I need to lose at least a stone, preferably 2 for it to fit. Actually I need to lose about 4 stone altogether but am jsut concentrating on the dress. I HAVE to get into it. I think I am only finding ww ok just now because of the 10 extra points. It would be really hard if I didn't have them, can I exclusively BF dd til she is 1?

I am in a 38K nursing bra, which, truth be told is a bit small. Will they shrink when I go down to 1-2 feeds a day or is it all fat?

Im going to stop breast feeding when dd is 4 months old, she is currently 3 months.
Beanstermummy - my gripe precisely: 500 calories indeed. Grr!

SisterS - DD2 is 13 weeks today - hopefully I'll be able to shift it as she gets onto solids - this dismal winter weather doesn't help either - on the odd occasions I do have some energy to go for a walk with the bug, it's always pi**ing it down

Liz79 - With you exactly on the size front etc - I was a16 and 2 stone overweight when I got PG with DD1 and never lost 2 of the 4 1/2 stone I put on - add 1 (of the 2 1/2 this time) onto that this time and I'm looking at 4 to 5 overall weight loss needed to be some where resembling me 5 years ago. I just keep saying long term, no quick fix but am getting mightily fed up when trying to get some clothes - my bum is 18/20 (actually no it's not - it's a 20 really ) again but on top it's completely random - as for boobs - I've no idea. Mine only went from 40B to 44D and seem to have settled somewhere in between at the moment - I suspect it's a combination of BF and weight loss.

BT - how are you doing?