why am I always so hungry? Advice please!

[ilovemydog]

DS is 3.5 months and exclusively bf.

I am hungry constantly despite having quite a good diet and eating sensibly (aside from needing a sugar/chocolate boost circa 3:00 am during the nightfeed!)

Saw my GP this morning and he sort of shrugged and said it was due to breastfeeding.

Any ideas as to what I may be lacking would be welcome!

Sounds like you are lacking food! it does make you hungry. Go for ir, its a licence to top up the calories.

Very common feeling, ilove....lots of women feel hungry in the first weeks/months of bf. You don't actually need more food to bf, as the milk will be made whatever, but many mothers experience these pangs and they're best attended to to keep energy levels up

Sure you're not thirsty?

It's quite difficult to distinguish between thirsty signals and hungry signals. Try having a glass of water when you're hungry. Then if you're still hungry, have another flapjack!

I'm bfing a v hungry 2 month old at the moment and eating like a horse. Find drinking more water does make me feel a little less hungry though.

I was like this for the first 3-4 mo, then the hunger tailed off a bit. DD still excl.BF at 6 mo, a lot! You do need to drink loads, peanut butter & nutella on toast is fast & fab.

good advice re: drinking (water!).

Have been trying this, and it helps quite a bit, although all I really want to do is to gorge on chocolate

I ate like a pig while I was exclusively breastfeeding and still ended up weighing less than I did before I got pg (I'm ducking while everyone throws rotten eggs at me!) Even when I dropped feeds when I went back to work and my ds started pigging out on solids, I was still starving.

My advice is take advantage of the excuse and eat what you like (within reason - sensible meals etc).

Just about to stop breastfeeding ds completely now (approaching 1yo) but now pg again - roll on the chocolate cake !