Please tell me about TTC while breastfeeding

[naturelover]

DD is 16 months, I'm having my coil removed this week in the hope of TTC soon.

I still bf DD 3 times a day. My periods are back and fairly regular (came back 4 months ago). I'm still taking pg/breastfeeding vitamins which contain folic acid. Is there anything else I need to do?

I was thinking about cutting down bf to twice a day. Would I have to offer a substitute milk if I did this, or is breastmilk twice a day enough for DD at this age? I once offered her goats milk in a cup and she refused to even taste it. She hasn't had ebm in a bottle for so long that I'm not sure she'd know what to do with a bottle.

If you bf while pregnant, was it exhausting? Did you get run down? Did you find you had to pay extra special attention to your diet? Am I at extra risk of miscarriage?

Thanks in advance.

Just carry on as you are. I've never heard of there being a risk of miscarriage due to breastfeeding - many, many women conceive successfully whilst bfing, me being one of them!

(Ironically, to concieve my third baby, I stopped bfing first, then went on to have two miscarriages, and I really wished I hadn't stopped bfing).

Pregnancy is exhausting anyway, some women can carry on bfing with no problems, but I found it very tiring - I bf until I was 3 months pregnant, and then I stopped, and my milk disappeared immediately. DD1 wasn't bothered by it at all.

Thanks Belgo. I was always planning to bf DD till 18 months or so, so if she self-weaned during pregnancy I'd be quite relieved. Did you give your DD1 a substitute milk at that point? How old was she? Thanks

My dd1 was 12 months when I stopped bfing her, and she went straight onto cow's milk. There's 18 months difference between her and dd2 - and bfing dd2 was very easy.

If you bf while pregnant, was it exhausting? - no more so than pregnancy is anyway, but my nipples did get VERY sore for the first few weeks.

Did you get run down? - no

Did you find you had to pay extra special attention to your diet? - no, except for developing gestational diabetes (unrelated to bf) and thus following a restricted diet for that.

Am I at extra risk of miscarriage? - I don't believe so, no.

I am now bf an 8 week old and a 2.10 yr old.
Good luck.

I conceived whilst Bfing - ds1 was 2.5 but still feeding half a dozen times a day or night, and he was a heavy feeder. Conceiving took a little longer than with ds1, but not because of the bfing. (I discovered that I ovulate very early in the month, and we had been 'focusing our efforts' on the middle of the cycle! )

We fed happily for five months whilst I was pregnant. I found it much less exhausting than entertaining a bouncy toddler. I could always get him to come for a lie down/feed, if I needed a rest. Sometime during this time, he gave up night feeds himself, and so I was enjoying more sleep.

They say that many kiddies self wean at about that stage, as the milk can change flavour. However, it was me who suddenly found that I didn't enjoy feeding any more - my nipples became really sensitive. We stopped a couple of weeks later.

Hi Naturelover, I have the same questions, since I have started to think about TTC#2. I heard/read somewhere that BF can negatively effect implantation, but once egg implants, does not increase the risk of mc. I think it might have been on Kellymom, which has some excellent info on BF and conceiving.

I also nursed though my last pregnancy, tandem nursing a 3.5 month old and a 2.3 year old toddler.

I wasn't any more tired than in my first pregnancy, ate the same food as normal too.

I had sore nipples for a while at 8 weeks but appart from that I was lucky and had no ill effects from nursing.

All the best with TTC # 2