This week I will be giving my DS, five months, his final breastfeed. We're just down to the morning boob now. It's been a very hard five months and I have been reading lots of threads and started one or two for advice. I've been a bit chippy, privately, about some things I've read, but the thing is, a lot of the stuff I was most defensive about is actually true. Here's what I've learned about feeding my DS and my DD (who's now 2 and a half and was exclusively BF till 7 months):
It is perfectly possible to exclusively breastfeed to a three-hourish routine and then a four-hourish routine indefinitely. If I express every day to keep supply up like I did with DD, and don't replace the dreamfeed with formula at 12 weeks.
My big boy really was just hungry. He did need more milk, not solids.
Sometimes babies with bad digestion (colic, reflux, wind, the works) are actually happier on formula than breastmilk. This was a major shock - I always thought breastmilk was easier to digest, but even cutting out all the usual suspects (caffeine, citrus, pulses etc) it was sometimes like I was trying to force acid down him. V distressing. Formula = happy, full, settled baby. Counter-intuitively, in DS' case I was probably being a bit selfish in insisting on BF for so long.
I haven't got the time or energy to do exactly the same for DS as I did for DD. And in any case, they are very different little people, with very different needs.
I feel a weird mixture of real guilt and real pride in BFing DS - as with DD I had a dreadful, painful, raw, mastitis-riddled time getting it established and am very glad I persisted, esp with mine and DH's serious allergies. However, formula is not the devil, and you can be committed to BF and still recognise that sometimes it's not actually working for either you or the baby.
Big lessons. Thanks to everyone whose messages and wise words I have read, especially those I rejected cos I had a sneaky feeling they were right and I didn't want to admit it.