Anyone interested in an 'extended' bfers support thread?

[lilysma]

Not sure what I mean by 'extended' exactly - maybe it's a self defined thing?

I define myself as an 'extended' bfer because I hardly know anyone else bfing a child as old as mine (DD is 26 months) and feel the need to discuss some issues with people also doing this and wonder if anyone else does??

Anyone up for an informal support thread on this?

hello just thought I'd pop in before I go to bed. Not an 'extended' breastfeeder at the moment as ds3 is only 7m and ds2 stopped about a year ago. But he was 3 1/2 then so I have experience in many of the things you've been mentioning - frantic signing for milk (which turned into saying 'breast breast' at a certain age), nipple twiddling, biting, yes we have been there!

I used to find lots of support and info on a MSN group called Nursing Mums but it's moved to multiply now and I hardly ever go on there so can't say if it's very active or not.

can I join? dd is 18 months and still feeds several times a day, and also through the night (we co-sleep). She is gradually cutting down feeds but still feeds maybe 8 times in 24 hours, more if teething.

Mawbroon, my AF only just returned last month so I'm new to ths, but am starting to do some basic charting. As far as I can tell my LP is fairly normal. Pop back to the 'magic' fertility thread and post on there...I have a feeling about that thread...

(am not superstitious, honest. But I'm sure it's magic)

I am still BF Ds2 at 16 months, he is the longest I have fed any of my 4. He feeds about 3 times in the day and once at night, he also has cows milk now. He was premature and had sereve failure to Thrive when he came home from SCBU and I was told many times to stop breastfeeding, I dug my heels in and carried on (with small topups via a NGT tube in his nose, of high engery formula) After 2 months I stopped the topups and went back to full BF.

Thats great Sparkly - well done, you're amazing. Must have been so tough with all that pressure on you from the beginning. Can't believe you were told to stop

Sparkly - how did your ds get to be 16 months??!! It just seems a few months ago that he was born. Sounds like you have done a fantastic job with the breastfeeding.

Does anyone with a DC my DS's age feed as much as he does? He is 3.2yo and until just a couple of months ago, he would have morning/bedtime feeds, probably two or three others through the day and a couple at night too. For a long time I felt that he "should" only be feeding morning and night, but then came round to thinking that most of the things that we are told our DCs "should" be doing are pish. That stopped me stressing about it.

Recently, he has started going some days without a feed in the day and is only feeding once or maybe twice at night plus morning/bedtime. I stopped counting long ago, but I guess that is around 5 in 24hrs.

My DS, 2.6 feeds a minimum of 3 x per day (on the 3 days per week I work), & at moment has phases of feeding 1x per night for a few days, then back to sleeping through. When we're at home all day though can feed loads, already on 4 this morning! Anyone who knows we still nurse asks, 'just at bedtime surely?' !! yes and the rest!

SGK - had a sneaky peak at your pictures... my God has Callum grown!! He is certainly not FTT now!! Well done you, what an amazing job you have done...

Hi I'd like to join too! DS is 19 months, still feeding q a lot during the day. Am toying with the idea of stopping tbh cos still no period and have PID - just got out of hospital yesterday. Am thinking maybe if I stop bfing I'll get my period again and give my womb a bit of clear out. Anyone else not got periods? anyone else had any similar problems?
anyway hi everyone!
and yeah DS is an avid nipple twiddler. aghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!

Gorionine - just seen your question on when did I know it was time to stop.

DS1 - I was pregant with no 2 so he was 2 1/2 or so and a few inches further out from me than before, sort of pushed away by the bump. He was on the left side, I asked if he wanted the other side and he said no!! I could just tell he liked lying there and didn't want to be lifted up and round and across to be on the right hand side.

DS2 - I had an early miscarriage when he was about 2 1/2yrs old, so the latching on pains I felt in my pregnancy with ds2 didn't continue. The pains made me cut down feeding ds1 and led to him weaning as above. So feeding ds2 just continued and he stopped when he was 4yrs old. I kept on thinking each feed was the last until I forgot all of those "last feeds" so it's a blur. Mind you he moved on to needing to give each side a pat and a tickle and a kiss (eek) each time he left me to go somewhere. They don't put that in the bf books. I did not expect that.

just marking place - dd still v keen on her snuggles at 2.11 months

Finally five minutes to myself...

Just want to say that it is a great relief and a joy to read all of these posts and realize what a large group we are! I will be checking back here frequently.

Randomama, what is PID? I have my periods, but bf keeps my estrogen levels down enough that I up longer suffer from terrible PMDD, for which I was on prozac until we started ttc ds. When we go on holiday and I am with ds all of the time then my periods stop or become quite irregular.

Nipple twiddling is the bane of my bf experience. DS is a lazy latcher, too (and I am lazy at correcting him), and a very "active" breastfeeder, so moves around, stands up, leans over, etc. As a result my nipples are almost always bright pink (TMI alert!) and a bit sore.

Today, however, they are really sore and I am all "touched out" and a bit cranky. In fact, the left nipple is completely out of commission today (sad).

Anyone have sure-fire ways of curing nipple soreness?

PID = pelvic inflammatory disease. agh it's soooo painful. thought I was finally starting mmy peiods and haing period pains from hell but it just got worse and worse so went to docs and they prescribed antibiotics but they turned out to be wrong ones so was admitted to hospitsl. still in q a lot of pain but defo on the mend. it's just a worry cos one of the dangers with PID is t can make you infertile so part of me is thinking maybe i shoudl uit the bfing so my periods DO come back and clear me out and I can chek things are working ok.
ugh dunno what to do really. I work from home (upstairs) and DP is full time dad so bfing is an instant and intense way for me and DS to bond when I come down for breaks during the day. With DP doing so muh of the parenting I feel it's a way to 'keep my foot in' (I'm aware of how pathetic that sounds )
hmmm.....
DP is a v active bfer too! it's like he's breakdancing half the time!
loving this thread!!!
x

um, there's about a million typos in that msg but thought maybe best to qualify I meant DS is a active bfer not DP!
still pretty new to the world of MN acronyms

LOL @ bfing dp!! Well apparently there have been rare instances of men lactating!!
IKWYM about the bonding when you are away, lovely to feed ds when I pick him up from nursery after work, so lovely and cuddly!

I'd love to be part of this thread. My LO is only 1 year old, but I can't see her being ready with bf for quite some time, she takes 2 hours over her last feed as it's luxury relaxing time with the boob (snooze feed snooze feed... ), -I use the time to get a bit of extra rest! A bit of support over the next on a thread like this would be great as there are so few local friends left bf'ing at this point!

Hi Umzy!

my first time posting! Put cooking bolognese for the LO now! I'm watching this thread..

I'm still bfing DS2 - he was 3yo last month.

Am heartened to see such a busy thread! I think MN is probably more natural-term bf-friendly than RL in many ways. I don't seem to tell people I'm still bfing DS2, because nobody imagines I am. But if it comes up in conversation, I'll tell them!

I wrote something about it here - am in the process of updating the site, so all the links are a bit skewy (), because I am a techno-buffoon - I hope that works!

Interesting reading.. I've left a comment!

Hunkermunker I totally agree that MN is more bf-friendly than RL. Without MN I doubt very much whether I would still be bf now and I have found it hugely supportive here. I really thought you were 'supposed' to stop at 6 months before I got into MN.

I don't bring it up in conversation generally, and if I am asked and its someone I don't know really well I have tended to make a bit of a joke about it, like 'oh I don't know how to stop now!'. I really wish I didn't feel the need to do this as I am proud to have continued this long.

PPP - funnily enough, I've just commented about the stopping at 6months thing in the comment on Hunker's blog!

Wow, this thread is so busy, I can't keep up! I recognize a couple of fellow failure to thrivers amongst the group - remembering some threads, its so nice to see how far we've come from all that angst and worry about weight gain etc.

Mawbroon, I love your ds's conclusion to your conversation. I can't wait to have such philosophical discussions with DD .

Just a quick question - How do/would you all respond if you are in the middle of a shop or public place and your DD/DS has a tantrum and then demands milk. I haven't fed in public since DD was about 11 months old and until now it has never been an issue but I am in the middle of tantrum Hell at the moment and she seems to want to feed everytime she finishes screaming...I never had a problem with discreet public feeding before but the tantrumming means you draw everyone who is within a 5 mile radius's attention and then proceed to flash them with your boobs Not sure I am cut out for feeding a toddler, am too shy for all this...

Have gone on for far too long as still have to find a recipe for a cake and then bake it before I go to bed.

Bouncing turtle - I don't think I am especially thick, but do tend to speed read rather than carefully digest information... so I guess that's where I was going wrong! (that plus not knowing anyone else that had gone beyond 6 months bf)

Biskybat - my DS used to shout BOOB at the top of his voice, which I used to find really embarrassing! I generally try to distract him (haven't fed in public since he must have been about 7 months old, other than on a plane recently at 20 months). I went through a phase where I was trying to cut down daytime feeds where I told him that booby was only for bedtime (we have regressed on this a bit lately though!) and for going 'sleey-byes' and this has now turned into requests for 'booby-byes' which I normally reply to as 'oh you want to go BEDDY-BYES do you?!'. I find this a LOT better!

Thank you, BT! Yes, the received "wisdom" is that you breastfeed for six months (if you must - as was said to me by a hospital GP!), then you get them "off you" and onto follow-on (with a great sigh of relief). It saddens me greatly that any sort of allowing a baby to grow away from his mother at his own pace is seen as pandering or weakness on the part of the parent.

PPP - I also thought that you only bf for 6mo before I had ds - happily I had MN to properly inform me otherwise

Hunker - I do sometimes get the vibe that society considers the baby stage an inconvenience, hence all the pressure to get babies to sleep through, sleep on own etc.

Ds is still fed to sleep, and doesn't sleep through the night but I've accepted he'll do those things when he is ready. However when I mention in passing about this, other mums looked shocked and I'm sure they are thinking that I'm doing something wrong.