Benefits of breastfeeding for 12 months vs 9 months

[helenlouisey]

Hi- wonder whether someone can help, have exclusively expressed milk for mr DS (long story but was 7 weeks prem & with severe tongue tie combined with very short, squat tongue) anyway initially wanted to get to 6weeks, then 3 months, then 6 months, which I've now got to, and debate with myself & my husband whether to continue to 9 months or 12 months. Several things are making me want to stop at 9 months including the time, faff etc of expressing, am off on holidayt for whole of july and driving there so wondering how will express in the car when travelling for 16 hours, also not sure how easy will be to express when spending the days by the beach. Also my breasts are still huge, gone from F cup to J cup and am now starting to get bit depressed / back ache etc.

Could some one advise of added benefits of breast feeding to 12 months vs 6 months so I feel like I've made a fully informed choice.

Thanks

Hi Helen, firstly well done for going 6 months considering the issues!
Can answer the expressing in the car bit as I do this at the moment. Get a pump you can either plug into the 12v socket or one that runs on batteries (I have medela swing) Once I have pumped I put the bottle in a mini fridge (was about 20 quid form Argos) and it stays cool until I arrive back. The one time I forgot my fridge I put the bottle in an extra large coffee cup and got Costa to fill it with crushed ice! It stayed cool for the 3 hours I was driving back
Re breasts aching, it might be worth getting refitted to make sure you are having the correct support [ouch emoticon]
Here are the benefits in age order www.breastfeedingbasics.com/html/Benefits.shtml just scroll down to 9 months etc.
And here for after 12 monthswww.kellymom.com/bf/bfextended/ebf-benefits.html
Good luck

helen - I am still feeding my 9 month old DD3 and from about 6-7 months it does start to get a lot easier as you start to introduce solids and cut down on the BFing.

I think you have done fantastically expressing for 6 months, you should feel very proud of yourself.

Have you thought that maybe mixed feeding would be a route you could go down?

pros for feeding to 12 months include;

• not having to do formula at all, straight to milk
• it gets easier once solids are introduced so you'll need to do alot less pumping
• the added immunological benefits
• further protection from breast and ovarian cancer for you... the protection is dose relevant.. ie, the longer you feed the better your protection

there is also the slight issue of whether he'll take formula... dd took expressed milk happily from the bottle but hated the taste of formula and spat it at me at 6 months. she turned out to be intolerant anyway and soya milk went down even worse! i eneded up feeding til 12 months and quite enjoyed the last few months of it.

have you tried to see if he can latch on recently? some babies with tongue tie can become better latchers as they grow so might be worth seeing if he's interested in trying.

Thanks everyone, have a lot to think about. Can I ask a very vain question but did your breast start to return to their normal size the less you fed / expressed? or only once you stopped completely? thanks again

can't help i'm afraid, been continuously pg or bfing since 2004 so have no idea what happens when you stop!

Hi Helen, yes my breasts did get smaller after the 6 month mark. Everything seems to settle down a bit more after that point and get a bit easier
Not sure about after stopping feeding completely as dd was 2.6 and I was pg again by then! (ds now 4m so they are big again)