How much do you eat to keep up with breastfeeding?

[alux]

I started this thread because of Mears' one about topping up feeding being the kiss of death for b/f. I don't know if it also applies to swapping a b/f with formula as I am new to this b/f thing so advise me if you can.

I am happy to b/f exclusively but I am getting to the point where I find I can hardly keep up my caloric intake to keep me and dd happy - at 9 wks. I find I have to eat up to 6 times a day to keep up with demand and as she is getting older I am getting hungrier.

One day: 2 weetabix + milk at 4 am. 2 doorstops of brown bread & 2 eggs and bacon at 8 am. geobar mid morning. Lunch of cheese filled pasta at 1 pm. I sometimes add extra olive oil for the calories too! oatmeal and raisins at 4 pm and can't remember yet what at 7/8 pm. I buy Complan drink supplements (250 calories per portion and I make it with about 300ml of full fat milk say another 150 - 200 calories) and have one almost every day when I only eat 4 times a day. 2/3 glasses of juice too. (almost no junk food as I never cared for it.)

I am never sated and eating so much is getting old. Hoping to cut out a mid day feed before her long nap and supplement with formula as I do at night. I pump and store one night time feed. Stopped it once but have recently restarted.

Oh, I am back at my weight before pg. - 50 kilos - under 8 stones.

Alux I am like you, 50 kg. I ate LOADS when bf dd. Its just our makeup obviously.

Loads of carbohydrates are good. I always had a big bowl of porridge of breakfast with full fat milk and molasses granules. Still do! It really fills the stomach.

Do you eat much fruit and veg.. you did not mention anything. Important nutritionally, though not so many calories of course.

A good filling drink for you complan is one banana, yogurt (bifidus is good against yeast infections so best imo) complan, molasses granules (I get mine from health shop... am pretty much veggie so its a great iron and calcium fix etc etc). REALLY FILLING. If you have a hand blender (which is great when your babe starts eating all those purees - then it buzzes up in seconds.

Fennel tea is good for encouraging milk supply. Fluids are so important when breastfeeding. Sheila Kitzinger in her book ´Breastfeeding´says drinking large quantities of fluid in the evening may make your breasts swollen and uncomfortable by morning. Forcing yourself to drink excessive quantities ultimately reduces the milk supply! So good to drink when thirsty but not push it...

She also says it is a good idea to eat some protein in the morning after no food overnight. And that you will need to eat regularly during the day otherwise you get hungry.

mears, I was expressing the 11 am feed because sneakily I knew that I still did not want to give up b/feeding yet - and was 'just in case-ing' I wanted to change my mind - and was stashing it in the freezer.

Guess what, I weakened after less a week and put her back on the breast for all her feeds.

DD is now 12 weeks old and my little heart celebrated as I never dreamed that I could b/f for this long. It was a target I doubted I would reach even before dd was born.

Yesterday she had her jabs and was rather irritated with the world. I made her comfort suck - I suspect that also for me. Last night dh tried to give her her 10 pm feed by bottle and she staunchly refused it from him and me. I gave her the breast instead and she snuggled right down.

I go back to work f/t when she is nearly 20 wks. I doubt I can deal with expressing at work as I teach and found that stressful enough before baby was in my life.

I am considering easing her into bottle feeding. Can you extraordinary ladies here help me devise a plan? When ought I start in earnest to wean her? Is it feasible to b/f only say morning and night feeds or will my supply just whittle away in days b/c of lack of stimulation otherwise. She currently demands a night feed around 3 or 4 am as well.

I think dh secretly can't wait as I have put myself thru a lot of 1st-time-mummy-angst over this b/feeding business. Though I add that he is also proud that I have stuck it out so long.

Papillon: I really like fruit and veg but shamefully eat less than I know fully well I should. I am trying, trying, trying. I think I get at least 3 out of 5 portions per day but know I can and ought to do better. There: confessed my catholic guilt trip

gosh: sorry that was so long. hope I didn't bore.

Lovely post Alux. Still absolutely green with envy at your appetite and thinness. Ah well.

fwiw aloha: I always wished I had curves. Still do. It was well into my teens (like 16) that I was still occasionally mistaken for a boy and at 19 someone thought I was 12!

Alux glad things are going well for you both!

Interesting thread - I'd forgotten about the appetite thing when breastfeeding. I remember having a stash of food and muesli bars in my bedside cabinet for night-time snacking while feeding. I ate constantly from morning to night - it was GREAT!

I had a very hungry DS that has been exclsuively BF. He was born on the 25thC for weight and rocketed up to the 75th in 3 weeks. I have a lost a ton of weight, and my biggest weight loss point was between 4 and 6 months (he was particularly bad at sleeping then). He was/is a very fussy baby so I was burning loads of calories just running around keeping him either entertained or pounding the streets to keep him asleep!

My diet was pretty similiar to yours except that I was eating choccy bars in the afternoon. I also had (still do) half a tub of Ben and Jerry's before bed. I too found the constant effort of eating tiring (bizarre!).

It's up to you if you want to stop BF, but it's not just BF that's causing you to lose weight. Running around after your baby and getting up at night burn a whole lot more calories than you probably realise.

that was a crap, 'no bloody help at all' post wasn't it?

Shame you don't like junk food - jammy doughnuts are packed full of calories. So are avocados. But the jammy doughnuts come in packs of 10 from Tescos...........

I think adding a single Krispy Kreme donut to your daily intake would probably double your calories without any real effort.
Sigh. I'm still exclusively breastfeeding my 99th centile baby at 23 weeks and still v fat.
with these bosoms I'm certain nobody thinks I am a boy!

I think adding a single Krispy Kreme donut to your daily intake would probably double your calories without any real effort.
Sigh. I'm still exclusively breastfeeding my 99th centile baby at 23 weeks and still v fat.
with these bosoms I'm certain nobody thinks I am a boy!

I worked out that a full packet of jaffa cakes contains the 600 extra calories you are supposed to need every day in the first few months. It never got tired for me

Re. feeding at night - it is so much easier if you can do it lying down. I bf ds3 every 1 1/2 - 2 hours at night (don't ask me why I let him get away with it though!) and wasn't particularly tired because I fed lying down. Might make it easier if you put an extra pillow under dd to get her in the right place as it were.

DD's feeding has levelled off and so has my appetite. As highlander said, I found the constant eating tiring. the routine was find food, eat, feed dd, find food again. Sometimes I'd be feeding dd at 3 am and desperate for her to finish so that I could go feed myself! Only eating about 4 times a day now. I have discovered the joys of Bounty Bars (dark version). Also highly recommend Green and Black's Darker Milk Choc. YUM.

I ate so much in the early months of bf... Lost all pregnancy weight pretty quickly. I fed both DS1&2 for a year, my appetite slowed down a bit but I still live for my food - although I always have done I suppose.

I always hated feeding lying down too, never felt comfortable. Agree with Mears that it is parenting that is exhausting, not necessarily BF. For me BF was much easier than bottles, am too lazy to get up in the middle of the night & sort a bottle out so I never even tried. And DS2 fed every couple of hours through the night until about 8 months (!) so that would have been a nightmare! I just remember sitting there feeding in the dark, trying not to fall asleep with DS2 at the breast - not easy!

The anaemic thread was interesting as I recently found out that I was anaemic (a year after birth of DS2). Not convinced it was the source of my huge appetite though as I've always eaten a lot. Ate the same with DS1 and wasn't anaemic then.

ooh Alux - you love all the same dark choccy bars that I do! what excellent taste you have!
It does get better, although I'm looking FW to the day when I actually feel full! (DS has just turned 10 months). At least I don't feel starving in the middle of the night anymore - that went at about 6 months i think.