For those of you who breastfed during a pregnancy......

[RenderMeSpeechless]

I am breastfeeding my 6 month old DD and have just found out I'm pregnant again . I have found it impossible to lose a single pound of my babyweight while feeding this LO, and therefore am heading into the pregnancy 2 stones heavier than I would like . My question is, what are your experiences of pregnancy weight gain while breastfeeding? I am hoping to try and maintain my present weight for as long as possible!

I think it varies and people will experience different things. My first pg I put on about 2 stone, lost it again quite quickly while breastfeeding, put on about the same, maybe a little bit more, during the 2nd pregnancy (still breastfeeding) and have lost most of it again (now tandem feeding for last 9 weeks).

I don't think the second pregnancy was much different from the first in terms of gaining weight, but I have probably been eating more cake.

Just to clarify, I am eating to hunger at the moment, not eating rubbish, and looking after two DC under the age of 2.5, but the weight has just refused to budge over the past 6 months - sigh.

Congratulations on your pregnancy by the way. You are going to be busy by the sounds of it! Keep eating healthy food and being active as possible (doesn't sound like that should be too difficult though!) and I'm sure you won't pile on too much if you are worried about it.

Thanks Preggers!, yep I have the feeling my body is holding onto the weight just so I have some energy reserves... going to need them

I didnt gain an extra weight ( ended up same weight I was when I was pregnant with dd IFSWIM) that I had from having dd. DD was only 5 months when I fell pregnant with DS. Breast fed her until about 4 weeks before DS born. Was worried about DS not getting Colustrum (sp).

Thanks for your story Oldenglish, I'm really hoping that's what happens with me and I don't end up with even more babyweight to contend with. All you ladies who lost heaps of weight quickly while BFing are soooo lucky!

I have nursed through 2 pgs now. In my first pg I put on 17lbs, but with pg2 I put on 4lbs and with pg3 I put on -2lbs (i.e. I ended up lighter at full term than I was when I got pg). Unfortunately I'm pretty big to start with so it's not like I went down to a size 6 . With each pg I 'lost' my milk at week 14 and it came back as colostrum between 24-26 weeks. DD1 nursed all the way through pg2 and DD1 & DD2 nursed all the way through pg3 except for a nursing strike by both at around 22 weeks which is what I think delayed my milk reappearing for 2 weeks. I got pg at 11 1/2 month (DD1/pg2) and 34 months/13 1/2 months (DD1/DD2/pg3). It did get painful/tender feeding around weeks 8-14 but I worked around that by limiting the duration of feeds rather than the number of feeds.

I have heard of women who have a full supply through out pg but as your DC is under a year I think you would have to be careful that DC got enough milk from you. Even if you don't plan on tandem nursing I would definately read 'Adventures in tandem nursing' by Hilary Flowers and read Kellymom's info on pg/tandem nursing.

TruthSweet, What happened after your third baby arrived, did you nurse all three ?

DD1 self weaned when I was 8 months pg as her jaw chnaged shape to accomodate her next set of molars (she got all her baby teeth by 21 months so I was expecting it to happen early). Once her jaw started to grow it became more and more difficult to latch and it hurt for about 2 weeks before she finally lost the ability to latch at 3.6y/o.

She has asked for me to express for her which I did once and I also gave her some defrosted EBM but she said it tasted yucky.

I was willing to triandem (sp?) nurse but am glad she did wean

I fell pg when ds was 15m - one of those "hadn't got my period back yet" jobs. First clue (had I but known it) was the weight gain, and being ravenous all the time (2nd clue). ds self-weaned when I was about 14 weeks (that was 3rd clue, had I but known!) - from 4-5 feeds/day to nil in a week - and after that I just steadily got fatter, until eventually we figured it out! Never had scales about so don't know the numbers, but I sure didn't feel like I'd lost pg1's weight gain, and now I'm still feeling heavy (dd is 9m). But I'm also still bloody starving all the time so that doesn't help

RenderMeSpeechless, I have no idea on specific weight gain / losses per pregnancy. I did start off at a size 28/30 before my first pregnancy and I am around 18/20 two children and one gall bladder operation later. Guess I eat more healthier than I use to and move a lot more too, chasing them around the place

Truthsweet, Very interesting I am in a similar situation as you were, as I am tandem nursing and pregnant.

Last question...how did you know your child had lost the ability to latch ? (Sounds stupid but I have no idea)

Babieseverywhere - she didn't know how to position her tongue in her mouth. One Saturday morning DD1 wanted to have 'Bah' (as it is known in our family) but she just couldn't work out how to latch on. She just didn't know how to. I had a look in her mouth to see if she'd bitten her tongue or something and saw that she had a large space between her last molars and the back of her jaw/gum that hadn't been there a month ago. She had been having difficulties for about 2 weeks which was causing me pain but I just put it down to pg.

She was a bit upset but cheered up when DH and I explained she had grown up so much she had grown out of having Bah as she had left toddlerhood behind. DH cried as it was the last of her being a baby gone and she was all grown up

Thank you so much for sharing your experience with me TruthSweet, you've really reassured me that my weight doesn't have to get out of hand. Yes, I do plan to tandem feed but will definitely have wait and see what the supply is like. Very interesting, thanks again.

that's ok glad to be of some use! Let us know how things progress and good luck with your pregnancy.

Thanks from me as well, TruthSweet

I gained 5 stones with my first pregnancy and then three and a half with my second. But I don't attribute the lesser weight gain to breastfeeding during my pregnancy. I think it was far more to do with having a child to run around after. I certanly lost the wght much faster the second time.
Congratulations.