Stopped feeding - VERY sore. Please help.

[lou031205]

Background: DD3 is now almost 11 months old. Over the last few months she has been feeding more and more in the evening and night, to the point where I was getting absolutely tiny amounts of sleep. Reluctantly I made the decision to stop feeding her. I have 2 other girls 4, and 2, and the 4 year old has SN. I just can't go on with the sleep deprivation. (DD1 wakes regularly as it is).

DD3 hardly fed at all yesterday day time, so I decided that it was as good a time as any to stop. SO she hasn't had a really proper feed since around 6 am yesterday. We are 36 hours in, and although a little upset, she is doing much better than I anticipated.

However, I am now in agony. I feel so sore, I had a warm bath earlier, and have squeezed a little milk out but don't want to stimulate supply. I feel a tad shivery, although I am not cold. Can anyone advise.

(Please don't advise feeding DD3, it really won't be kind for her to have got so far & then have the confusion of being allowed a feed again )

Express just enough ( either by hand or pump) to feel more comfy without stimulating supply, take some paracetamol for pain, and carry on with warm bath/shower if that helps.
Well done you for feeding for so long!

Cold turkey stopping, isn't a good idea, it sounds like your breasts are full. Have you taken your temperature to make sure you don't have an infection? Try expressing to relieve the pain, tomorrow express but a little less, the day after express even less and so on.

Hi thanks for replies. No temperature. My breasts are very full. I knew that DD3 was sucking a lot, but didn't anticipating getting this engorged so quickly.

I will try expressing a little.

I know that it isn't a great idea to go cold turkey, but she simply couldn't accept that she couldn't feed ALL night. I turned away from her slightly one night last week, and she scrabbled around with her hands until she found my nipple, and tried to pull it into her mouth. She had been feeding for over 2 hours at that point.

Maybe express every few hours and then lengthen the ammount of time between epressing. I would think your suply would dry up wihin a week or so. Not an expert though so maybe someone better informed might come along to offer further advice.

Well Done you though for feeding so long x

Poor you! If she's not feeding properly then she's using your breast as a comforter so expect alot of tears. Stick with it and reclaim them!! It's best to withdraw gradually, there's less pain this way (I wish someone had told me this, I also went cold turkey so I feel your pain)