Breastfeeding - is it normal to crave sweet things?

[harverina]

Hi there,

I have ben exclusively breastfeeding for 11 weeks now and have found that I cannot get enough sweet things, especially chocolate and lucozade. I could eat chocolate all day every day, even during the night.

Is this somthing that other people have experienced? I am not gaining weight...I lost over 2 stone within weeks of giving birth and have maintained my weight since. How I have managed this I dont know as my eating has been out of control. Any tips on how to help this?

Thanks

harverina - yep, the alpro choc puds do definitely satisfy my sweet tooth, yum

yes haverina I do crave chocolate. My husband works shifts and once the girls are in bed I can't get out the house so I have to have supplies in!!!!
With DD1 I found the worst period of me being constantly hungry was when she was 5m, just prior to introducing solids. I could eat and eat and eat (not just chocolate) and she was a normal size. DD2 is gigantic so who knows how much I'm going to have to eat to keep this one satisfied!

yes, six and a half months old dd and I'm hungry all the time

As far as I can tell there are two types of breastfeeding women.

A friend and I are examplars of the two types. We gave birth within a week of one another.

She - skinnier than I have ever known her by 6 weeks after the birth. I haven't seen her since then (live in different cities) but fear she may no longer exist as it is now 4 months post partum, and there's only so much weight you can lose.

I - a bottomless pit of hunger, crave another dinner just after I've eaten my dinner, steal food off DH's plate, spend more on tiffins and tray bakes than I would on formula

My baby is really, really fat, so my continued plumpness seems particularly unfair.

I was bottomless pit of hunger too . I never got the thirst that a lot of women complain about, despite being perpetually dehydrated, but the hunger, oh, the hunger

At six months I seriously doubted my body was ever going to feel like mine again, and I despaired of ever losing the weight (though I was so stressed out that it was just another thing to feel terrible about not keeping up with - like the house and my diary - not something I tried to fix)

helenwombat my SIL carries extra weight when she is Bfing but loses it once she stops. It's like her body stores the fat needed to make the milk. I am the opposite and drop the baby weight quickly but find it hard to stop eating once I stop feeding! She did confess to making sandwiches to take to bed with her as she gets so hungry in the night. I've never felt that desperate but I do eat a lot in the daytime.

skidoodly your post made me laugh out loud as it is so right! I, unfortunately am the latter too. Tonight I have been a bottomless pit of hunger. I just cant eat enough to fill me up. Worst thing is, we have no biscuits or chocoloate or cake in the house and I am desperate for somthing sweet.

Despite all my moaning, I dont actually mind stuffing my face most of the day - what I do mind is my fat, and getting fatter, body. I had a C-section and my wound still hasnt healed. 12 weeks on I still have to have my wound packed and dressed every second day. My grand plan is to start swimming as soon as my wound has healed up in a bid to try and burn off some of the extra calories I am consuming.

Smac, I am now hoping that the minute I stop bfeeding the weight will fall off. You have given me hope .

oh sorry to hear about your wound haverina I had a very straight forward EMCS with DD1 but an infection ridden recovery from ELCS with DD2, it really drags you down

I have decided to just not worry about it until 1 year.

Have lots and lots of stuff going on at the moment and need my damned cake!

Thanks smac. Its getting better now and no longer infected thankfully.

Morloth I am going to do the same...will worry about it all at a later date. Breastfeeding isn't always easy so if a few bars of chocolate or a few pieces of cake help then we shouldnt be depriving ourselves of them!

Thanks everyone for all your posts, I didnt imagine that so many people felt the same way!

harverina, glad to hear your wound is doing better. I only had a few stitches and still felt like I had been run over by a bus for weeks. I can't imagine how you must feel. Def deserving of cake and chocolate.

I think the true beauty of mumsnet, at least for me as a first time mum, is finding out that not only do other people feel the same way, usually lots of them do, and with a better vocabulary than I

Very normal!

I didn't get any cravings in pregnancy, but once breastfeeding I became addicted to twix. Beforehand I hadn't even bought that kind of chocolate for years. I can't eat twix now, I totally overdid it. I also craved cake and custard, yum

Your body needs the extra energy, you should go with it IMO. I ate loads of cake, BF on demand and lost weight! People often compliment me on how much weight I've lost since having DS. I smile and say it's all down to a fantastic slimming plan called the eat-cake-and-breastfeed-diet

I didn't have cravings in pregnancy either, only after, when everyone has stopped asking if you're craving weird things and instead is raising their eyebrows because you've had your third slice of cake. It always seemed like when I was pregnant, ok, I had an excuse to be tubby, but about three months postpartum I still very jelly-belly, and was very self-conscious, especially when I didn't have the baby WITH me, because I felt tubby with no excuses.

Just another things for mums to beat themselves with, and IME, not worth the guilt.

Yeah I agree - Im not going to feel guilty anymore!