Start Breastfeeding again?? Can't decide :-(

[Louise85]

Hi, I'm new to the forum, but really just wanting some other moms advice, as am very lonely and isolated - noone to really talk about this with... I have a 2(nearly 3)year old, and a 6 week old...kinda stopped breastfeeding baby about 1 nearly 2 weeks ago (because of painful thrush - this seems to have cleared now), although still express twice a day (7am & 10pm)... we decided to go onto formula, and he is so settled on it, and it does allow me to get more sleep and he's in a routine - so all is good - EXCEPT, I can't stop thinking about starting again and getting him back to being mostly breastfed. Because I have the 2 year old, I can't spend few days pumping, and I don't have any other support etc. My other half is happy with whatever I decide - I just need to decide. Why do I miss it so much and do I have the strength to try again (and is it worth it!!???) Has anyone else been through this or have any advice or suggestions - am I being silly and should we just stick with fomula??

Sorry, I have no experience of this, I didn't want to read and run though. Had you thought about mixed feeding and then seeing how it goes? I haven't mixed- fed either so hopefully somebody who knows what they are talking about will come along soon! I understand how you miss it, breast feeding took me by surprise how much I took to it! If I were you I would have plenty of skin to skin with baby (as much as you can with toddler around) and take baby's lead! Good luck!

And YES I would say it's absolutely worth it!!!

Hi - there's a breast and bottle feeding MN page - post there - loads of great advice and support. It's good for you and baby and sounds like you're missing it - good luck xx

I would say go back to breastfeeding, as in the end, it is so much easier. Because baby is so young and you stopped so recently, you should be able to match his need again quite quickly.

Might be worth popping along to a local breastfeeding peer support group to get some emotional and practical support :)

Put baby back to the rest, and do lots of skin to skin. Offer the breast before each bottle you give, and gradually reduce down the amount you put in the bottle each time.

If you go back to it now you can stop at any time of your choosing and you could end up feeding for a long time and gaining an awful lot of pleasure from the experience. That's without considering the benefits to you baby.

If you don't try again now you won't have that choice later on and may regret not giving it another go.

I would go with keeping my options open if it were me but I speak as someone for whom BFing came very easily both times.

There is lots of advice on the Kelly Mom website about how to increase your supply amoungst other things so that might help. I would go for it, I love breastfeeding and have fed through agognising thrush in the past. I'm currently trying to up my supply due to weight gain not being quite enough and am feeding every two hours in the day. My supply has definitely increased over a couple of days. I think it might be quite tough but not impossible.

Yes - try with just the first feed of every day to start with.

I stopped BF for about 5 days when LO was 10 weeks old. Just couldn't do it anymore (had awful PND)! But then I decided to give it one last go, and ended up EBF for 3 months.

Thanks for all the advice ladies - I decided to try again and had a great day Yesterday, but last feed was so painful again (for 2 hours afterwards), so think the thrush is back again :-( I'm off to the doctors this morning for more meds, but not sure I can get through the pain and starting up again (think I have PND as well - so not a good combination!!).

Ouch!

Has your baby been treated for thrush too? Would that be appropriate?

Louise - please post in breast and bottle feeding :)

You may not have thrush at all.