Breastfeeding

[CandyCane007]

How long did you breastfeed for?
Did you start feeding by expressing at some point?

8 weeks with 1st and 5 days with second. I expressed whilst pregnant with #2 Because of the difficulties I had with my first. Both times were horrific.

18 months for dd1 and now 17 months and still going for dd2. Have found it really easy both times (with a few issues at the start but easily resolved). Your milk just comes in a few days after baby is born so no need to express anything. When dd2 was born she just instinctively attached herself to my boob and stayed there for about 45 mins, milk came in properly quite soon after. Give it a go, even a few weeks is good for you and baby.

Two years each. Once established (6-8 weeks in) it is a lot easier and a lot more convenient. I express sometimes if I'm really engorged or need milk for weaning foods. Look at Kelly's Mom website for helpful advice on how to exclusively pump or increase your supply.

Still breastfeeding at 6 months. The hospital tried to make me express in the early days to boost my supply. They are idiots! The best way to boost supply is to let the baby suck. Trying to express so early (and unsurprisingly getting nothing) was upsetting and disheartening.

Still going at 12 months. Didn’t even try expressing til DD was about 10 weeks? She didn’t like taking a bottle so I only expressed on the rare occasion that I was leaving her more than an hour or two.
When she started drinking water from a cup we found she’d take milk too. Now I’m back at work I express about 4oz that she has from a cup during the day.

20 months and counting. Was difficult for first few days before my milk came in, though a lot of that was worry over nothing as I didn't know what to expect.

At first DS would feed for hours and I was convinced he couldn't be getting anything, but he was. That's just how they built up supply (no one warned me) and by 10 day's he'd go up from 50-75 percentile.

I expressed 1 day a week from 8 weeks, when I started doing KIT days, and 4 day's once I returned to work at 9 months. Was a bit of a faf but not unpleasant. I started with a hand pump but switched to electric pretty quickly and that made it much faster. Even so I was happy to give up pumping at 1 year, and DS just has normal cows milk if I'm not around now.

Best of look with it, I don't think anyone knows how it will go until they try, try not to get yourself to stressed. If you try and all gos well great, if not ff is fine too.

I can't express for toffee. Tried in my first two pregnancies, didn't happen.
DC1, bf for 5 or 6 weeks or so
DC2, bf for 3yr 3m (staunch bottle refuser)
DC3, bf 15m and counting, I will probably aim for weaning around 2y and see how long it takes me to get them finished 😊

Still going at 1 year and 4 months. First two months were really awful, but easy since then (and I knew it would be less faff in the long run!).

I was encouraged to express on hospital and also made to feel crap about it (asking 'cant you just express a bottle' before my milk had come in - and no one had explained the milk coming in thing so I didn't know why expressing wasn't working!). So didn't express again til 3 months or so, when baby fussed about the bottle (and DH said it was 'too stressful' for him to try, despite having seen what I'd been through ) so gave up.

14 months so far: the first few weeks/months were awful and didn’t actually manage to breast feed for a few weeks (baby was tube fed).

I do think expressing is over-rated! I still do it most days, but just enough to make his food with as he has a dairy allergy. At the start I had to do it 8 times a day because of the tube feeding, but once that stopped I stopped the expressing.

6 months and then had to stop as needed to take antibiotics i couldn't take while breastfeeding.

Had no issues, supply established by about day 10, started expressing and bottle feeding expressed milk once a day from 2 weeks. I actually started expressing as my milk was coming in to reduce the engorgement

So my baby's dad hasn't wanted my baby since I announced my pregnancy. It got to the point where he made me really ill throughout it with stress from his verbal abuse.. he made my life really unpleasant, since having baby he's somewhat changed, his still disinterested but hasn't been as verbally abusive... his mother however is over the top and very pushy, she's acting like my child is her own and like everything I'm doing is wrong.. she's guilt tripping me for living apart from my baby's dad (his choice) and telling me everything he's going to miss out on and that's my fault... they are unpleasant people, and I don't want them around me or my son or have anything to do with us.. how do I legally go about this? He's on the birth certificate

Sorry!!! Didn't mean to post on here