Tips to help me breastfeed for longer second time round.

[bm1980]

Hi there,
I only managed to exclusively breast feed my now four year old son for two months before switching to combination feeding and eventually just formula feeding. I'm 23 weeks pregnant with my second and I am determined to breast feed for longer this time! Does anyone have any tips for sticking it out? I've spoken to friends and family about it and they've suggested using a dummy between feeds, co-sleeping (I was too scared to do this first time), and expressing more so my husband can help out at night. I hated expressing last time! I would really like to hear what people think about co-sleeping. Thanks in advance.

Thanks Micah, that's great to know. I can't be going through all that again, especially with DD to look after too.

I must admit I hated the weigh in crap and then associated stress, especially when we started weaning.

In my experience the health visitors were generally crap. They didn't look at s thriving, crawling baby that looks a picture of health and instrad concentrated on the line plotting and red book. My DS is a little chap, always has been and he's absolutely fine!

God sorry for typos!

Not read all the comments but yes you can do it... And it can b much easier than formula feeding would be.
Ds - never latched - i expressed for 8 weeks then switched to formula as i was exhausted.
Dd - arrived when ds was 21 mths... No issues with latch/feed.. I thankfully didnt get mastitis, she fed until 16 mths.... No formula but i did express for rare occasions i was out. She slept in moses basket in our room but loved to co-sleep aswell.

I think the main difference comes as with dc1 you dont know nething really about having your own newborn (its different to holding sum1 elses isnt it) but with dc2 you are much more confident and the baby seems to know this. I'm expecting dc3 and plan to b/f.

I took a look at the bed nest yesterday and it does look good but pretty expensive. I might look to hire one for six months. Has anyone else done this? I had my DS1 in a Moses basket by my bed until he was six months and was planning to do the same this time or attempt co-sleeping. DS1 never had a dummy although I think he would have loved one as he has always sucked his thumb. I'd only use a dummy this time round if I thought it would help with bf.

I hired one. It was easy and smooth to organise. Only the wooden bits have actually been to another family, you get a new mattress and fabric sides each time. They arrange pick up at the end.