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This is a place to share your stories and experiences with breastfeeding. Articulating our victories and challenges with lactation and relating to others helps us become more confident as parents! (Please mention your home city and state!)
I weaned my baby at 8 months. I had been down to one feeding a day before weaning, which I believe helped slow the milk down (and ultimately forced me to wean as my child got impatient with the slow flow.) I experienced a lot of pain during weaning at week 2. The first week wasn’t so bad besides being full of milk. (I had developed mastitis during weaning, which was very painful for about a week after I started the meds, which my Dr. prescribed over the phone. I put cabbage leaves in my bra, and I believe that helped relieve some pressure. Heated compresses and massage also helped.) My breasts were extremely tender from weaning, which made it hard to sleep and hard to even hold my child. The milk seemed to stop after week 2. I never did pump to relieve pressure.
July 28th, 2008 at 11:38 amSeattle, WA
I love breastfeeding my 10 month old son now, but I HATED it at first. My milk came in pretty late and I had a nasty thrush infection (yeast in the nipples) that made me cry out in pain with each suckle. I saw three different LCs and finally got two wonderful pieces of advice: 1) pump every 2 hours for 48 hours and bottle feed breast milk to give yourself a chance to heal. 2) “It takes about 3 months for mom and baby to practice and perfect breastfeeding. So we struggled through, trying to stay optimistic but also having moments of “I give up!” Sure enough, at about 3 months, things got MUCH better and we were nursing like pros. Then, at about 4 months, he wasn’t gaining weight and was looking pretty scrawny so the pediatrician recommended supplementing with formula a couple of times a day. I naively took their word as I was very worried about his weight gain. Eventually, this supplementation lowered my milk supply to where I had to supplement with each feeding. The pump never yielded much milk so I couldn’t really use it to up my supply. The 3rd LC told me that I have tight nipple sphincters which would make pumping difficult but not affect baby’s intake because they are much more effective with their sucking than my Medela pump n style. I then found out about the herbal supplement fenugreek and starting taking it daily to regain some of my supply but still needed to supplement. At ten months, we are still nursing and beginning to wean down to one feeding a day. I feel much more prepared for the next child because I now realize that pediatrician’s don’t always know best and will now trust a good LC to advise me and my family on breastfeeding! Amen!
July 30th, 2008 at 5:40 pmSeattle, WA
I never realized that breastfeeding was going to be a difficult task, until I tried it! My daughter seemed to latch right on when she first nursed, and my milk came in shortly after she was born. I hired a lactation consultant a few days after she was born because she was so tiny, and I was not sure if she was getting enough milk. She helped me get baby to latch correctly, and encouraged me to stay in bed and literally nurse all day long! As a brand new mom, I found this hard because I felt there was so much to do around the house and was not relaxed. Thankfully, my husband was supportive and encouraged me to nurse as much as possible. While breastfeeding was a wonderful bonding experience (I loved holding baby so close to me, and knowing I was giving her nourishment she could get nowhere else), it was also a painful experience. My nipples were extremely tender (I used copious amounts of Lansinoh ointment). At one point, I described the pain to my daughter’s pediatrician as “shards of glass cutting through my nipples”. She immediately said, “It sounds like Thrush.” After a number of weeks of treating the thrush, things seemed to get better. But that was also because after three months or so, things usually ease up, as Nora mentioned above. Ten months later, I am still nursing my daughter, but only a few times per day. I am also supplementing with formula.
August 3rd, 2008 at 1:55 pm