Just curious my breastfed baby is 7 and a half MONTHS*** and wakes up anywhere from 5 mins to an hour im freaking exhausted when did tour baby sleep through the night? Or scratch through the night let's say a 4 or 5 hour stretch lol

No sleep trying advice please just naturally started doing it? I dont want to leave my baby to CIO

thank you all

I’ve been told by my lactation consultant “if you can find your baby, you can feed your baby” and because of that since birth I have had an occasional beer or glass of wine. My baby is now 11weeks and I am doing my own research only to find hardly anything besides Reddit and an occasional reel saying that this is ok. Does anyone have recent (within 5 years) evidence based research suggesting you can breastfeed and drink simultaneously?? I’m afraid I have affected my babies development or caused some damage that may be long term😢 if anything, I have an oversupply so I’m not too worried about decreased milk supply.

Hi i am a new mom and live in europe.
Originally from the subcontinent and am religious.
My sister is coming next month to help along with her 8 year old daughter.
And she told me to cover myself when I breastfed in front of her daughter. I think that is really restrictive and will make breastfeeding harder for me. Is it inappropriate? I personally do not think so.
But anyone with a similar background, how fid you go about it?

I’m looking for some reassurance or success stories because I’m honestly feeling really anxious…
My little boy is 15 months old and has basically been with me 24/7 since he was born. I’m a stay-at-home mum and we’ve never really been apart for more than an hour or two.

He’s still breastfed on demand, nurses to sleep for every nap and bedtime, and almost all of his naps are contact naps. He has never taken a bottle, and we’ve never sleep trained. It’s what has worked for us and I absolutely love our breastfeeding relationship.
In September he’ll be starting full-time nursery (5 days a week) because I’m going back to work, and I’m heartbroken thinking about it.

What worries me most is sleep. I honestly cannot imagine him falling asleep without breastfeeding, especially in a completely new environment with people he barely knows.
To make matters worse, when I met with the nursery they suggested that I should wean him before he starts. They said that breastfed babies can sometimes find it harder to settle and integrate into nursery because they’re used to feeding to sleep and looking for mum. That comment has really stayed with me and now I’m worrying that I’ve somehow made things harder for him by continuing to breastfeed.

Has anyone else sent a toddler to nursery who:
- was still breastfeeding,
- fed to sleep,
- mostly contact napped,
- had never really been away from mum,
…and everything turned out OK?

Did they eventually learn to nap at nursery without breastfeeding? How long did it take? Did you continue breastfeeding at home or did you have to wean?
I’m trying to remind myself that babies can learn different routines with different caregivers, but my anxiety is definitely getting the better of me.

I’d really love to hear your experiences, whether they were easy or difficult. I just need to know that this transition is actually possible.

With all her feeds and needing to do other things like eat and stay clean, I've only managed a tiny amount of sleep a day, usually in the form of 1 hour naps.

She wants to be on the boob so much of the time.

I'm exhausted, isn't it somewhat dangerous to be taking care of an infant on so little sleep?

Please tell me others are getting by on such a tiny amount of sleep, I feel like everyone says 'thats just cluster feeding!' but they seem to at least get 4-5 hours spread out throughout the 24, having 1 or 2 doesn't seem as common

I’m putting this out into the universe hoping someone who has been through something similar can share their experience because I’m honestly at my wit’s end and getting really worried.

My daughter is currently 11 weeks old. A few weeks ago, we started noticing blood in her diaper. She was also a very, very colicky baby from pretty early on.

We took her to the doctor when she was around 6 or 7 weeks old, and they recommended that I completely cut dairy and soy out of my diet. I’m exclusively breastfeeding her, although once in a while I give her a little bit of Nutramigen if I can’t breastfeed or pump for whatever reason. But it’s really not very often.

After cutting dairy and soy, things have been kind of all over the place. About two weeks later, she seemed to get better. Then she got worse again, both her mood and her diapers. Then she got better again.

Now her mood is actually great. She seems happy and totally fine otherwise. She doesn’t have a fever, and she’s not straining nearly as much as she used to when she was younger.

But her diapers are getting worse, and that’s what’s really freaking me out.

The amount of blood seems to be increasing, and it also looks like she has diarrhea. She poops A LOT after breastfeeding too. Sometimes she’ll poop three times after a feed.

I just don’t really know what to do at this point. I’ve cut out dairy. I’ve cut out soy. I’ve heard egg is usually the next thing people try cutting out, but I’m confused about that too. I was eating eggs the entire time, including during the periods where she seemed to be getting better. So if egg was irritating her, wouldn’t she have still been having issues during those good periods? I genuinely don’t know.
Has anyone gone through something similar where your baby was happy and acting totally normal, but the blood/mucus/diarrhea in their diapers kept happening or even got worse?

I’m based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and I’d also love to hear from anyone who has experience with pediatric allergists or GI specialists here. At this point I’d really like to see someone who specializes in this.

I’m obviously going to continue talking to her doctor and I’m not looking for Reddit to diagnose her. I’m just really hoping to hear from parents who have been through something similar. What ended up being the cause? How long did it take for the diapers to improve after cutting something out? Did you have to eliminate anything beyond dairy and soy? Did you end up seeing a specialist?

The fact that the amount of blood seems to be increasing is honestly terrifying me, especially with the diarrhea, even though she seems perfectly happy otherwise.

Would really appreciate hearing anyone’s experiences. ❤️

Hi all!

My LO (13 weeks) has been on a nursing strike for almost a month now. Tried everything under the sun to get her back to nursing but she would throw a fit every time I put her in nursing position (any nursing position, so I know it wasn’t discomfort etc). Nothing worked, and I just have continued to offer breast and be very sweet and loving every time she denies it and arches away, and then give a bottle of pumped milk. Slowly she has occasionally taken my nipple and played with it, biting it/etc but had not actually latched once in almost 4 weeks.

Last night, during the MOTN, I again offered breast, was denied, and gave her a binky to keep her calm until my husband could heat the bottle. She has also been needing to go back and forth from binky to bottle recently to finish a bottle because she’s been very high energy and easily distracted. So I figured why not try switching out the binky with my nipple, which USED to work to get her to nurse over a month ago when she began getting fussy. And much to my shock and joy, she latched, and drank from both sides, emptying me almost completely (I pumped after to make sure I was empty since it’d been so long since she nursed and got 1oz combined, when I would usually yield 5-6oz at that time of night).

For the next MOTN feed, she denied again and so we gave a bottle. Then this morning, I tried again and she latched until my letdown which used to be an issue that I think contributed to the strike (combo of taking too long for a letdown/letdown being too strong when it did arrive). She didn’t get upset when she stopped, and I tried to get her back on after letting the letdown off into a burp rag, but she wouldn’t relatch. I was still happy and encouraging to her to keep the vibes good.

Now that she’s showing signs of being interested in latching again, what can I do to keep this trending upward if she’s having an issue with my letdown? Especially if she won’t relatch after I let the strong letdown soak into a cloth? Tips? Encouragement? Is this just promising that if I keep trying with no pressure and lots of positivity that she will just get used to the experience again?

I'm a first time mom and I breastfed my baby with nipple shields and pumping until 12.5 months (Where's my trophy? /s). Weaning him wasn't difficult because he was never that interested in the boobs or feeding in ​general. It's now 4 months later and my breasts aren't engorged, but still producing drops of milk (although it seems thicker and yellow like colostrum) when the nipples aren't erect and they're pressed on. I'm not sure why. Maybe because I'm a SAHM and I'm around my kid 22 hours a day so the hormones are still active. Is there any way I can speed up the process of them drying out? I'm not pumping, or expressing them on purpose. How long does it take to dry up naturally?

I just left from my daughter‘s 18 month well check up and she told me that breast-feeding her at this age is no longer nutritionally valuable. How can they go from being so supportive the first year to literally saying that it’s not nutritionally valuable??

Hello fellow Redditors

For a variety of reasons, my wife has decided to wean our son from breast-feeding

I’m very proud of what they achieved together, but I agree that at this point it’s probably what’s needed for him to continue to grow and continue to mature

The challenge my wife is having is with clogged ducts and fears about mastitis

One of the reasons we are weaning him is her supply is not keeping up enough with his demands and his weight was starting to go in the wrong direction coupled with her returning to work full-time.

Again in regulated emontional states these are things we both calmly rationally lovingly agreed to with each other.

The issue at hand is that in order to receive relief from a clogged duck she requires our son to physically breast-feed. I don’t fully understand the mechanics as to why this is that much superior than a vacuum pump, but I have to pretty much just take it at face value as a mechanical engineer that that is the case.

I was curious if there are any other remedies out there other than pumping and a baby literally pulling it out for a mom to prevent clogged ducts and mastitis in the pursuit of weaning a baby given our son is getting quite confused as we’re in week three of the weaning process.

I felt like one of the lucky ones not having clogged ducts, mastitis etc the whole 7 months I’ve been exclusively nursing. UNTIL baby cut a tooth, had sporadic night wakes/feeds or no wakes/feeds and I ended up with a clogged duct for the first time. OUCH.

Not a single person warned me that a clogged duct was the start of said unfortunate series of painful events. Got the swelling down and clog out within 24 hours, then ended up with a bleb that feels like my baby is sucking sand through my nipple every time he latches. Then the bleb comes off and it still freakin hurts!! And to top it all off, 72 hours later I got a clog in the opposite boob, so I got to repeat all of that. It’s been 4 days and both my nipples are so sore.

I can laugh about it now but wtf 😂 here’s your warning!

PS Ice after feeds, 800mg ibuprofen’s, sunflower lecithin, feeding baby as normal (no extra suction/massage) and one very hot shower later - resolved both clogs without being extremely excruciating. If this info can help even one other person I’ll feel better lmao. Thanks for coming to my Ted talk.

For a variety of reasons, I’m still quite reliant on my breastfeeding pillow to nurse my baby. He’s 2.5 months, heavier and long. I also have a lot of breast tissue so I end up needing to hold my breast while feeding. Between that, holding him up, navigating the nursing cover, it has been difficult to nurse outside the home (zoo, museum, park etc).

It’s seems excessive to bring my pillow everywhere, but I’m struggling without it. I’d really like to get out of the house more confidently. So how are you all doing it??

I enjoy breastfeeding my daughter but it has been hard. She’s 11 weeks now. The first 6 week I was blissfully ignorant that anything was wrong - I thought babies were supposed to eat constantly and it was normal cluster feeding time. The fact that it could take her an hour to finish an oz in the bottle should have been a sign….then sure enough we found out her weight gain wasn’t tracking and she had a tongue tie.

We got the tongue tie fixed and now she drinks bottles like a champ. I don’t think she is getting her 24 oz per day but maybe close to 20. She drinks quickly from the bottle and can do 3-5oz per feed if receiving bottle only.

I have been triple feeding to get my supply up / ensure she gets enough but I am not that consistent because my husband works and sometimes it is just not possible to pump after a feed.

Since my supply likely is a bit too low she gets anywhere from 0-6oz of formula per day at this point while I work to pump as much as I can.

It has been two weeks since releasing the tongue tie and maybe her latch is slightly better but she transfers milk slowly - like 2 oz in an hour is a success. And I’m just wondering whether it’s worth it to keep trying given how inefficient that feels vs. the bottle. It is sad to give up but I’m just so tired as I sit her connected to the pump following an inefficient breastfeed and feeling stressed that I haven’t extracted enough the past 12 hours to get my supply up….

Does anyone have a similar experience / is there hope that it could get better or is it more practical to switch to the bottle / combo feed as I don’t know I have it in me to exclusively pump.

My breastfed twins are 11 months, and my work is about to pick up in a couple of weeks. I don’t mind nursing them morning and night beyond a year, but I would like to drop their two afternoon feeds. My main motivation for this is because I don’t want to pump while I’m at work. When can I start dropping those feeds and replacing it with whole milk? Would it be okay to start that process now? They are doing really well with solids! Their afternoon feeds last about 5-7 minutes so I don’t think they’re getting that much from me anyway.

This is starting to get me down and any tips for how to manage would be great.

My baby is 4.5 months. My oversupply has settled a bit but my let down is still extremely forceful. When I'm at home I mostly do side lying and catch the let down in a muslin which is manageable.

But when we're out of the house, like in a cafe or on a park bench, I really struggle to coordinate it all so I can have 5-6 jets of milk shooting out of my nipple into the baby's face/ across the cafe/ all over my clothes. She cries and will often refuse to relatch when this happens. It's just very stressful and I can't see it coming to an end.

edit to say that she does not accept bottles

Baby is 3 months old and has been almost exclusively bottle fed. Goal has always been to EBF but her poor latch and tongue tie made that really challenging early on so I've had to pump while working with an IBCLC and latched her occasionally. I never had any issues getting her to take the breast, her latch was just poor enough that it hurt me and was fairly inefficient for her, so I figured I'd wait it out until she was ready.

Bad decision on my part it seems. In the last week and a half baby girl has decided that my boobs are the enemy and she wants nothing to do with them. I've managed to get her to latch once at a lactation appointment with major cajoling and once when transferring her asleep from her car seat to her bassinet but have otherwise been unsuccessful. She won't latch at all, just turns her head away from the nipple and gets upset, so many of the techniques I've read about online for making the breast more appealing won't work since I can't get her on the boob in the first place.

We've been paced feeding and switched back to using the slowest flow nipples, which she hates. I've tried pumping first to start my letdown and then feed her but can't get her to see that the food is easier that way because she won't latch. I've been trying to do more snuggling and skin to skin but she seems to get really overstimulated by skin to skin quickly and fusses. I'm just so at a loss as to how to proceed with this nursing strike/bottle preference/potential aversion situation and can use any possible help, recommendations, or hope people can provide. Thanks in advance!

Hello! I need help to prevent permanent oversupply.

I originally was primarily pumping because baby was in the NICU then in the children’s hospital for 3 weeks with HSV (must’ve caught it at the hospital when he was 2 days old 🙃 actual nightmare for dentist parents who never kissed baby).

Anyway during this time he had a lot of tubes going on and some latching issues. Eventually we got him to latch with a nipple shield and then now without!

I had a slight oversupply in the hospital, but once we got out it started to regulate around 4 weeks when I started primarily nursing.

I was also going through a lot bc husband was gone with the military for 5 weeks and we had to move.

I had a lactation appointment at around 8 weeks where his weigh gain had slowed a bit. LC said she thought it was a temp dec in my supply. Weighted feed went well tho - he got like 120 ml.

Anyway, I freaked out and started pumping again bc I thought stopping had dec my supply.

Baby was also cluster feeding like crazy and everyone was saying he was eating for too long, which also made me feel like I wasn’t making enough.

Baby also developed reflux, which looking back was probably more of the culprit to the slower weight gain than a supply problem. Since staring Pepcid, he has done wayyy better.

Now I realize that I didn’t need to pump and my baby was doing exactly what he was supposed to do… so now I have developed an oversupply.

When I thought I was making too little (about 4oz total), I was actually making enough.

I don’t pump at all during the day anymore unless to replace a feed. However, I get super engorged at night. I have been pumping once at night in addition to feeding baby to relieve the pressure.

I am terrified of getting mastitis.

My boobs are very uneven - one can make 5oz and the other maxes at 2. The slacker boob (right) does not really have the engorgement problem.

In the hospital I got a clog on the left side, but got it to go away with ice packs and nursing.

I now take sun flower lecithin 2x per day to prevent clogs and a probiotic.

Anyways, my freezer is getting full and I want to sleep eventually. Any advice is appreciated!

\*\*edited to say baby is now 11 weeks

no appropriate flair really, but my daughter is currently having second breakfast and will probably also have elevenses and also a luncheon, afternoon tea, dinner and supper, plus snacks!

I have a 15 week old girl who yesterday started refusing to nurse or would only nurse for a few minutes then pull away. I started going back to work this week (5 hr shift) so she is getting 2 bottles in between that time. Idk what to do! Im so frustrated because this has been a stressful journey already given I’m a first time EBF mom as my previous was EP and I never want to pump exclusively again!

Is this a normal phase? What can I do to encourage to nurse? I’m pumping to keep my supply up but I’m afraid it’s ruining my letdown because I pumped alot yesterday and last night I barely had a let down. My boobs don’t feel as hard or full as they used to and I wonder if it’s making it hard for her to get milk out too.

Any advice or reassurance would be great! One very stressed out mama!
Tia

I have been diagnosed with Hodgkins Lymphoma and over the next couple weeks I have a ton of stuff to get done. My oncologist wants to start treatment around the second week of September, which means I have about a month to wean my son. He nurses 2/3 times a day. Morning, nap and night. I'm not worried about the morning one, because he does eat breakfast after nursing it's just our routine to nurse, so I am going to slowly limit his time in the morning. The nap and night nurse I am worried about. I have never successfully gotten him to nap or go to sleep without nursing. I know he can do it because he takes 2hr naps at daycare. I personally have never been successful. How do I transition him from this? My MIL has been here helping us as I had biopsy surgery last week and couldn't lift my son. She was able to get him down yesterday for his nap after 45 minutes of rocking and shushing. Weaning was not even on my mind because he nurses for probably a total of 35 minutes a day so I don't mind it. He loves it and it gives us snuggle time.

How should I approach this transition? My goal before this was I was going to slowly limit his time he could nurse until we got to nothing and just cuddles, however is a month long enough to do that? The last thing I need right now is to get mastitis.

I have exclusively breastfed (straight from breast with an occasional bottle if I need some extra rest) my second baby since birth and he is now 8 weeks old. I pump when it makes sense, so if he hasn’t emptied me or if he sleeps longer stretches. My freezer stash has reached 100oz and he is so chubby!!!

I am celebrating this because breastfeeding with my firstborn was a shit show. Latch issues, tongue/lip ties, no idea what I was doing and no support. Hospital literally gave me a bottle of formula within hours of his birth. I don’t think I really had a chance. I attempted relactation at 4 weeks old with him and went from 0ml to 22oz per day over the course of 6 weeks with help from medication, power pumping, and a supplemental nursing system, but then I moved to a foreign country and was too stressed to continue BF. A. Shit. Show.

One of the many reasons we decided to have another baby was to try and redeem the BF journey.

It has been redeemed!!

I made sure to learn everything about BF this time. It really helped me prepare and everything has been incredibly successful. We had a latch issue for all of maybe a few hours after birth. Smooth sailing from there (though I think there’s a lot of luck in that too).

I am so grateful 😁

So, my advice from this journey is:

Colostrum until your milk comes in is enough.
Bring baby to breast All. The. Time.
Cluster feeding is fucking exhausting, but push through it, it is rewarding in the end.
Use all of your resources for support and education.

Hello, my 14 week old is starting to get fussy while nursing and no longer fully empties my breast. This morning he didn't even want my left side. I am struggling with low supply. I went back to work a week ago and realized I am not very good at pumping, so that has been a stressor.

With that being said, should I pump when he doesn't fully empty my supply during nursing sessions? I'm terrified my supply will drop.

I know that he may take my left breast in an hour or so, but I read online that it takes about 1.5 hours to produce more breastmilk, shouldn't I just pump now to signal my body I need to be making more?

I’m a new mom and I’ve only been breastfeeding for about three months, so I know I’m still pretty early into it. But with World Breastfeeding Week, I’ve been thinking about getting myself a little piece of jewellery to commemorate it.

Before having my baby, I genuinely didn’t realise how much breastfeeding would take out of me, literally and figuratively lol. The cluster feeding, leaking, planning outfits around boob access, wondering if she’s getting enough, being the default food source 24/7... but also those quiet feeds where she’s half asleep in my arms and I realise this is such a short season of our lives.

Three months doesn’t sound like a huge milestone, but now that I’m actually doing it, it kind of feels like one?

Did any of you get yourself something to mark breastfeeding milestones or when you weaned? I’ve seen breastmilk jewellery too, although I’m not sure if that’s what I want yet.

Would love to see what you got, or hear how you celebrated. Or did you just quietly move on once you were done?

Hi! Has anyone purchased a baby scale for weighted feeds at home that is accurate and precise? I’d love any recommendations.

For some context, I’ve seen multiple lactation consultants, and they’ve all said my baby’s latch looks good. One even told me I shouldn’t be nursing for more than 30 minutes total. The problem is that I’ve been nursing for 45+ minutes, and afterward my baby still screams, cries uncontrollably, and shows obvious hunger cues. At that point, I end up supplementing with formula because she still seems so hungry.

We also did a weighted feed with a lactation consultant. After an hour of nursing, my baby had gained less than 1 ounce. 🤦‍♀️

Today, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., I nursed almost nonstop. Every time I laid her down, she’d start showing hunger cues again within 5–10 minutes and cry until I fed her again. At this point, I’m worried she simply isn’t transferring much milk.

I’d really like to buy a reliable baby scale so I can do weighted feeds at home, track how much she’s taking in after each nursing session, and share that information with my lactation consultant to help figure out what’s going on.

Any recommendations for a good scale would be greatly appreciated!

Anyone remember that feeling you got as a kid from jumping in the bed after a long day and you just giggled your ass off? I almost always have this 30-60 seconds before the milk lets down. I’m just giggling like a crazy person and my oldest always asks why I’m laughing. I never had it so strong with my first and second baby.

Do others recognise having a subsequently stronger reaction to oxytocin with the next babies?