r/breastfeeding

I’m in need of any advice. My baby was born early (not premie) and my milk came in late so we started off with formula and gradually cut that down to only once in the night and breastmilk otherwise through pumping. I’ve been trying to feed with a shield but only once or twice a day per the lactation consultant’s advice. They told me he’s too small to latch without it still and I have to just wait till he’s bigger for it to click.

That’s all fine and I’m mostly sharing for context.

The issue I’m having is that he goes from sleepy/starting to wake up to screaming and inconsolable within the span of five minutes. If I try to feed, he’s either too tired and disinterested or he’s screaming and nothing I do can calm him to get him to latch. I’ve tried feeding him an ounce or so first then trying to latch, have tried going between bottle and shield, have tried expressing into the shield, have tried a syringe alongside the shield—none of it is working. It’s like as soon as I lay him on the breastfeeding pillow he knows what’s coming and screams. I’ve mostly done football hold and cradle hold.

Is there anything else I can try? Fwiw he does sometimes latch and feed but it’s random and I never know what I’ve done right so I can try and replicate it (maybe that’s part of the issue and there is no pattern lol).

Pls help feeds make me feel so stressed and anxious 😭

My 11 weeks old has gone 8 days without it. I’ve done all the massages and kicks and warm baths. Nothing has helped. He does not seems to b in pain and eating as usual. Plenty of wet diapers, also passing gas. Has been trying to push for days but nothing comes out and then he just gives up and goes to sleep.
I bought the windi to help and tries to use it but didn’t really do anything. This may be use error as I was too scared and didn’t push it all the way in.
My pediatrician suggested and I bought prune juice and was going to give it to him but my LC said don’t give anything other than bm till 6 months.
I feel like 8 days is too long,b what should I do?
Any thoughts,m/advice are welcome.
TIA

Trying to get my head around babies self weaning as my mum said I self weaned at 7 months. ( I am her second child, she bf my brother until 18 months)

My daughter is currently 10 months and has not once refused the boob, I really cannot imagine her refusing anytime soon, she feeds as much as when she was 6 months and she eats so many solids too!

My MIL also said she weaned her daughter (also second child) at 7 months and that her last feed was ‘selfishly’ for herself at that point.

I’m so confused about this, do you think we genuinely weaned ourselves at 7 months or was there pressure at that time in the early 90s to not bf for too long? Even now it feels like there’s an invisible boundary of 6 months and people start getting weird that you’re “ still breastfeeding”.

I am thinking about this a lot as I’m feeling some external pressures about ending my bf journey and I’m not ready and I know my baby definitely isn’t.

I was so worried that birth control would mess up my supply and I’d need to stop nursing. Well, jokes on me because I’m 25 weeks postpartum, 5 weeks pregnant, and all I can find is that my supply will dry up during pregnancy. 🙃

I know there will be positives with having babies close in age (and I’ve had pregnancy losses previously, so I may be worrying for nothing) but I’m so so sad that I won’t be able to nurse my current baby as long as I hoped (current baby will be 14mo when new baby comes, was hoping to nurse until 24mo).

I never expected to love nursing as much as I do — I look forward to getting home from work to nurse my baby and don’t mind when she’s a boobie barnacle on fussy nights. I really dread losing supply and losing that connection.

Anyone with babies close in age have any tips on nursing while pregnant, especially when their older baby was under 1?

Baby started daycare 3 weeks ago, and is now almost 5 months old. I was loading the fridge today and was astounded to see that the bottles for other similar aged infants were 6-8 oz each (formula). Our baby feeds 2-3 oz at most, and at daycare he’s so distracted he tends to eat 2 or even 1 oz every 2 hours or so. He also very clearly communicates “I’m done” (pushes away bottle or pops off breast and starts looking around).

I’m not worried about him since he’s 91st percentile, and as his pediatrician calls him, “a good eater”. It’s still astounding how much this differs between babies and between breast and formula. I only pump around 3-4 oz each time, so would never be able to supply that much anyway!

Interested to hear the volumes your breastfed babies eat via bottle!

My 4m old will unlatch to smile up at me and it's adorable but I find myself saying

"You can't smile and eat at the same time sir"

It's heartwarming and also feeds take like 30 minutes now 😅 I'm glad my kiddo loves me

I have always been so self conscious and for that reason i have only been breastfeeding at home. Also do to my breast size (38k/L) i just feel like people will be looking at me lol. Well long story short, yesterday i decided to face my fear! While at the mall my son started crying and i knew i had bo choice but to feed him! I decided to sit down, held him close to me and just pulled the boob out lol so many men and women were walking by and some would not stop staring lol! Sometimes i just want to pull it out and be like “is this what you want to see!!” So they can move on lol!!!🤣

How long did you have to wear 'em?

When did you know it was time to stop?

My baby is only 9 months and I plan to go for two years minimum. I see on social media people celebrating being done, but when I think about being done I get so sad lol.

Will i eventually grow tired of breast feeding and want to be done? Is then when I should stop? Or should I just go for as long as me and baby want?

My due date is in about two weeks so I’m getting more anxious about meeting my baby. I guess it’s normal, but I’ve been having crazy moments of crying over the idea that I won’t be able to breastfeed. Physically I have something like flat or inverted nipples so I started wearing these nipple formers from medela. Once I take them off I see how my breast is formed but it lasts only like 15 mins and then it’s back to normal so I’m guessing there are no real long term effects of this practice :/ under the instructions of my midwife I also tried to express some colostrum but nothing is coming out, just some white specs which look more like butter than milk.

the thing is breastfeeding is super important to me for many reasons. My mom never breastfed me because it hurt her too much and from what I can gather I had a really tough baby time being sick all the time and super underweight. She also had breast cancer and I read that a big preventative factor is breastfeeding. So being able to breastfeed has tons of benefits for both me and my baby. Theres also the huge factor of being able to bond with your baby. So every time I think or hear the idea of me not breastfeeding I just fall apart. Ofcourse I don’t want to leave my baby starve but I don’t know how to overcome the emotional pain.

Did anyone else get severe pain from feeding? Not just latching but the whole process of feeding. I just had babygirl yesterday and have fed about ten times, so I know there is room for it to get better, but one of my nipples started bleeding and the other one is in constant pain. I’ve tried pumping due to the amount of colostrum produced and the side that is in a ridiculous amount of pain was hurting the whole time too. Nothing has made it better and I planned to combo feed formula and milk but now I’m debating just formula feeding. Any advice or experiences? Does it get better.

I have to sleep with a bra on and am constantly soaking through my breast pads. How do you all manage to not be a leaking mess throughout the night?

What it says! If you’re DDD or greater,

1. what positions do you like to nurse in*
2. recs for bras compatible with nursing / pumping

*and do you need to sandwich hold the whole time because your boob is double the size of your baby’s head? Just me??

I am probably a 32H right now but who’s counting

I’ve been exclusively breastfeeding my 9 week old. I have a couple of appointments coming up and I can’t take baby with me. She feeds often, every 60-90 minutes. She needs to be fed while I’m away from her.

I’ve decided to pump only when I miss a feed! I don’t want to regularly pump. My goal is to be primarily breastfeed.

Are there any other moms out there that do this? Do you have any tips? Suggestions? Anything that can make this easy for me and for baby?

I’m waking up every 2-3 hours to feed 6.5 month baby and feel like I’m slowly losing my mind. She used to sleep a 5-7 hour first stint until we hit the 4 month regression. Tried co sleeping, but honestly slept even worse. Moved bassinet into the closet for some separation but didn’t seem to help. Don’t love the CIO method but getting to the point I need to do something. Won’t go back to sleep without nursing to sleep…

How do I get her to sleep longer at a time?? Do I ever get her to sleep 8-12 hours straight while breastfeeding or would I always need to pump?

I’m 3 weeks postpartum and still very much in the “figuring out breastfeeding” phase. My husband and I were home when his mom and sister came over to see the baby.

I was nursing on the couch with my shirt draped over for coverage , nothing dramatic, just doing what I normally do. MIL comes in, says hi, sits right next to me, and starts touching baby’s feet and arms. Sweet, normal grandma stuff. Then she leans in closer to baby’s face and, before I even register what’s happening, she lifts my shirt straight up.

My breast is just… out. In front of my husband, in front of his sister. I froze for half a second before yanking my shirt back down. She genuinely looked startled and shocked and confused when she saw what she saw lol

My husband immediately says, “Mom, what are you doing?! She’s feeding the baby!”

And she goes, completely unbothered, “Oh it’s okay! Seen one boob, seen them all!”

My husband: “Doesn’t mean she wants you to see HER boobs!”

She got quiet and looked a little embarrassed after that. Husband and I talked about it after and we’re pretty sure she genuinely didn’t clock that I was breastfeeding under there ! She never nursed any of her kids, went straight to formula, so maybe the “covered shirt while holding baby” setup just didn’t compute for her the way it would for someone who’d done it themselves…?

Still though. My brain keeps looping back to the moment she actually grabbed my shirt and pulled it up. Like what did she think was under there that made lifting it seem like the move? Was she trying to see baby’s latch? Just curious about the baby in general and not thinking at all?

Genuinely asking , anyone had a MIL (or anyone) do something like this? How did you handle it going forward?

Now I bought a complete breastfeeding blanket cover thing that snaps in the back so this doesn’t happen again when people come over and just don’t realize that I’m literally feeding baby .

I need some milk in order for my husband to take care of LO while I have some appointments. Now the issue is that this guy KNOWS when I'm pumping. That means my boobs are completely empty and I end up giving him the milk I just pumped lol. How do you manage to pump? What time is it best to do it? Any tips?

As the title says, I’m going back to work in about 2.5 weeks. I haven’t pumped one time, just exclusively breastfeeding. I am starting to get worried about how this works. I work hybrid, so will be going into the office 3 days a week. I am going to see how long I can work from home for before this happens. I’m a trainer though, so even remotely I need to be on camera for multiple hours while in training. I also feel that because I never pumped, I’m only making enough milk to breastfeed. I never feel engorged and am not even sure how much milk I can produce? Looking for advice on a couple things. I so desperately want to breastfeed AND unfortunately rely on the bottle once in awhile while I work.. my biggest fear is not breastfeeding any more. I exclusively pumped with my first and it was so so hard. I had clogs consistently, boobs were always painful and engorged and washing bottles and pump parts stinks. I do realize that will be apart of my new normal with going back to work again but if someone could please share a routine that worked for them to keep your supply up, and any recommendations on products that didn’t make your baby refuse the nipple after being bottle fed.

I’m 6 months postpartum, we cosleep, my baby feeds on demand, and the only time she drinks expressed milk is when I’m at work (two-three times a week) I have zero sex drive. Like absolutely nothing. I don’t even want to be touched. Even the idea of a peck on the cheek from my husband makes me cringe. Now, I love my husband and I want him to be happy but if I have to hear him talk about how he misses having sex one more time I’m going to fucking lose it. I’m totally okay with him watching porn and masturbating, which he does but he still wants to actually have sex. Weve had sex three times since I gave birth. So what are we doing about this?? Do I just suck it up and do it like two-three times a month or what?? I don’t know what seems worse, having sex or listening to how badly he wants to have sex. It’s like, I get it, you want to get laid but I my old body back, alone time, complete silence, and a blunt but we can’t all have what we want. I don’t know what to do anymore.

I’ve been trying to latch my daughter, but it seems to get harder and harder each day. I’m wondering if pumping still gives her everything she needs. I know that having her feed directly from the breast sends signals to my body, but I’m not sure if direct breastfeeding will ever be possible for us.