r/breastfeedingmumsUK

FTM EBF 12 week old

I was wondering if others experienced similar.

I am struggling with a bit of post partum depression.

My mum confronted me about it today and said that I need to stop breastfeeding, and I’m putting too much pressure on myself.

I live in the UK, my family live in Ireland. From the beginning, my sister, mum and dad would routinely tell me breastfeeding was too difficult and I should switch to formula so they can help.

They are very supportive but have their own lives, so I see them a couple of times a month, when they visit me or I visit them (it’s a plane journey away otherwise id see them more often).

I’ve tried to explain that I don’t think breastfeeding is the source, and if I switch to formula, 75% of my time is alone anyway when my husband is at work so it won’t change much, maybe just make things more difficult.

I enjoy breastfeeding now and am proud of how I’ve been able to provide for my baby who is thriving. I get that maybe I could sleep more if I used a bottle, as my husband could take a few night shifts. We’ve already spoken about maybe introducing one bottle at night a few times a week for this reason. I would try expressing before formula for this but even this feels like a new learning curve to figure out.

Has anyone suffered ppd and felt it alleviated after stopping breastfeeding?

I feel like this should be obvious but I'm a FTM only 5 weeks into breastfeeding and I can't work out what to wear that will work to feed in once I'm back out and about in public (I had a difficult birth so it'll be another few weeks still).

Atm I just whip my whole top and bra off but that's not gonna go down well in a cafe😂

I'll need to buy new clothes (second hand) anyway as most of my prepregnancy stuff doesn't fit, but I'd rather avoid getting tons of specialist "nursing" clothes so that I can continue to wear them after weaning.

What are people's go-to outfits?

I have a 3 month old and we have been EBF since day 1 except on day 4 where I gave him formula as he was so hungry and distressed and my milk hadn’t come in (it came in the next morning). I have been pumping since 6 weeks but find it hard to find the time to as I babywear for all naps and cosleep. Ive just started to be able to roll away at bedtime which gives me 2-4 hours to have time to do things like eat dinner with my partner, have a shower and pump. When I pump I only get on average 1.5 ounces.

We have some trips coming up and I wanted to have the option to give him the occasional bottle of formula for these days (I also have a couple of appointments I will not be able to take him to and although I have a very small freezer stash the logistics of bringing this out of the house is tricky).

So in preparation, I asked dad to give him a bottle the other night before bed just to see he would take it (he has taken a bottle from dad previously of breastmilk but I hadn’t pumped for about 2 weeks so was also reintroducing bottle). Baby absolutely loved it. Drank 4oz then I put him on my boob and he went straight to sleep with no sucking. We have also been battling very long nights having to take him to the shower and rock and bounce sometimes up to an hour. I was elated that it worked so well but also made me immediately think about giving him a bottle every night.

Dad is away for two nights so I did last night on my own. We did all the normal bedtime things, he was sleepy, and I breastfed him hoping he would fall asleep but he got irate and I feel like there wasn’t enough milk in me for him. I resorted to 3oz in a bottle which filled him up (he left half an oz) and then was calm and after about 10 mins he latched and fell asleep.

Giving him that bottle made my heart break a little bit. I am worried about giving him a bottle each night then my supply dropping but looking back on these difficult nights I’m wondering if I already didn’t have enough milk for him and that’s why it was so hard and he was so upset. It also took me back to when I gave him that bottle on day four and felt like a terrible mum as I was trying to work out for the days before what was wrong and when he had that bottle he gulped it down and fell right to sleep. I felt awful for not giving it to him sooner and also like I wasn’t good enough as I couldn’t provide enough milk for him.

For context he is a fomo baby, fights every nap but bedtimes are usually the worst. But this bottle situation seems to have changed everything…
I don’t mind giving him a bottle every night if that’s what will settle him and help him sleep (he also slept much longer stretches especially with the 4oz). We have only done this 3 nights, last night included. I also pump once I roll away but also only get my 1.5oz from one boob. The other one he nurses off fine but doesn’t engorge, he gets frustrated with it quicker and will barely express any milk pumping. I have tried different flanges and have to use coconut oil to make it bearable (also my left which has the “good supply” vasospasm and pumping can irritate it which is partly why I stopped pumping for a while).

Any advice or suggestions? It’s so hard to know what to do and I don’t want to damage the breastfeeding journey…

I look and feel so unhealthy right now. None of my clothes fit anymore, so I look like I clown wearing baggy clothes, and I'm basically wondering whether this is due to exclusively breastfeeding or whether it is something else.

I have terrible anxiety and feel stressed most of the time since having my son, I'm also babywearing everywhere (baby is 8 months and big!) so I'm sure these will be contributing factors, but I can't work out which one is the main factor. I just don't feel like myself and it's hard to dress as it is with breastfeeding, never mind when you're basically half of your old self.

For context I went up to a size 14 before pregnancy and I'm now an 8 (no scales so I'm not sure of actual weight). I used to be a size 8 in my teens and early 20s and I was so confident I would never be a size 8 again I sold all of the clothes on Vinted a few years ago.

Now I have breastfeeding clothes and jeans etc in size 14, which were fine when I had a newborn, but now they're enormous. Clothes are so expensive too when you're on maternity pay / soon to be no pay.

I know some mothers have it the other way around and gain weight, so I'm wondering if this is a breastfeeding issue or something else.

I have my heart set on breastfeeding, my only question is what do I give my baby until my milk comes in?

Hi everyone, looking for any advice on how to even out my boob size now I'm 3 weeks into breastfeeding. Beforehand my boobs were roughly the same size, and now I've been breastfeeding, one is sooo much bigger than the other.

I make sure my baby feeds from both boobs, and try to offer both boobs per feed. I track all feeds in an app so I can see by the end of the day he's fed from both boobs for a similar amount of time.

My right boob however is massive and feels so big and heavy, particularly in the morning as he doesn't feed much during the night, whereas my left boob never seems to change size or feel full - but he still seems happy to take it during feeds.

Any tips on how to even them out or why one seems to have such a strong supply compared to the other? Thanks in advance

I am currently 1 month postnatal and have noticed one of my nipples has changed shape (the actual nipple not the areola). I think this change was there in pregnancy too but I didn’t think too much of it at the time as had been very unwell and had other things on my mind.
I’m unsure if it was like that pre pregnancy or even towards the end of breastfeeding my eldest (who I fed for 3.5 years).
This is an awful description, but it’s like there’s another ‘blob’ of nipple attached to the underside of it. The texture/colour/everything looks exactly the same, it’s now just wonky as if it’s growing another nipple on itself (but I’m fairly sure it’s not actually growing/getting bigger).
Theres no changes to the rest of my breast and it’s producing milk fine.
I’ve got a drs appointment in a couple weeks, but am finding myself getting anxious about it (especially in all the night feeds) and just wondered if anyone had experienced anything similar?

My 10 month old's top teeth are coming through and, as well as making him miserable, I think it's making him change his latch due to the discomfort. His mouth is not opening wide and I can feel his bottom teeth digging into my nipple while he feeds. It is so painful. It's led to me getting a bleb and blocked ducts on one side and a blood blister on the other. I think the worst has passed of these, but my question is how to get him to sort out his latch? He comes on and off so quickly it's hard to stop him going straight into the bad latch. If I break him off he just does the same thing again and it hurts so much coming on and off.

Title sums it up. Baby won’t latch (I apparently have short nipples and he has a bad tongue tie, getting it cut today). I have been pumping every 2-3 hours since maybe day 2 postpartum when we started formula supplementation bc he was clearly struggling. I’m struggling. I want him to get breast milk. I’m not producing enough. Idk how to fix it. I’m using the spectra s1. I’ve googled settings I really don’t know what I’m doing. I’m getting 3-5ml each session, shouldn’t I be producing more by now? Can anyone lead me in the right direction?

Not sure whether to get one or not

I have had no success breastfeeding since my son was born a week ago. I have been pumping and having to give a mix of breastmilk and formula and I try to get him to latch every time he feeds but he just won't do it. I have had so many midwives try to help and it just won't work. Feeling hugely demoralized (and sleep deprived). Has anyone experienced the same?

I’m honestly at the end of my tether and really hoping other parents who’ve been through something similar can share what helped.

My 4 week old has had reflux pretty much since birth, but it seems to be getting worse as she gets older. This isn’t just the odd spit-up - she is vomiting after almost every feed. Sometimes it’s curdled milk, sometimes it’s literally fresh milk that comes straight back up the second I hold her upright to burp, like the whole feed has just come back out.

She is exclusively breastfed.

I feel like I’m doing everything I’m supposed to:
- Holding her upright after feeds (20–30 mins, sometimes even an hour)
- Offering smaller/more frequent feeds instead of long sessions
- Burping regularly
- Using a wedge under her bassinet
- Keeping her in a bib pretty much constantly because of how much she brings up
- We’ve been prescribed Gaviscon Infant sachets, but honestly administering it between breastfeeds feels almost impossible and completely unsustainable. Boiling water, cooling it, mixing it, syringing it in… with a newborn and a 17-month-old it’s just taking over my life. And she rarely takes the full amount anyway.

None of it seems to make any difference.

She now pretty much only sleeps comfortably on an incline on me or my husband. The second she’s laid flat again, she vomits. It means one of us is constantly holding her, and it’s becoming completely unsustainable.

I also have a 17 month old, and I’m heartbroken because I feel like I’m missing this time with him. I need both hands, I need to be able to function, but all my energy is going into managing her reflux, changing clothes clothes, and trying to keep her comfortable.

My GP prescribed the Gaviscon, but when I originally asked about other medications they seemed hesitant because of her age.

She is gaining weight, although I’m not convinced it’s as much as it should be.

I guess my questions are:
-Has anyone had a baby like this where it was more than “normal reflux”?
-Did anything actually help?
-Did your baby need a different medication?
-Did anyone switch from breastfeeding to thickened formula, and did it help?
-At what point did gp take it seriously and investigate further?

I’m only 4 weeks in and I already feel completely drained. Please tell me there’s a way through this.

I'd love any advice on how to wean my baby as he is approaching one years old. He is fully breast fed because he will not take a bottle, or drink milk from any type of beaker / cup / straw cup.. basically if he has milk it HAS to come from the boob! It's been hard with a busy job because I have to express to keep up my supply for him, so once he turns one I want to stop. Ideally I'd love to do it gradually so it fair for him and for me and my body, but I feel like because he is so black and white with it, it may confuse him to sometimes breastfeed (say at bed time) and not in the day... but going cold turkey seems brutal. I'd love to hear from anyone who has had similar experience and managed to wean from breast feeding with a baby that just will not drink milk otherwise. And I'm not really interested in advice about how to get him to drink milk because we have tried everything! I have read lots of things to suggest that as long as he is having dairy in his diet he can be ok without milk once he is one... thank you!

Let me start off by saying I know I've got a unicorn baby and I'm very grateful. Since he turned 3 months he stopped nursing at night and has been sleeping 7/8 night stretches without a fault. He's now 4 months old and some sleep regression has hit meaning we put him down for the night and he wakes up 2/3 times, needing a quick soothe before being transferred back to next-to-me cot...but either way, his last feed is around 9/9.30 pm and his next one is 6.30/7 am. He's EBF.

Problem is I get very very engorged after such a long stretch and I'm not keen on pumping in the middle of the night, as I'll lose sleep but also tell my body to make more milk. And a middle of the night feed isn't happening. When he's up I put him on each boob for about 5 mins which is almost always followed by him puking multiple times. A happy spit, but still frustrating, early in bed.

On weekends I managed to pump just before he wakes up, about 300 ml...which makes me think that's a ton of milk he's literally drowning on when I breastfeed him. I don't know when to stop him, I need both boobs drained so I offer both, but something tells me there is a better way to do this.

Has anyone managed to adapt their milk supply to baby's long stretches?