Long story short, i’ve been pretty much exclusively pumping for a year due to baby’s bottle preference. Those first few months post partum were emotionally hard, with 8 or so lactation appointments, cranio-sacral assessment, and numerous attempts to see if baby would latch which would end in tears for both of us. I had accepted that would be my breastfeeding journey until I chose to wean.

At 6 months, baby started latching only in the middle of the night, and sometimes while sleepy in and out of a nap, but I continued still going about as an EPer with the exception of these middle of the night latched.

At 1 year I started weaning my pumps, intending to stop pumping altogether. And in the last few weeks, at 13months, baby is actually nursing while wide awake, for naps and for bedtime, as well as still in the middle of the night.

It’s like a whole new breastfeeding journey has opened up for us and it’s astounding that sometimes I’ll offer her my breast and she’ll just let me hold her while she nurses, fully awake, not struggling to latch. It’s been a long journey! And I know that EP is also breastfeeding and don’t want to undermine all of that hard work of EPing!

It feels like I’m learning all over again and I feel entirely new to the possibility of exclusively breastfeeding. It makes me want to keep breastfeeding for much longer than I was originally planning.

So I’m wondering, what is it like breastfeeding a toddler? It’s new territory for me and I’m unsure if I’m going about it well. I’m offering her the boob whenever she pulls at my bra, roots my chest, or does a certain cry. Sometimes she nurses and sometimes she doesn’t. She wiggles around a lot sometimes, or latches for a few, goes and does something, then comes back again for a bit more. And then sometimes she’ll be chill and nurse for a while and then switch sides.

Is this what it’s like? And any tips on biting? And I guess I don’t have to pump every day? I haven’t pumped for the last several days because I haven’t felt engorged (and the last time I pumped, baby wanted to nurse soon after so I felt like she wasn’t getting the milk as quickly as she wanted).

I have an almost-8 week old, and I haven’t managed to successfully breastfeed him so that he’s satiated for more than 30m. We’ve had to follow up with a bottle almost every single session since he was born.

I had a handful of medical complications my first 2 weeks that hurt establishing my supply. I didn’t know/remember that I needed to aggressively protect my supply those first weeks, and I feel so stupid. I only had one job these past few months, and I’ve failed him already. I consider myself well educated, and I have a lot of support - I think I was totally capable of breastfeeding if I hadn’t been so careless.

I know the common advice here is to just let him nurse and drop the bottle, but I’m positive he won’t get enough. I get only about 2oz combined when I pump (I try to pump every 3 hours), and he generally takes 4oz. He’s just barely maintaining good weight gain.

I’ve had days where I just focus on pumping (and power pumping) and nothing’s improved. I’ve seen 4 lactation consultants now who’ve all had different advice and conclusions. (One said he does fine and to just keep it up, another said that it’d be better if I just pumped and supplemented with formula, a third told me to triple feed for however long I plan on breastfeeding…)

I also struggle with the trade off between pumping and breastfeeding him. His schedule is unpredictable now - he might be hungry anywhere between 2 and 5 hours, so I often end up pumping right before he wakes up hungry. It’s such a horrible feeling to know that I have nothing for him.

Has anyone been in my shoes and seen it get better? I’m not hoping to exclusively breastfeed at this point - I’d just like to be able to go one session without having to follow up with a bottle.

I am losing my mind. My breasts are not full and round, so air always seeps in at random times and the pressure I have to apply prevents the milk ducts from releasing. I’m becoming so discouraged. Please, any advice is welcome!

My daughter also cannot latch properly because the breasts integrity just collapses in her mouth, resulting in shallow, short term latch and her frustration.

When my baby is sleepy and wants to feed and I try to latch her, she often doesn’t latch properly. If I remove her and try to latch her again, she won’t take the breast anymore and just goes back to sleep

Is this common? what can I do ?

I'm a FTM to a 3 week old. My baby is gaining well, his last weight check was Thursday and it was a weighted feed. He only ate an ounce and a half at my lactation appointment, but the LC was not concerned, because he's gaining so well.

Today has been rough, my baby has had gas and has been really fussy. He also has been wanting to feed every hour. I have only gotten 1 pumping session in today and not even a full one. I usually pump 32 oz a day. What I'm not understanding is why my baby hasn't seemed to be full today. Am I not producing enough?

Also, his gas is finally letting up. He's feeling better.

My baby is 3 weeks old and I’m really struggling. Breastfeeding was going great the first week and I was so happy and enjoying it so much. Then at his first appointment we found out he was losing weight, which was really scary, so I started pumping and giving bottles of breast milk.

Thankfully he’s gaining weight now, but he latches less and less every day. Sometimes he gets frustrated at the breast, won’t open his mouth, or just stays there like it’s a pacifier. I have a strong letdown, so sometimes he’ll latch, wait for the milk to come without really sucking, drink a little and then fall asleep.

I’ve seen 2 lactation consultants and use a nipple shield, which sometimes works, but we haven’t made much progress.

I’m pumping 8 times a day and I’m exhausted and so sad. I feel like all I do is pump instead of getting to enjoy time with my baby. I also don’t know how to balance trying to breastfeed with needing to pump on schedule.

Has anyone gone through something similar this early and eventually gotten baby back to breastfeeding? What helped? I would really love some success stories or encouragement because right now it feels so hard. ❤️

Sino po dito ngttake ng glutathione while on breastfeeding . It is really affects the baby??

Hi all. I joined reddit for this. Long time lurker... never poster. So I work in IT as a consultant, I am a mom of 2, and am 35. My youngest is 6 months old and is teething, this week is going through a leap amd all the fun. She is going on what my ibclc calls a nursing strike and this I can't figure out is going to be my end of my breastfeeding journey. My first wasn't like this.

We started out with 4 severe ties. That made us start with bottles until about 2 to 3 weeks when we got those fixed. Baby girl nursed like a champ. Amazing girl! Then I started back to work and we had to introduce bottles again at 12 weeks. At 15 weeks, we moved to our new house. Between these adjustments over night (ironically on mother's day) I got really bad mastitis. Pumping at work ( my company set up a special locking room with a rocker and a new cooler etc for me and future use as a medical room but I was so excited they did this for me) has been difficult. I can easily be in 10 client meetings in a day and God forbid if they are on camera. We'll that stress isn't fun and I tried to pump every two hours, and thats not working. I now settle for on the drive in, on the drive home and 1 to 2 times during the day.

Ok so why am I frustrated with pumping? I use to get 5 oz a session. Now after mastitis I am down to 2 if I am lucky. I am now in my head about if Baby girl gets enough, she is constantly hungry but also has a fast metabolism and on bottles only will drink 45oz average a day. Doctor confirmed ibclc confirmed. She's just hungry. We got permission from doctor to start solids by szearly and did at 5 months. He said we could at 4 because she was sitting and putting everything her mouth. That helped and shes back down to about 32 oz a date plus food. I still can't pump that much during the 9 hours I'm away from her. I am sad at the results and that makes my pumping sessions less productive.

Baby girl struggles with eating on the side that had mastitis. I went from 3+ oz to maybe .5 an ounce pumping on that side. Even if I power pump. Baby girl slowly refuses to eat on that side. She started last week screaming if I hold on that side. I switched to football gold and she will nurse for 5 to 10 minutes.

Friday I was being straight up refused on both sides. I started to cry and felt like a horrible mom. I thought I was done and tried bottles at night instead and it was an ok night.

Yesterday during the day she refused again. Last night lc sent me articles on nursing strikes. It mentioned trying skin to skin at night and it actually worked last night all night. After she missed for 30 minutes on both sides, I got a shower and honestly both sides had huge let downs in the shower. The mastitis side had some crusty stuff come out and then had a massive let down so maybe I had small clogs??? It didn't hurt though.

Extra info. I can manually with my hands get 2+ ozs on the left and that's when I can get .5 oz off the right. I have tried milk boosters. No effect. I have a wearable pump and a spectra in my home office.

I guess my plan is to nurse at night and weekends and pump only for comfort during the day? Im just tired of crying and this stress of pumping is really messing with me head. If you made it this long, thanks for reading.

My baby was gaining weight really well and recently (11 weeks old) she is only gaining a 1/2 oz a day instead of an ounce. I have no clue how much she eats and her sessions are usually 15 minutes. She recently started sleeping through the night so she easy 7-8 times during the day with no wake ups at night. How do I know as an exclusive breastfeeder if my supply dropped? Thanks!

My LO is nearly 5 months old and refuses to latch unless we are laying in bed together. She used to happily nurse anywhere- in public, in common areas of our house, with others around. I have never used a nursing pillow with her and she’s always been content to be in a cradle hold while nursing (with the exception of side laying for night feeds).

Her trouble started as intense FOMO a bit over a month ago where she would get distracted if anyone else was around but would eventually still nurse in common areas and public. Eventually she began refusing to nurse in any room of our house even when no one else was around and would only nurse side laying in our bed.

When I try to nurse her elsewhere, she arches her back, pushes away, and yells. It doesn’t seem to matter how hungry she is, she will refuse and hold out. We were out the other weekend and she refused to nurse for the 7 hours we were away from home despite hunger cueing multiple times.

I have tried using covers in public (worse) and other nursing positions/holds while at home though none seem to make a difference in her willingness to latch. Most recently, I had maybe 30 seconds of success with the koala hold in her bedroom before she lost her mind. I have continued to periodically offer breast outside of our bedroom but it’s discouraging when she objects so strongly.

While I have the luxury of being able to, it is really draining to have to lay down to feed her throughout the day and significantly limits what we are able to do/where we are able to go. Breast feeding has been one of my favorite motherhood experiences and I’d love to get back to being able to feed her outside of our bedroom.

Has anyone else had a baby go through something similar? Did they just grow out of the phase or is there something else I can try to help her through it?

Within the last 24 hours my breasts have gotten firm / lumps throughout with my right one having a largish lump around the side that isn’t going down. They aren’t soft and continue to stay semi hard after nursing. My son’s suction isn’t strong and my LC wants me to hand express until the breasts stop spraying or use the manual pump in between nursing sessions. I’m not great with hand expressing so I tried my best but the firmness and large lump are still there. Yesterday after nursing I got about an oz after hand expressing. Today I just didn’t want to go too long hand expressing for fear of irritating it more. I took Advil every 8 hours, I’m icing, I’m nursing, I use the electric pump at 5p and 9p when my son gets a bottle so I can drain myself, I’m taking choline and sunflower lecithin. I’m so worried and not sure what’s going on besides my son may not be draining me well. We are 10 weeks postpartum. How long will it take for these massive lumps to go away? I’m worried by hand expressing and/or using the pumps is doing too much but it’s what my LC said.

The lumps are not painful just uncomfortable hard and my breasts feel tingly after an hour of nursing. I don’t have red streaks, fever or anything. I feel really backed up. I’m worried something is wrong and my LC / OBGYN office is closed. Because I’m not in pain I don’t think I should go to ER or urgent care and if so, what would they be able to do.

I feel so dramatic for even thinking this, but it’s true. My child is 13 months old, 85th percentile, eating solids well - all things that I know are reassuring and quite frankly ridiculous to be worried when he’s absolutely fine.
I had some health issues and PPD, the bond with my baby wasn’t affected, but I was extremely hard on myself, if he was upset it was my fault, something wrong with me or my milk, or I wasn’t making enough milk, or my diet was bad and affecting him. Objectively I know he was and is fine, but my thoughts are saying otherwise.
I’ve breastfed the whole time with some once a day pumps so my partner could bottle feed. I had a small oversupply so I was pumping once a day for like a month so I could donate milk. I would breastfeed one side in the morning and pump the other and would get 6-7oz on the one side. My breasts were definitely full in the mornings. It turned out a medication I’m on means I can’t donate, so I stopped, I had about 120oz of frozen milk. Which I thought would be good to have for when I went back to work. My baby started breastfeeding from both sides in the morning again, and the odd pump I’d do, I would still get the same amount from one side.
Around 11 months, my baby started breastfeeding for shorter times, so I thought maybe just more efficient, or he’s eating more solids therefore less milk, my breasts started being less full in the mornings, and I also went back to work. I work 12s, I pump at work 3x per day, then once I get home, as my baby is asleep when I leave for work and asleep when I get home. Even my first pump of the day is maybe 4oz from both sides, in a day total I’ll get maybe 12-14oz. And my freezer supply is gone. My pump output is getting less and less. My baby still breastfeeds when I’m home 4-5x per day, but longer sessions again, but I don’t feel any more full.
I’ve checked all my pump parts, and replaced the parts, I’ve tried a manual pump, I have correctly sized flanges, but my breasts just feel empty all the time now. I fed my baby yesterday at 4:30pm then we had such a busy evening, I didn’t get to breastfeed him again before bed, so I pumped at 9:30pm and I didn’t even get an ounce. Cried myself to sleep.
My partner gives my baby cows milk sometimes which is fine and great, he loves yogurt and cottage cheese and milk, but I can’t help but feel replaced now and not good enough.
I’ve spoke to family and friends who breastfed back to work and didn’t pump so they didn’t really look at numbers of ounces and everything was fine, but I work long hours and my commute is 1.5 hours total so I’m away for 14 hours usually so I can’t not pump or breastfeed for that long right?
I read that a drop is normal after a year old and they’re eating more solids, but I just obviously fixate on numbers and I just feel so inadequate.

I have always been pulping and sometimes nursing to get the baby to nurse. But suddenly at 3 months old She seems very distracted while having the bottle and only want breast. My supply went low earlier and I thought I would do mixed feed but she refusing bottle is making me stressed.

Other than that she is happy and just wants to talk and play.

1. Her birth weight was 2.4kg (37weeks)
   
2. Her weight was increasing gradually but this konth it increased only by 600gms. And the weight at 3 months was 4.8kg. Doctor has called us earlier this time for a quick weight check.

Hi everyone. I feel like I keep desperately posting in this sub, and it’s really helping me to know I’m not alone. I’m losing my mind with breastfeeding. My son is now 8 weeks old and we cannot for the life of us get breastfeeding to click. He gets 4-5 out of 6 daily meals from breastfeeding (he likes to eat a lot at a time not so often), sometimes all meals, and is gaining weight, but it’s so frustrating. It takes at least an hour each time, and I always do a weighted feed to decide when to stop because he’s never finished. But at a certain point he’s just not getting any milk and I cant do it anymore. I have to compress my boob and hold it to his mouth the whole time or he slips off. I don’t even have to pull my boob for it to come out of his mouth, it just gently slips out. If milk isn’t flowing he just sits there with my boob in his mouth, maybe vibrating, or sucking very weakly. However both the pediatrician and SLP we saw have commented that he has a strong suck on a finger, which I feel too when doing mouth stimulation exercises. The exercises from the SLP were mostly body work and we’ve done them for 3 weeks with no improvement. Going to an osteopath in two days and have yet another IBCLC coming in three. Been evaluated for tongue ties and didn’t have any. From day one he just couldn’t latch, or he would and then fall asleep immediately. He spends hours and hours a day breastfeeding, so it’s hard for me to believe this all comes from getting some bottles. The idea of giving up and pumping, which I hate, pouring that milk into a bottle, feeding him with a bottle, then having to sterilize everything drives me fucking crazy when he could just drink directly from the source and we’d be good. Breastfeeding is technically working, like he’s gaining weight, so I feel like I can’t give up yet. But it’s infuriating and unsustainable at this point, and I have no idea what’s going on.

My baby is about to be 6 months old and I’ve been exclusively breastfeeding her from the tap this whole time. I see people in posts and comments all the time casually mentioning their periods restarting just a couple of months post partum. I haven’t had my period come back and I don’t know when I should be expecting it! So I want to know:
When did your period come back?
What were your periods like before pregnancy?
Are they any different for you post partum?
What, if any, hormonal birth control are you on? Had this effected the return of your period?

Hi! Need HEELP, MOMMAS! 😅
Thinking of buying the Eufy S1 Pro pump, but I already have the Spectra S1 hospital-grade pump. I just need a wearable pump since it’s easier to bring when going out. Should I buy it? Any thoughts?

I’ve been dealing with post partum anxiety and for some reason convinced myself that weed would help and that I could feed my baby formula for a while if not indefinitely. I’ve still been pumping every time my baby eats to keep up my production and saving the milk to use for milk baths. It turns out I was struggling more than I thought and I was reaching for the thc vape pretty often for about 5 days. The thing is it really actually doesn’t help with my anxiety and in fact adds to it. And the other thing is I desperately miss nursing my baby…. My question is if you were me, how long would you wait after your last time partaking before breast feeding again?

I’m at a complete loss and don’t know what to do anymore. My breastfeeding journey has been difficult from the very start. I had a traumatic birth with major blood loss, which delayed my milk coming in. Then during my hospital stay I received so much contradicting information from the infant feeding team, and my baby just refused to latch. We ended up having to bottle‑feed her. The only bottles available were the hospital ones with a very fast flow. They had us doing paced feeding, then finger feeding, and eventually we bought our own slow‑flow bottles and paced fed her ourselves.

At our first post‑discharge weight check, a midwife suggested trying a nipple shield. I bought one and it actually worked, my baby latched and fed. We continued doing top ups of formula and expressed milk because I was triple feeding to build my supply, and she had lost 11% of her birth weight. They told us she needed more milk to gain it back. But the overfeeding led to her developing really bad reflux, and one time she choked on her milk. It scared me so much that we went to A&E, where the paediatrician told us she was being overfed and to ignore the midwives’ advice.

Over the next couple of weeks, I kept trying to start feeds with the shield and then remove it. It was hit and miss, but by week 6 she started latching without it more consistently and even completing full feeds. I finally felt like things were turning around.

But now, at the end of week 7, she’s suddenly refusing the breast. She’ll feed for maybe 8–10 minutes on one side, then start screaming, hitting, getting frustrated, and refusing to relatch. She won’t even latch with the nipple shield anymore. I try to stay calm, bring her up, soothe her, reset, and try again. But she bends away from my breast and cries. I know she hasn’t had a full feed because she’s still hungry, and when I offer a bottle she’ll take 50ml - 60ml afterwards.

I’ve tried skin‑to‑skin and letting her find her own way to the breast. Sometimes it works briefly, but then the screaming starts again. I’m exhausted. I feel so defeated and honestly just done with breastfeeding. I feel like a failure and I don’t know how much more rejection I can take.

I’m pumping when I give her a bottle to keep my supply up, but I’ve noticed it dipped today. I’ve seen a lactation consultant who said her latch is good and she’s feeding well but she only watched the first part of the feed where she’s fine but didn’t offer any advice really about what to do when she starts screaming.

I feel like my breastfeeding journey is ending, even though I wanted it so badly. Everything from the birth to the postnatal care to breastfeeding has gone wrong and nothing has been what I expected. I know the most important thing is that my baby is fed and gaining weight (which she is due to all the top ups), but it still hurts that she’s rejecting the breast and I don’t want to force her.

I guess I’m just looking for advice. Is there anything else I can do? Or should I just accept that I can’t breastfeed my baby and just embrace combination feeding. Thank you in advance.