BF Thread

[carrots]

Let's talk about breastfeeding here. Share questions, victories, commiseration, etc.

[carrots]

M's newest game is to latch and then push away from me with her arms as hard as she can with my nipple in her mouth. She has done this every feeding for the past week and a half and frankly, I'm feeling done. Has anyone else experienced this and had it be a passing phase? I don't want to quit if she'll move on from this but I cannot keep doing this for another 5+ months. I nurse her in her quiet, dark room as much as I can to reduce distractions.

Also I'm paranoid that it's a sign of low supply after a week of pretty low pumping output.

[Lakes]

Ah yes. Niplash. Ds did it for a bit. It was a phase. I don't remember it lasting that long. Every time he did that I would unlatch him and wait for him to refocus. He learned pretty quick that food stopped if he was too distracted. So far dd has not done this but she's a super bad pincher. My arm is one big bruise and I have a couple on my boobs too.

[Lakes]

carrots can you hold or pin down her arms at all so it's more difficult for her to push away? I've been trying to remember to give dd a small stuffed animal to hold so she doesn't pinch but sometimes I get set up and don't have it so I just grab her little hands.

[carrots]

Thanks Lakes. Im going to give the unlatching a try and see if that will cure her. I was ready to throw in the towel today but H gave me a good pep talk and I'm going to stick it out through August. Hoping your trick makes it less painful until then and maybe helps me make it longer!

[carrots]

Jul 30, 2017 17:34:08 GMT -6 Lakes said:

carrots can you hold or pin down her arms at all so it's more difficult for her to push away? I've been trying to remember to give dd a small stuffed animal to hold so she doesn't pinch but sometimes I get set up and don't have it so I just grab her little hands.

I spend the entire nursing session crushing her little body to mine. It's an arm workout haha. I'll see if I can get her arms out of the way though. I can't imagine she would be as forceful without her arm leverage! I like the stuffed animal idea for pinching!

[judyblume14]

A is so super distracted while nursing these days. I shoot my husband and big girl with dagger eyes if they come near us while nursing.

[neekoneeko]

Ugh carrots, I'm sorry she's doing that. My older daughter would beat me up every time I fed her, like I quite frequently was bleeding from her straching me and biting while pulling back like that. I ended up starting to bottle feed her pumped/formula around 9 month because she never stopped and I'm happy I finally did since I was miserable. R on the other hand is a pretty easy nurser and when she does that pull off thing I just pull her away or sit her up and she doesn't do it again because she doesn't want the milk time to end. So I guess my answer is sometimes it's a phase and sometimes your baby is a wolverine.

[ellabee]

B does that too carrots. It's so annoying. I make him hold my fingers in his hand so he can push on that instead of gaining any leverage from my chest.

Ugh. Distracted nursing. Just ugh.

Output is low here too. ::sigh:: I think we sorta set ourselves up for failure because I started sending 5oz bottles to daycare. I can only pump 5+oz in a single pump during my first session of the day, then it's all ~4 for the rest of the time. This means when B's with me on the weekends he feels like he's being shorted during our afternoon nursings. He has no patience for an empty boob, so he gets pissed and unlatches as soon as the flow slows, which is after only like 3-4 minutes on each boob. I think he likes the daycare bottles better because they're constant flow for 5 full oz.

The only time I can get B milk-drunk-satisfied is our first nursing session of the day. I give him Righty and he must get 5-6oz from it. I pump Lefty and only manage 4-4.5. If I nurse him on Lefty, he smacks my boob at the end like "hellooooo...this thing on?!?".

I'm grinding away with the pumping, but I've been digging into my freezer stash and I'm less and less certain we'll make our goal of 1 yr without supplementing.

[carrots]

ellabee I could have written your exact post to describe our current situation. I'm trying to remain focused on the fact that it's more important for her to be well fed and happy at daycare than for me to be able to keep up with her 100%.

Has anyone stopped bf and pumping during the day but still nursed in the morning? I'm wondering what my supply will do if I drop all daytime nursing and pumping but nurse M in the morning and maybe pump right before bed. That might be a good middle ground for us.

[ellabee]

Jul 31, 2017 9:55:51 GMT -6 carrots said:

ellabee I could have written your exact post to describe our current situation. I'm trying to remain focused on the fact that it's more important for her to be well fed and happy at daycare than for me to be able to keep up with her 100%.

Has anyone stopped bf and pumping during the day but still nursed in the morning? I'm wondering what my supply will do if I drop all daytime nursing and pumping but nurse M in the morning and maybe pump right before bed. That might be a good middle ground for us.

I stopped pumping at work when DD was ~12 months and just nursed morning/bedtime. We kept that up for 1 month before moving to 1 month of just morning then weaning completely. I think supply-wise we could have gone on for longer, but I was ready to have my body back. 

Maybe I need to look at the situation like you are and find a "middle ground". (Confession?) I guess because I achieved the above with DD, something about needing to supplement before B is ready for WCM just feels like a failure.  

[ambiguousmango]

ellabee and carrots I am also having supply issues and could almost write word for word what you are describing.

I broke down and got a small can of formula to have at the house. My freezer supply is almost gone and I am pretty consistently one bottle short for the day for Q. I plan to keep pumping and giving what I can, hopefully my supply will come back but if not at least keep to only one bottle of formula a day.

[carrots]

ellabee I totally get the feeling of needing to keep up with what you did for baby #1. I was just thinking about this today bc I only gave DS homemade baby food and in trying to simplify some of our day to day, storebought food is sounding like a better option. But then guilt.

ambiguousmango when I gave DS his first bottle of formula, it was a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I didn't realize how much pressure it was to be his sole food source and seeing him do totally fine with formula was such a relief!

[ellabee]

Jul 31, 2017 16:56:24 GMT -6 carrots said:

ellabee I totally get the feeling of needing to keep up with what you did for baby #1. I was just thinking about this today bc I only gave DS homemade baby food and in trying to simplify some of our day to day, storebought food is sounding like a better option. But then guilt.

Yes - this is it exactly! Thanks for articulating better for me lol. It's not about the formula, it's about living up to what I was capable of previously.

I also just bought a few jars of baby food the other day too. I made all of DDs food and never gave her jars of anything. This time around, it's as you say - to simplify some of our day to day stuff. There just aren't enough hours in the day. Or...there aren't enough kid-free hours in the day.

[judyblume14]

carrots - with DD1, I stopped pumping at work a little before her first birthday. I had an out-of-town work trip and decided not to pump during the workday, and only pumped when I woke up and before bed. I had enough in the freezer to get us to 1 year.

After that, we sent WCM to DC, and we nurse morning and night for a couple months (and only morning and night on weekends, too). Then dropped to just morning. Honestly, I never felt full. I think that after a year, she was getting her nutrition from milk and food, and was just comfort nursing and getting a tiny snack at each session.

For me, nursing beyond a year wasn't about her getting a ton of breast milk. What she got was good. But it was more about snuggling and comfort.