faffing at day feeds, time to drop them?
DD is 8 months now, she has 4 feeds a day, first thing, mid morning, mid afternoon and bedtime, her first and last feed are fab but she faffs at the other two and has started to grab at my nipple and it really hurts, i say no sternly and if she carrys on i put it away but it hasnt changed anything, DS has milk for ages, is it too early to drop them or might it just be a phase?
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my LO is bf and exactly the same as yours at 7 months - morning feed, mid morn, mid afternoon and bedtime. The mid afternoon one can be really short - often only 5 mins - so i think that will be first to go. Mid morn is still a good feed.
The problem with dropping bfs i think wont be the loss of milk but the comfort that he gets from it. If he sleeps at all its after his mid morn or mid afternoon feeds and i dont think he'd rest if he didnt have them. He gets so tetchy these days now hes moving around more.
Im back to work in 7 weeks and it would make life easier if he did drop a feed but i hadnt thought to actually have a go at holding it back. One day he got to half an hour from his tea time without having it and i put him on anyway - perhaps i shouldnt have done.x
I'm NOT planning on doing it that long! ha ha x
Ive started encouraging him to have sips of water in the afternoon from a cup, as its a long time to go without a drink if he has no milk, and i give him a little snack at 1400 ish when he would have breast fed. The last 3 days ive gone somewhere so he's had his little nap in the car rather than post bf. I think he might struggle when its just us at home though and may ask for it to help him sleep, i hope not though as when i go back to work life will be easier if he's only feeding three times x
I go from feeling very confident ill make it to a year to feeling anxious i won't. I dont know why it cant be enough to have done what i have, the further i get the more i want to do it! 2 of my colleagues who have returned to work following mat leave intended to keep it up. One of them went back when her LO was 11 months and didnt get much pumping so gave up, plus had soreness issues due to her daughter teething (i think id be happy with 11 months). My other colleague has a 9 month old but also found she couldnt get much at work and she is running her freezer supply down, then going onto apitmal and hopes to maintain a bedtime feed. I just felt a bit down hearing their stories - they've done amazing, and i know im being silly. Just have never given formula and really want to get to the year where he can have cows milk for day feeds (if he still needs them) and i can either BF morning and night or give up completely. i just don't want to be forcing LO out of feeds if he needs them and i can't manage to keep up though. I've bought a good pump and was getting good amounts, but of course now im bf less, i get less on it and am uncertain as to how it will work out. I have a good 15 feeds frozen ready. Can only see how it goes.
do you know how long you will feed for, if things carry on going well? I'd be happy with the year but can't see the time yet where id want to give the snuggles up! i guess in the end it will take something i really want to do, like a weekend away, to stop x