How long did you BF and why’d you stop?

Rohann, was set to be a fantastic breasfeeder. She latched on perfectly straight away and I had no real pain or discomfort at all. However at her weigh at 1 week she had lost a fair bit more than her 10% and there was felt the need to look into why this was happening considering how good she was at feeding and how often she was feeding. The long and the short of it was that I had I had no milk, infact I never even went through engorgement. Suddenly it all made sense, this was why Rohann only slept twice the whole time I was in hospital and why when home she was still hungry even after feeding for 30 mins minimum on each side and if she wasn't feeding she was crying and very rarely sleeping (though she did sleep well at night, probably because she was exhausted).
Luckily I had a fantastic midwife who straight away got me onto drinking Complan, drinking lactation tea, massaging fennel oil into my breasts after every feed and we hired a big breast pump which I would use after every feed for 20 mins on each side, she also got me into see the lactation consultant at the hospital. After 3 days of doing this I felt Rohann really needed some help before my milk came in (as it had now been 1.5 weeks of virtually no milk - I trialled expressing without feeding first to see how much milk there was and after 30 mins I got 10ml of one breast and 15ml off the other). So I started topping Rohann up with formula but not with a bottle but in the form of a lacta feed (when you have a tube on your breast giving her the milk while she is sucking off you), well, she was a differen't baby - she actually slept!!

The LC appointment was interesting, I was doing everything right and it turns out that I don't have enough breast tissue (apparently it doesn't matter how big your breasts are but it's what they are made up of). It's thought that this was a result of a problem I have with my AF that was attempted to be fixed when I was 11/12 with a cocktail of different hormones and probably why my breasts don't look like 'mature' fully develpoed breasts. There was a medication I could try but unfortunately it was probable that it conflict with another medication I was on that was important for me to take. This was also to expllain why I'd had no changes to my breasts etc while pregnant.
So anyway after 1.5 weeks of doing all this, it was realised that my milk wasn't going to come in, so I had to make the very sad decision to formula feed. I found this very emotional and cried a lot, as I felt I had this bond ripped away from me and it was as though I had no real choice in the matter as my body had let me down so badly. However I continued to give her 1 lacta feed a day to keep the closeness up, but it was very fiddly so after a month I tried just feeding her without the formula but she wold get so frustrated with me, and I eventually gave it up.

Wow that was a long answer for a short question!Sorry for the novel!!!

Edited by Tiff

I bf Ollie exclusively until about 5 months when he started solids. I also returned to work fulltime at this point and he started having EBM a couple of times during the day and feeding from me morning and night. I was expressing at work, however after a month was hardly getting anything so switched to formula during the day. I kept bf him morning and night until he was 16months. At this point I was 4 months pregnant and was cringing when he came near me so made the decision to just stop one day.

This time around (I return to work when Lily is 5 months too) I plan on expressing at work, but this time I am more determined to make it work and I've been taking notes from all the 'boosting milk supply' threads I've seen recently. I'll keep bf for as long as I can and for as long as she will take it.

luke weaned himself at 15 months. He was exclusive till i introduced formula and solids at around 6 months but he never took to it so he didn't have any more until he went to day care at 9 months, he was on goats formula as found out intolarent to cow's milk.

Funny enough he ws offered formula the 2nd night after he was born ( my milk didn't come in to day 4!!) But he didn't take formula then at all. Which was good in hindsight as he kept sucking and brought my milk in.

He loved breastfeeing and was an excellent feeder i had no problems what so ever. I still feed him 3x a day at 15 months.

With next baby will not introduce formula at 6months only did so to get him use to a bottle
(couldn't express enough milk for him to have a bottle)

Brest feeding was great so easy and a great soother for him.

Wholey Lizzle what a rough BFing experience you had, good on you for trying to persist and don't feel bad about stopping you're baby was fine.

I BF DD for 4 months but at 3 months she was just sooo hungry that I couldn't keep up. She actually was a hungry baby and I really didn't enjoy the experience because she always wanted to feed and was quite grizzly for a while there. I should have realised sooner she wanted more, one night, at 6 weeks she had a BF then about 100mls of EBM, then was hungry again only 2 hours later!

When we decided to give her a bottle of formula, she drank a whole 200mls (at 3 months old) then had a BF as well!

I got sick at 4 months and could barely get out of bed for a few days so we moved her over to formula and after that, she was a different child.

With the next one, I will be introducing formula at the night feed from day dot - I used to feed Charlotte for about 6 hours (cluster feeding) and it drove me insane. Now I realise she was hungry so will be prepared for number 2.