when did you stop bfing?

[sarack]

i just wondered.. at what age was your LO when you decided to stop bfing or wean??

[stretchad]

Like personally as a child? Or do you mean with our own kids? I think my mom switched me to formula about 3 or 4 months because she had supply issues. I am trying to make it to a year or maybe a couple months later since DS was a preemie and a couple months early, but not sure that my current pump + breastfeeding + freezer stash will last me that long.

[dana86]

I stopped around 3 or 4 months with M and I am still going with J but I do split breast and bottle due to supply issues.

[sarack]

stretchad- how long is your baby sleeping at night? do you get up to pump? i'm at the point where if i don't wake up 3 hrs after the last feeding/bedtime, i don't pump enough at work to last through the feedigns i'm missing. i have a surplus of like 3 feedings.. but it gets low. that means i only ever have like 6-10 bags of 4oz that we're not using.. that wouldn't last us 1 day.

dana86 - how does the supplementing thing make you feel and also, how is it working out?

[jennlin]

At this rate, we will be bf'ing well into middle school.

[dana86]

Supplementing is not so bad. I think because I have made it this far still breast feeding partially that it makes it easier. It also feels like an easier transition since I've already been using formula I'm not going to have the complete cold turkey transition when either I or she decides to wean. J doesn't seem to mind either way. She definitely prefers boob for some things like comfort but food wise she isn't that picky. For me I just hate that I couldn't supply enough to keep me from having to spend the money on something I should have been able to provide. But again I've been able to kind of transition from that slowly as well.

[karebear219]

I stopped at 5.5 months mostly due to my supply drying up when I went back to work.

I felt sad I couldn't continue, but I also felt like a huge stress was off my back too. It was such a hassel to have to go pump at work. It caused me a lot of stress. I was happy I had made it that long. I also felt better giving bkb formula because I always knew bkb was getting what she needed.

[stretchad]

Mar 24, 2014 14:35:49 GMT -5 sarack said:

stretchad- how long is your baby sleeping at night? do you get up to pump? i'm at the point where if i don't wake up 3 hrs after the last feeding/bedtime, i don't pump enough at work to last through the feedigns i'm missing. i have a surplus of like 3 feedings.. but it gets low. that means i only ever have like 6-10 bags of 4oz that we're not using.. that wouldn't last us 1 day.

dana86 - how does the supplementing thing make you feel and also, how is it working out?

He doesn't sleep through the night. Generally I feed when I get home from work, then right before bed. I pump after that. I then ask DH to do the first wakeup overnight (usually around 1am), then I take any other wakeups and breastfeed (usually 1 more time). Depending on whether he wakes up close to when I have to leave or not, I may or may not feed him again before I leave for work (by 7am). During the day at work I pump 2-3x a day, most days its just 2. I have a big freezer stash from when DS was in teh NICU that I'm quickly working my way through. I definitely am not pumping enough to meet his needs during the day :-(
On occasion I will supplement with a bottle of straight up formula. That usually happens when I feel like I'm tapped out, but he's still hungry and I don't want to dip into the frozen or fresh breastmilk. 

Have you tried supplementing to up your supply to get a little more? Or lactation cookies, milk teas, etc?

[picksthemusic]

We had to supplement from day 1 due to NICU status and her issues. I had supply issues because of my breast reduction, but she was also a very, very lazy nurser and was sleepy due to the meds she was on. So, I gave up pumping after about 2 months, and just EBFed and supplemented. Then, once I got pregnant when she was 4 months old, my measley supply plummeted, and that was about it for us with BFing. She did nurse for comfort for a while, and she may have been getting small amounts of milk, but nothing to sustain her completely.

There is NOTHING wrong with supplementing. A fed baby is a happy baby. Formula is not poison.

[sarack]

i went back to work at 6.5 weeks. I'm pumping and bfing still. i'm usually never gone for more than 2 feedings but if i don't pump at night, i don't have enough milk to last. i did some research yesterday while at target and found that while formula is expensive, it isn't as terrible as i originally thought (using costco brand, and using the assumption that 1oz of dry formula=2oz wet formula (i couldn't find accurate information online about how much a scoop was.)

now i know, for target anyway, a 40oz container is 24.99. a scoop is approximately 8.7 grams. THere are 28.3495 grams in an ounce. so each ounce would yield approximately 3.259scoops so that is 130.36 2oz bottles. the babies eat 4oz at a time, so that is 32.59 (since i have 2 babies) bottles and they feed about 7x per day MAX, usually more like 6. so that would last us a few days. i need to go to costco to see how much a scoop would be and figure out approximately how much it would be for that formula. as much as i don't want to do formula, i'm feeling like maybe they aren't getting enough or maybe we would all sleep better with formula. i haven't woken up to pump in 2 nights.. we have 20 4oz bags of milk in the fridge... that will last only a few days. anyway.. so there you have it. math by me. hopefully i didn't fuckitup

[Deleted]

20/21 months. I started weaning her because she was loosing interest. First we cut out one of her day time feedings at about 18 months. Then we were down to about 3 a day. Morning, Noon and before bed. Then within about a month/month and a half time we were down to just Morning and evening because my supply started dropping so she lost interest in her afternoon feeding. When she was almost 20 months I dropped out the morning nursing because she was getting annoyed with not getting enough milk again. Then at about 20 1/2 months we went to every other day, and then every 3rd/4th day. Then I think I ended up doing it 1 time that next week and we were done by the time she was 21 months.

[angelinmind]

I breastfed until 9 months, and had to stop because she wasn't putting weight on. Switched to formula for about two months and then whole milk. In January we had to do half whole milk/half half and half to try and increase the amount of calories she was getting to get her weight up. (At 14 months she was 16.5 lbs)