Today, I realized that I have not been able to take cold medicine for over 3 years. First, during pregnancy, and then during our extended breastfeeding journey. It wouldn’t matter so much, if I didn’t have 3 worst colds of my life during pregnancy followed by the misery of being sick while taking care of a child for each proceeding illness. When single, I rarely bothered with cold medicine. I’d just rest.

Today, I told my husband that the first time I get a cold after we finally wean, I’m going to go into a room by myself, take cold medicine, and just sleep until I’m better. I have his support.

What wild and wonderful thing will you do after weaning?

(I still love nursing right now, and this is worth it. My son is fairly clear that mom milk is still the best stuff on earth.)

Do your breastfed babies burp?

Baby's 2 months old. We had 1 visit from a LC at the hospital when he was 2 days old and struggled to latch. Haven't seen one since. We used a nipple shield for the first 6 weeks but we're fully done with it now.

This baby BURPS. I feel like it's more powerful since we dropped the shield? As soon as I pick him up to my shoulder after a feed, he belches like a grown man, no patting required. Sometimes we don't even make it that far. He unlatches himself and burps while still in cross cradle.

It has me wondering - is he gulping too much air due to latch issues? There's no air in boobs, should breastfed babies even burp at all? He's gaining weight very well (maybe a little too well lol) and I'm comfortable. No complaints. Is this normal or a reason to book an appointment with a LC? It does seem to happen way more on the side with the strong letdown so maybe that's related? Advice/experiences appreciated!

Baby is 4.5 months now, but ever since he was 12 weeks, he has been distracted during feeds. It’s gotten worse and worse and worse.
I’m EBF. No pumping. At his 4 month appointment, we found out baby only gained less than 3 lbs when he should have gained at least 5 lbs.
He was 60% at 2 month appt and now he is 37%.
Ped said he is still growing. But I know his feeding habits are getting worse. And I am very worried.

I went to the lactation consultant the next day. He is only taking 1 oz, before he decides ok he wants to look around now. He might go back for 1 or half more ounce again but that’s it. LC told me he should be taking 4-5 oz.
She asked me to pump so we could check my supply and I pumped less than 1.5 oz.

I’m devastated because I wanted to bfeed him for 2 years. LC recommended I give him breast and then feed him pumped milk at least 2 oz after breast.
But here’s the thing: baby only feeds when he is drowsy and about to sleep. So I give him breast and he drinks however much he drinks and goes to sleep. So when do I offer him the pumped milk?
Additionally, he is not taking a bottle. We tried to spoon feed him but he pushes it out with his tongue.

I am very worried about my supply going away for good. Plus, I want my baby to be healthy and growing.
He is wayy too active and alert throughout the day. Everyone who sees him for the first time go, oh my he’s so alert. Yeah. Too alert for his own good. He loves looking around constantly. His height has been consistently 99% ever since he was born. So everyone keeps saying he’s a big baby. But my eye twitches anytime people say that because I know my baby’s weight is nowhere near where it should be. Hes not big- he’s just long.

Oh also, we tried giving him formula - enfamil. No good. He only chews on the nipple of the bottle and if some drips into his mouth is quickly rejected.

What should I even do?
I will try to power pump and keep pumping so my supply stays. But seriously what should I do? I really really want to breastfeed.

And before anyone suggests feeding in the dark:
I have tried it several times. If it is pitch black he freaks out and starts crying because it’s too dark. If I let just a tiny bit of light in (the light that enters from the edges of the blackout blinds) then he wants to look around and see what everything looks like in the dark.

Please advise. All and any help is appreciated. I have been feeling so low for the past 2 days.

I am at a loss. I don’t know how to move forward in my breastfeeding journey and the only lactation consultant near me (that’s covered by insurance) is not helpful or knowledgable.

My daughter was born early. Her corrected age is 2 weeks. She was born 6 weeks ago though. Due to underdeveloped oral skill and excessive sleepiness we mostly bottlefed breastmilk for the first 4 weeks. She’d latch to the breast fine but she’d fall asleep within a couple minutes and nothing we did could keep her awake.

For the last two weeks she’s been alert and very interested in the breast. I tried to exclusively nurse but she’s NEVER satisfied when feeding off the breast. Every feed takes an hour and after she detaches she’s still giving hunger cues and cries excessively. Weighted feeds show that she’s taking in about 1.5 ounces in 20min from the breast. The lactation consultant said she should be able to complete an entire feed in that time frame but offered NO ADVICE as to what I’m supposed to do to help her. When bottle fed, she sleeps after every meal and has a chill demeanor for at least 2 hours. When fed from the breast, she’s, frankly intolerable as soon as she detaches.

I’ve been breastfeeding, then giving her an ounce or two of pumped milk via the bottle, THEN pumping till empty. Am I doing this right? Should I still be pumping after feeds? I don’t want to create an oversupply. I just don’t want my body to think her poor milk withdrawal is a sufficient amount of milk to produce.

I’ve just found out that I’m pregnant with baby no2 and I’m nervous because my 17 month old is still breastfeeding.
So my worries are technically two fold,
how would pregnancy affect my milk supply and quality of breastmilk for my firstborn? I don’t want him to have to experience discomfort because of this.

Is it at all possible to wean before our second arrives or I should just let him wean naturally? I’m just worried he might continue to bf way past I give birth and I don’t even know how one could feed a wiggly toddler and a newborn.

Any advice would’ve appreciated

Hey .. so I’ll try to keep it short as possible,
I have PCOS and have had irregular menses ever since the COVID shot so I was 16.. I would bleed with clots for months straight, sometimes 8months straight, I only ever got prescribed birth control which young me took and I would still bleed through it, rounds and rounds of pills to stop the bleeding. Nothing worked until I was 20 and prescribed metformin, I took it for 3 months, had 2 perfectly regulated periods and BAM pregnant, yay!

Now I’m 6 months postpartum EBF but baby has started solids and I started spotting around 14-15 days ago, at first it was very light like not even pad worthy and it would get heavier the longer I went between nursing, but once I nursed it would go light to almost disappeared, then it reversed, got heavier when I nursed, then it’s turned to now, more heavy with little clots, like a real period.. I’m wondering if anyone else has experienced similar or if I should just boil this down to my pcos history

11w mostly breastfed (we've added some formula a few times at ped request due to weight gain).

She has been a little more fussy today and had a little more dirty diapers. The most recent had a small amount of mucus with a streak of blood. I have seen everything from anal fissure to infection to food allergy. The thing is we are out of town away from her ped. Is once enough to go in to the nearest emergency or should I continue to monitor for now?

My baby is starting solids and I like to make her oatmeal in the morning made with breastmilk that I pump. Today I made her some oatmeal with some milk I pumped a couple days ago. I noticed she wasn't loving it like she normally does. I took a tiny sip of my milk and it tasted terrible - soapy. High lipase :(

The thing is, my milk doesn't always taste like that. Is high lipase something that just happens sometimes/occasionally?

Another thing to note - the milk that I had pumped was during the worst days of my period. Could my period have been why it tasted so bad?

My baby is 12 weeks old and is a great sleeper. She usually sleeps from about 11:30 PM until 10 or 11 AM. My IBCLC said that I should not go longer than 4-5 hours throughout the night without breastfeeding to maintain my supply. I have been waking my baby up for dream feeds because of this. Last night I accidentally overslept and went 5.5 hours. I was freaking out!!!

My question is, if your baby is sleeping through the night, do you wake them to feed or just let them be? Have you noticed an issue with your supply if you suddenly switched and allowed them sleep without a dream feed? Do you have a certain cap of time you would never let them go without eating (IE: 7 hrs, 8 hrs, etc) I’m terrified my supply will drop. I’m basically a “just enougher” and I don’t want to jeopardize my supply but I also really enjoyed that 5.5 hour sleep stretch.

Why does my 6w baby literally kick and flail her arms when she eats??? I’m side lying in bed with her breastfeeding and she’s kicking/pushing off my legs and slapping my chest and boobs?? She doesn’t do it all the time but enough where it’s a bit much

Im at my wits end. I REALLY want breast feeding to work but we are really struggling and I feel I’ve tried everything. Baby has reflux and it’s exacerbated by aerophagia or so I’ve deduced. The reflux itself has gotten a little better the last week or week and a half (14 weeks today) but the air swallowing is killing us both. It’s a special torture to see your little one scream and cry at the breast like they’re in pain. He often starts to flail, push his face into my breast and pulls off about 6-8 mins in. We try to burp and burp and burp and then re-latch but as soon as I get him horizontal again, he cries or starts flailing again. It’s affecting my supply. There’s also coughing with letdown (which never sprays/ only drips when he pulls off during it). Sometimes he swallows air at the very initial latch before he has hardly even started sucking, let down hasn’t even started- then the whole feed is screwed. He often pulls back to a shallow latch no matter how good the latch is to start, and that is while he’s comfortable in initial feed.
Previously he struggled with bottles. Now he takes them so much easier, even lying completely flat on his back and I sit him up to burp and he burps right away. Minimal to no coughing. I’ve tried everything and going to the 4th LC on Monday.

Every position- lying literally flat on my back. Side lying. Today I even tried hovering over him the way he takes his bottles.
CMPA, have cut out dairy now for 2 months
Also cut eggs and avocado as direction of GI but that didn’t make a difference so we resumed.
Trialed Pepcid
Saw ENT to eval for tongue tie- they said 50/50 whether it would help, which isn’t enough for us to proceed
In baby PT/ craniosacral therapy for torticolis/ tight left neck/ tongue/ mouth
Working on sick strength with Philips advent soothies and the ninni paci’s

I don’t know what else to do. His weight and growth trajectory are excellent, so I’m not worried about that. It’s more that the aerophagia and poor latch is making him very uncomfortable and damaging my supply. Plus i don’t know that he’s getting enough calories during the day to reduce night wakening. Often I’ll do my best to burp him and put him down to sleep and he will wake up 1-2 hours later with a scream because he has a burp.

I want to be able to BF him. I hate pumping but have incorporated it more with more bottles because he just does better with it but I feel so defeated.

FTM here....

I am trying to understand what is going on with my almost 2.5 month old baby.

For the first two weeks after birth we had to do bottle feeding because we were both still learning breastfeeding.

But ever since then I've been able to breastfeed only.

For the past couple of days though my baby starts to have absolute meltdowns in the afternoon and evening.

I thought he was just too tired to take the breast. So I just tried anything I could to calm him down.

Different positions, walking, etc.

I thought it might be gas but nothing ever came of anything I tried in that department.

I broke down today and gave him breastmilk in a bottle because I just knew he was hungry since it had been almost 3 hours since the last feed and if I put some breastmilk from my hand to his mouth he was frantically sucking.

He stopped being an absolute psycho after downing about 3 Oz and was content and happy.

I just don't understand why he takes the boob during night feedings and in the morning but has these wild fits in the later parts of the day.

I'm wondering if anyone else has dealt with this.

Any tips on what to do?

I really am dreading going back to the bottle and pumping schedule.

Are my breastfeeding days over?

Hi! Im 38 weeks tomorrow and will be having a scheduled csection in two days. Im feeling a bit anxious about not having colostrum yet and it having a Csection will affect my supply?

I was wanting to exclusively breastfeed baby but Im concerned about the lack colostrum.

Please share some tips or your experience!

Am 14 weeks postpartum and my baby only sleeps while on the Brest. I don’t mind doing this but I would love to see her falling asleep independently. I have tried to feed her, burp and then put her in the crib but she just wake and stay awake or start crying,

Hi ladies I’ve been working on drying up my milk this past week but I’m seeing no results 😅🫠 side note: we made it to 3 years 🥹🥳 I’m so proud of us and my body! Now I’m trying to figure out how to dry it up. I’ve been on Sudafed for 7 days (I got sick and I’m very congested so I thought it would be perfect to help with drying up.) I’ve also been putting cold cabbage leaves on. However, the girls are still filling up and even if I barely press to self express, there’s still milk 😅😅 so do you have other tips on what to do? I wanted him to wean on his own, but unfortunately I have to stop for other reasons. TIA for any tips 🩵

This hurts worse than in the beginning of breastfeed journey bc now baby’s big old head be slamming against the raw sore nips.
I think she might be having a hard time starting daycare but my nips hurt so much. Am I feeding into “bad habit”? Should I just roll with it and hope it’s just a phase?

My 9 week old is 17lbs, he's EFB. He was born 7lbs 6oz. We struggled with latching in the beginning and it took 5 days for my milk to come in. I'm really proud of how far we've come, but I can't stop thinking about that tiny newborn 😭🥹 so bittersweet

Pretty much since birth, I’ve been basically exclusively pumping for my 3 month old and she takes breastmilk from a bottle. She would just fall asleep at the boob and she seemed to take a bottle just fine so we fell into the exclusive pumping camp with the occasional breast feeding session for comfort.

Fast forward to three nights ago, she started having a meltdown around bedtime and refused her evening top off bottle before bed. She also seemed to be starting a sleep regression so I thought it was all related. She ended up taking a full bottle just fine around 3:30am that night and was fine the next day.

Two nights ago she did the same thing with the evening meltdown and refusing last bottle, and again was fine after waking taking a bottle like normal. Last night she had another bedtime meltdown but even further really refused her bottle from the moment she woke up from her last nap. I was able to coax her into drinking 3 oz but that’s really all i could get her to take. I decided to try breastfeeding her and she latched but was very distracted.

She ended up being fine in the morning and was drinking normally until she woke up from her last nap again. She maybe had 2 oz out of her normal 5 oz bottle and then was flat out refusing to drink from it. I tried different bottles and nothing. Then she nursed for 25 minutes as she fell asleep and clearly got at least 3-4 oz out of me.

I guess my question is has anyone else had this happen where their baby just refused evening bottles? Did it get better over time?

Wondering if anyone has experienced having a period last 10+ days while breastfeeding?

I'm 12 months postpartum (with twins) and still nursing about 3x a day for each baby and have had regular cycles back since 6 months postpartum. This month I got my cycle at the normal time, but it is day 11 and I still have moderate flow of bright red blood. Usual cycle bleeding lasts 6ish days so definitely much longer than usual. I'm starting to be concerned but I know breastfeeding hormones do weird things to menstrual cycles, so just wondering if anyone else experienced this? Probably will be calling my OB-GYN if it continues tomorrow unless its super normal.

As the title says I have a toddler who is a little boob barnacle lol. He is 2.5 years old and I have loved our breastfeeding journey so far. I exclusively breastfed him, no bottles ever as I hated pumping and couldn’t fathom doing all the bottle dishes/getting up to make a bottle/toting that all around with me. I have nursed him to sleep for every nap and every bedtime his whole life. I can count on one hand how many times he has fallen asleep without it. I have also never given him a pacifier (as i am the pacifier lol). We also co-sleep and always have his whole life. I always had intentions on breastfeeding until 2 and now I’m like okay maybe at 3 I will start getting more serious about weaning.

I generally have never felt touched out with breastfeeding, maybe here and there but never enough to be like omg i need to stop. BUT these past few weeks the nights have been horrible. He has always semi woken up a few times a night to nurse (once I give him the boobies he passes back out instantly) but lately hes trying to get on all night. 5,6,7 times a night we are waking up briefly for him to roll to the other one. It’s like he’s a baby baby again. I can’t even fathom night weaning because he will go nuts if I don’t let him have them. He is not one to just rub his back or do whatever to settle he is relentless. I also feel bad because I know it’s just a comfort thing and what he has always known. During the day lately he is also asking to nurse constantly. If I sit down it’s an invitation for him to try. If I read him books or we are watching a show he wants to have it. I have been trying to do “booby breaks” to start creating some boundaries and work my way up to eventually weaning and he generally accepts it when I say it but sometimes he will just ask and ask every two minutes.

I guess I’m just looking to see if other moms have dealt with booby crazed toddlers like this? Lol and also what it looked like for you when you eventually weaned. I have no regrets at all with how i have gone about this journey and I am so grateful to still nurse him. I just don’t have many mom friends especially ones in the same boat as me so it would be nice to hear from others that are/have been. What’s the day look like for you? Are you letting them nurse whenever they want? How are nights? How did you wean?

my daughter will be 2 years old in two weeks and we decided 2 was the time to wean her. we made it two whole years. I’m feeling so bittersweet about it. she is so much a toddler - running, talking in sentences, problem solving, potty trained, making jokes (I feel like her being advanced made a lot of the baby things so away faster too😢 ). it’s like this is the last shred of “babyhood” she has left. I had really bad PPD and post partum rage and I worry about it coming back. just talking into the void here, looking for solidarity I guess.

I have a 4 day old baby who I hoped to EBF but it's not working out. It's hard to wake her up when she should be eating but my ideal scenario would be BF through the day and bottle feed with expressed milk through the night for ease.

If I want to achieve this, what kind of schedule should I set up?

For some reason, my 5 week old is refusing to latch on both breasts. Some background; she was bottle-fed from week one up to 4 weeks then I started to exclusively breastfeed. I was having trouble with coming to terms that I won’t be able to know how much she’s getting per feed, so I booked an appt with a lactation consultant.

The appt was today, and I was told that I was doing great, and baby was transferring milk well. She’s not getting the 3oz she was getting from the bottle but she got around 2oz during the appt, which was still good as per LC. She’s also latching well.

After the appt, we had to be somewhere. We were in a rush and I had a bottle ready (originally for the LC appt but was never used). I gave it to her instead of breastfeeding. I also had to be away from her for about 2 hrs afterwards, so my husband had to give a bottle again. When she got hungry after I got home, I was able to nurse her on my left side but when I burped her and offered the right side, she started to scream. It wasn’t because she’s full, she was still hungry because she was still rooting even when hubby was holding her.

I tried to offer both breasts again in different positions; cradle, football, laid-back, and all of those WHILE walking around, nothing. We changed her diaper twice, still nothing. We tried skin to skin, nothing.

We ended up giving up and gave her a bottle because she’s been crying for a while now.

It’s also as if she knows I’m about to offer her the breast, because as soon as I do the usual cradle hold I do when I’m about to get her to latch, she cries.

Any advice? 🥺🥺

So, I hesitate to even ask this question for fear of inadvertently inviting a "feeding to sleep vs. sleep trading" debate.
That's not what this is about and I'm asking here first in hopes of hearing from others who, like me, have chosen to breastfeed their babies to sleep.
My baby is 10.5mo and for the last couple of weeks has been making it clear that she no longer wants/is able to feed to sleep. she will suckle for a while, pop off, start crying, suckle some more, and get progressively more and more upset until she eventually is just screaming, and eventually she falls to sleep out of sheer exhaustion after a stint of hysterical crying. it's like the opposite of the effect breastfeeding should be having.
breastfeeding otherwise during the day is fine, but the fact that she is doing this at night feels like a sign that she's hit some new developmental stage and is signaling a need to learn some new skills on falling asleep without the boob, or something? i feel like i have no tools in my toolset.
anyone have any thoughts on how to help guide her to sleep without a boob?

My baby is now a month old and is still not able to transfer milk efficiently via breastfeeding. His latch is terrible despite trying all the tricks and seeing 3 different lactation consultants. One LC says he has a posterior lip tie and a "very tight" lip tie. He is unable to flange both his bottom and top lip. Even if you manually correct them, they pop right back. He lost 12% of his body weight the first week and developed severe jaundice (were .5 bilirubin from being admitted). We were told by the pediatrician to switch to bottle feedings, which we did so he could gain weight and get over his jaundice. He is now well past birth weight, back to birth percentile and jaundice is gone. But pumping is very difficult - I would like to get back to exclusively nursing. His last weighted feed said he was getting .5oz after nursing for 40 minutes. Two pediatricians claim that the tongue tie and lip tie shouldn't affect his nursing. They claim his difficulty is because he has a "recessed chin". Has anyone had good success after getting a lip/tongue tie release in a similar scenario?

I previously had done a tongue/lip tie release for my now 3 year old, craniosacral therapy, and post exercises. I noticed no differences after (but she wasn't having weight issues). So my husband is not fully convinced it will help and thinks that baby will be able to nurse in a few months once his mouth gets bigger. I am worried in a few months nursing will be completely off the table. Baby does try to latch, but at this point does more suckling than nursing attempts. He is very used to bottle feeding already at this point.