Extended nursing thread part 3

[Vicku]

Sienna also has a favourite, the right, and it's also the one that produces the most. Sometimes she's not keen on starting on the left anymore but mostly she'll take it but never feeds for as long on that one.

LOL at the humming Sounds cute! I'm not keen on feeding in public anymore either, it gets harder and harder and she's usually not interested if there's stuff going on so it sort of feels pointless to try

S is getting her first two teeth (one up and one down) and hasn't been interested in feeding during the last two days at all (but is VERY interested in the night ). wondering if she's trying to drop to 3 feeds or if it's just a teething issue We've only recently gone to 4 feeds from 5 so I would expect her to stay at 4 for a bit longer. Hope it doesn't affect my supply... Those of you who have older babies, did you find your supply decreased easily at this stage if you missed feeds? Maybe I should get the pump out?

[gogomama]

Funny how they all have favorites DS also favors the right, right from the beginning. Its most likely bc I had to wear a breast shield on that side in the beginning as he couldn't latch properly on that side, but even now w/o the shield I always feel a lot fuller on the right side.

Vicku I find we go through a lot of phases like that also. I thought for about a week that DS was going to drop to 3 feeds, but we are still staying strong at 4, sometimes 5:) I find that my supply is pretty steady and adjusts fairly quick to his preferences. I returned our pump back to the pharmacy at 10 months and haven't used one since. I would guess the lack of interest is due to teething, but we still only have 2 teeth also, so not too much experience on that front. Could also be shes so active during the day that she doesn't want to be bothered to feed and is making up for it at night.

[inoella]

LOL at the humming!  I haven't fed out and about in ages - after about 6 months she was simply too hyper and curious!

I haven't been lopsided in ages either - I guess it just sorts itself out. I think she's just weaning herself - she really didn't ask to bf today and didn't really want to in the a.m. (after a nice bf at 4:30 a.m.  ) and only nursed in the late afternoon cuz I offered. 2nite I started her on the left side and that's all she wanted - didn't even want her fave. I'm torn - I don't think she would even ask anymore during the day but I know it's good for her so I keep offering. But at the same time I'm kinda looking forward to going down to just the a.m. and p.m. bfs. Sigh... she's growing up too fast!!!!

[NZ_Mum]

Jaci - I agree, growing up waaaaay too fast!!

Vicku, we've got 8 teeth now, the last 3 all cut through at once right during/after DS was sick. He did go off BF's for a few days while sick (he was so lethargic) and I think my supply did drop, but it also came back quite easily because we were doing more frequent feeds while he was sick and recovering. I think my supply is more adaptable now, dont get engorged so easily but still seem to be able to supply enough when needed. Phew!
I wouldnt bother pumping either, but you know yourself best - some people might need to I'd imagine...

[Whatbit]

I'm down to 3x/day and still have lots of milk for those feeds.  In fact, I even leaked this morning!  So strange... has been ages.  We're really consistent about those three but he's really starting to play around at the pm feed so we'll see...

[inoella]

Not sure if this is the right place for this question: I'm still dealing with the 4:30/5 wake and nurse. Then she doesn't always want to nurse very long at wake up but either way - short or long nurse - she's asking for breakfast about an hour after wake up. Most insistently I might add! But then she'll only eat a few bites. Today - after a fairly long wake up nurse - she only ate a few bites of yogurt and bread pudding. Not sure what that means. Is she not really getting much through bf anymore? Should I try to hold her off for breakfast until later? that will be tough cuz she just gets cranky. hmmm...

[gogomama]

Hi again Jaci We are still doing a really similar thing, with DS doing one early AM nurse around 4 am then again on wake up. Problem is that if I do BF on wake up also, breakfast is pretty much ignored and refused until about 2-3 hrs later. It's interesting that Ella is so keen on the breakfast. What I found helped was giving breakfast first and then offering the BF after that as kind of a top off, maybe doing something like that would help? I think that BF now isn't really the all in one "meal" it used to be under 1, but now is more like a supplement to regular food. Still important but not as filling as it used to be. HTH.

[NZ_Mum]

Hey Jaci and Gogo, we do a similar thing (although not as early as you Jaci! I've been working at pushing that early morning feed later and later) today it was wake and BF at 6am then back to sleep for another hour till 7:15am and then wake up and breakfast at about 8:15.
That gives us 2hrs between BF and solids breakfast.
I find this works quite well, it's a good amount of spacing and he always eats plenty of breakfast (usually 1 piece of toast, 1 bowl of porridge (about half a cup) and sometimes half a banana but that depends upon how hungry he is and that can vary day to day)
He's usually demanding breakfast by that point too!

[*Ali*]

When we have a NF a few hours before WU Cadan still BFs well on WU but not quite so long (say 8 mins instead of 12). We then get washed and dress and it's 1.5hrs later by the time we eat breakfast. Breakfast is actually our biggest meal of the day and he'll eat a largish bowl of cereal (150ml whole milk) and a slice of bread with marmite and sometimes some fruit. Could you distract her a while Jaci so she doesn't think about breakfast?

[roseola]

My DS must have a crazy metabolism ( whis I did too!).  He eats 2 eggs with cheese, toast and cream cheese, fruit and avocado for breakfast and is only 30th percentile for weight. He eats well the rest of the day and gets 2 BFs.... Should I be worried?

[inoella]

Should I be worried?

Heck no! Be glad and enjoy!

[writelydivided]

I think we may be starting toward full BF weaning, but I also never expected to make it past a year with Maggie, since my boys only made it to a year. Maggie's almost 16 months. She will take or leave the 2 possible day time feeds, which leaves AM and PM only. In the past, when I got down to 2 feeds a day, I seemed to lose production, so we'll see. I'm torn between giving at least one feed during the day (we're also switching to 1 nap instead of 2, so I think I'd offer after the 1 nap only) to try to keep up production given history. . . and to just switching to whole milk all the way. . . She happily happily takes a cup of milk, and in fact had 3 cups of whole milk today with no daytime feeds. Growing, growing, growing. But, who knows. . . maybe she'll continue the AM/PM for a while, too.

Just had to share!

[*Ali*]

Well done on making the 16mo Rachel, that is a great acheivement.

[Whatbit]

Good for you, Rachel!  You never know witht the am/pm feed- could still be a while!

I was going to post and complain about the pm feed for DS- he had a week of pretty much not drinking and simply throwing himself around on the bed.  Then all of a sudden he's back to drinking... not a lot, but about 5-8 minutes worth...

[Vicku]

Rachel, we have just moved properly to one nap and I'm thinking about going from 2 middle of the day feeds (about 11am and 3/4pm) to just doing one as she's not that interested most days. Especially for the late pm one she usually just takes a quick drink/snack and sometimes refuses the second side. Am torn between doing it before or after the nap though
If you did just carry on the am and bt feeds and supply dropped too much, you could always take some fenugreek or other galactagogue to get it back up. Maybe not drop both feeds at the same time either, gradually weaning them might be better for supply to adjust to what you want and need?

We've just come out of a few weeks of teething... her first three teeth are out! The first one was a top one and it's so sharp! It gave me a sore on my L nipple and I couldn't feed her the same way as usual for the bt feed (do it lying down on my R side and feed from the L lying on my R too) but now it's healed and we're back to our usual way

I was wondering, do your babes 'ask' for milk or do you offer? Or a mix? Sienna never asks but has started to get VERY excited when I ask her if she wants "milkies" LOL sooo cute I nearly die each time!