When To Stop Nursing When Pregnant?

[JacobMarksMummy]

Hope you ladies can help with this one, I wanted to know when I had to stop nursing DS before my next baby is born. I heard that your milk naturally dries up at the 4/5 months pregnant mark, if this is true it will only just bring me up to the 1year mark with DS and if it happens before then then not even that. I need to know if this is true and if it is can I nurse through it and come out the other side with a supply or not? It would break my heart to give DS formula so I feel I need to prepare myself for the enevitable(sp?)  Ideally I would like to nurse DS until about 18months so I want the gap between stopping and starting nursing to be as little as possible, when would it be okay for DS to nurse after the baby has come? Hope someone knows the answers, I am strugling to find out on the internet.

[Erin (redstarfalling)]

My understanding is that around 20 weeks, your milk starts to turn to colostrom, so there's just not going to be much there for him.  If you want to nurse through it, though, you certainly can.  He'll be old enough to get nutrients from solids (I'm not sure if you'd need to supplement with formula too - you might want to).  Then, once the baby is born, your supply will come in again, and if feeding both, you'll likely have supply enough for 2!   Did you check this site?

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/tandem/index.html

[GraceKellysmom]

What you're describing is what happened with Grace, she was about 1 yr old when my milk went away while pg with Max. She chose to wean, she never liked nursing beyond food. Her doctor let me give her regular soy milk starting at 11 months (she was cows milk intolerant). She was fine with that and weaning was harder on me than her, but by then I was ready for a break, knowing I would be nursing a baby again soon. Every mom is different...

I know several moms who nursed throughout their entire pregnancies, babies didn't mind very little milk, and then tandem nursed after baby was born.

Depending on your pregnancy (you'd have to sudden wean if you have preterm labor, etc) you will or won't be able to continue. This time I have weaned Max at 10 weeks pregnant because I simply couldn't consume enough calories to feed the twins, myself, and make milk. I was absolutely exhausted.  :cry:  But when you get pregnant, you have to change the mindset to caring for the baby(ies) inside of you first, which is hard!

Best of luck and I'm here if you want to chat more about it.

[deenz]

I nursed dd through my (normal) pregnancy.  Yes, the milk pretty much dried up, but she didn't mind.  She was older than a year by that stage, so I didn't have to think about supplementing with formula.  Dd1 is still bf 1x per day now that dd2 is here (I think she missed a day when I was in the hospital).

[violet]

I was in the same situation as you, although I didn't know it :shock:

I found out I was pregnant due to my steadily decreasing weight.  I was so exhausted, and found that I had to look after the baby inside me as a priority. 

I too wanted to breastfeed my ds longer, but he weaned really well (I took my time because it was very important emotionally for me), and I game him cow's milk (homo, not skim or 2%), instead of formula, since he was around 10 months when it finally happened.

Good luck!