How many of you mums still bf after 6 months?

[rosie and joe's mummy]

we're just at 6 months and a week.

last week my friend and i were discussing that i've got to go into hospital for a day soon, and i'm stocking up on expressed milk to give her whilst i'm in, and she said it's the ideal time to get her onto formula now, like it was a foregone conclusion that i'd only feed rosie for 6 months and then go onto formula.

personally i don't see the point.

why would i want to start doing bottles now?  she doesn't do bottles, and will be having her expressed milk from her cup, and that's only if it's absolutely out of the question for me to nurse her.  I'm going to try if i can.

i'm planning to go on until at least 12 months, when she could start having ordinary cows milk as a drink in a cup. But i have no intention of giving her processed cows milk with all the stuff added in and muddled around.

besides it's not going to be more convenient, far from it!  surely it's more hassle to wash, sterilise, boil, measure etc, than just to latch onto a boob?  I know lots of people need to go back to work and stop breastfeeding then, but i'm not goin gback before she's a year old, so....?

i don't even know why it should be called extended breastfeeding after 6 months old anyway.  the WHO suggest breastfeeding up to 24 months, so i personally think it's not extended breastfeeding unti lafter that, though i'm not sure i'll be going on as long as that myself.....

[teezee]

my lo is just over a year and we are still bfing and going strong!!

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

i don't even know why it should be called extended breastfeeding after 6 months old anyway. 

Wow! Is it seriously considered extended after 6mths? I always thought beyond 1yr was considered extended?

[Gippie]

Our DD is 6m3w and nearly 21#.  She ws exclusive BF for 4 months, 2 months of BF ad one bottle formula and now she is weaning as she has simply lost interest in sitting still to nurse.  We were doing an AM and a PM nurse but it seems like the only one that will work is the DF - got to get that little bugger when she is not moving.   I am deciding to wean on the DF as my last feeds so i end with POSITIVE memories of it all, she is so peaceful at the DF and she doesn't "reject" me.    I think it's the right time when you feel good about it and the baby is happy, wether that be self weaning or whatever. 

Congrats and good luck!

Stacey

[Petunia]

Didn't read all the posts...

I feed my son my milk until he was 12 months.  He is a lean fellow also when compared to the formula fed weight charts (which are all that the doctor has).  When I compared him to the new World Health Organization growth charts, based on breast fed babies, he came up about 10%.  According to the WHO charts, his height and weight are in the same percentage.  Whereas with my doctor's charts, he was considered 'lean compared to his height' - and he's a short boy!

The current thinking is that many formula fed babies are overfed and gain too much weight.

Looking at older friends and relatives, I can tell you who was breast fed and formula/cow's milk fed as infants.  (I guess it's come up in coversations.)  All of the breast fed babies are lean elderly people with much better health.

[rosie and joe's mummy]

i notice that going around the supermarkets.  all my friends with babues have breastfed babies so i don't really see it regularly. DH has a friend at work whose baby is 3 weeks younger than rosie, and the first time DH saw her (at 8 weeks so rosie was 11 weeks) he couldn't believe how fat this baby was! i have no idea what she looks like now but he keeps telling me how lucky we are to have a lean slender breastfed baby, I keep telilng him it's not luck it's persistence!

where are the WHO charts?  I've never seen them but i know a woman who'd be thrilled if she could, her baby is constantly being criticised for being underweight According to the doctors charts she's in the 10th percentile and she's allegedly terribly underweight.  She looks perfect and she's developing really well, but it would be good to give her a chart to show the doctors that her baby is normal!

[RachelC]

There's a link at the top (or near) of the bf forum

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=59355.0

[smile]

 :)I am still bf my ds - he is 8 mths 1 wk old.  I am running into a bit nursing strike problem when he turned 3 mths old - arched back and cried when I tried to nurse him during daytime.  He has improved a little since 6 mths old.  He is still not a good nurser..highly distracted all the time.  He was bf exclusively unitl he was 6 mths old.  He is very small only 15lb 1 oz for weight and 27.5 inches for height.  I do worry like most moms do but I know bm is more nutritious then anything else..so I will not stop anytime soon.

[tiki_mama]

I'm on 6 months and 1 day so far and planning on continuing to 12 months if i can 

[milliesmaw]

I b/f DD till she was about 11 months and she was very lean and still is. DS is nearly 11 months and we are still going strong 2 feeds per day. He has always been huge and loves his milk and his food - they are so very different. I will prob stop when he is about a year... Good luck!

[Samuel's mum]

What a lot of people!!!! Congratulations all!!!
Officially 'extended breastfeeding' is thought of as 12 months+.
I only know one other person in my 'real life' who went beyond 12 months. It sounds as though a lot of people are feeling fairly 'on their own' at 6 months - but not on this site!!!!

[rosie and joe's mummy]

i'm really glad to see that.

now i've passed 6 months i am officially in training as an ABM breastfeeding counsellor, because i felt so unsupported in my area as a breastfeeding mum, particularly in the hospital when i was (as we all do to start with) struggling and not quite understanding the principles of latching on etc. So that inspired me. I'm further spurred on by the attitude of so many people that breastfeeding is something you do only for a few months and then give up as soon as you feel ready to get "back" to your "normal" life.

i'm pleased that i will be able to tell other mothers that actually there's a huge number of people across the UK and the USA and the rest of the world too, who actually continue up to a year and sometimes beyond.  hopefully i'll be able to encourage a few more, and they might encourage a few more, and we can get the ball rolling!

i attend a club every week for breastfeeding mothers, run by health visitors (in the UK we have health professionals whose job it is to support new mothers and parents of young children called HVs if you didn't know that. they're not nurses or doctors, but sort of like advisors).  Even there i've had one HV say she was surprised i was still breastfeeding at 6 months, though there are planty of women there who go beyond and are still BF at 10m plus.

[kim&savannah]

We went 14 months at which point my milk pretty much dried up ( i  think because we were down to only 2 feeds a day and it just wasn't enough for me to keep my supply up).  And DD was always slender compared to her height (20-25% vs. 80-90%) but since she was also born at those %, the dr. was never remotely concerned and so I never worried.  And now that she's 2, she's evened out a lot--we go in tomorrow for her checkup, but I'm pretty sure she's up around 50%, so even the skinny ones do start to catch up.

Just a comment about the chubby babies--I've actually known several exclusively bf babies who got HUGE when they were infants!!!!  So don't automatically assume that every fat baby is on formula.  I was pretty impressed with my friends who could produce that much milk.  And of course they were the ones who lost all the baby weight plus some by 6 months.  Made me a little jealous.

~Kim

[Erin M]

We went 10.5 months here and I was sad when we gave it up due to us both becoming pretty sick with a stomach flu and my supply dwindlig to nothing due to the dehydration.  Now I think I should have pumped to keep it up, but 20/20 hindsight I guess.  Anyway, I don't know anyone IRL who nursed for as long as I did -- most people I know made it about 2 weeks and promptly quit, so I do know what you mean about not knowing people who go past 6 months.  Good luck!

[deenz]

I too know very big exclusively bf babies.  I remember though my LC telling me that she could tell by feeling a baby's skin/fat (say on their arm) whether they were ff or bf!  I can't remember what she said the difference was, but I thought that was interesting!  (bear in mind she had many many years experience and was very very good!).