How do you all use my Brest friend? Do you use any extra pillows to prop it up? I have a 2.5 week old and find I have to put a pillow underneath MBF to get it to the appropriate height for him (my understanding is MBF should sit right underneath the breast shelf). It’s kind of cumbersome to put it on and get the pillow set up underneath it esp when I feed solo and hubs isn’t around to help. And curious how long you all used it for? When does baby grow out of it or is it something you used all of breastfeeding?

Hey everyone,

I am a FTM, and today, my 2 week old babygirl didn’t eat as much as she normally does. I am EBF and I attempted to feed her about every 2-3 hours but she would only latch for 5-10 minutes before unlatching and going to sleep. Is this something I should be worried about? That she isn’t getting enough calories? I think I clocked a total of 1.5 hours on the breast whereas she is normally above 2 and sometimes even 3 hour mark. I know she didn’t feed as much because my boobs began hurting midday due to being engorged and I used my haakkas to extract a little of the milk to relieve the pain.

Is this all okay? Do babies fluctuate in how much they eat day to day?

Thank you in advance! :)

Hi everyone,

I gave birth to my daughter 4 weeks ago, the birth went well but I had retained placenta and had a pretty traumatic experience. From the get go it was hard for me to breastfeed.. I was crushed cause it was always my plan and I didn’t think of a scenario in which it wouldn’t be possible. Not only was it hard for my baby to latch, my supply was depleted due to the blood loss. I was told to give formula after two days of trying because she wasn’t getting enough from my boobs alone.

Fast forward to now, I’ve increased my supply and I’ve had a few good latches. I plan to keep trying whether or not I’m successful and hopefully someday she’ll be able to drink from me and be full.

My question is, what should I look out for to know that she’s actually drinking and not just comfort sucking? What does it feel like when the baby is actually getting milk?

After not being able to nurse my first ten years ago, and a really rough start with my second, I’m thrilled to say that WE DID IT. We made it to the year mark. We both stuck with it. My husband was supportive and encouraging which really helped. And I had the best lactation consultant that didn’t give up on me. What a year! I’m so proud of us for powering through the impossibly hard first weeks and making it through the other side!

My son is about to turn 1. I only work 2 days a week so I’m home with him all the others. When I’m home with him he feeds to sleep for naps and bedtime. He’s not a great sleeper and wakes up at least twice a night and I always nurse him back to sleep. I want to start weaning but have no idea how we’re going to handle naps and sleeping without the boob. My husband is able to get him down with a bottle when I’m working but aren’t we also supposed to be dropping bottles around 1 too? For MOTN wakes it’s always the boob. This afternoon I tried to nurse him in the living room and then put him in his crib awake and he screamed bloody murder. I’m also a sucker and respond pretty quickly when he cries- my threshold for his tears is so low. Any help or guidance greatly appreciated!

My goal was to breastfeed for 1 year and I have made it 15 months and am officially done! LO and I had a ROUGH start with a shallow latch and bleeding nipples and "the strongest suction" nurses had ever felt. I truly did not think I would make it past the two month mark, but with the wonderful help of lactation consultants and people in this sub we made it through. My husband, LO, and I went on a trip this past week and I thought this was the perfect time to wean LO as I was ready to have my body back to myself. He was down to two feedings a day; comfort feeds before his two naps prior to the trip. He was completely fine not getting any boob before his naps during our trip. We got back home yesterday and I fed him cows milk before bed tonight and he put up zero fight for the boob. I am so happy that we are both ready to "graduate" but I can't help but feel sad that it's over. Being able to breastfeed has been such a beautiful journey and I am forever grateful for the experience. Until the next kiddo, peace out ladies and thank yall for being my late night feed friends✌️

So I read online that you’re not supposed to wear a bra at night because the pressure can cause your milk ducts to get clogged. I’m already dealing with a spot on my right breast that is getting lumpy and painful. I have to massage it and empty my breast fully, sometimes twice with the pump for it to go away so I’d really rather not make that worse…

But that means sleeping without pads in a bra.

Is everything just going to start smelling like sour milk?

Do I just have to deal with a wet shirt while I sleep?

Or I can sleep without a shirt… but then my sheets get wet…

I can sleep on a towel, but it always bunches up underneath me and then I feel like I’m laying on something lumpy…

Advice?

Hi all mummas!

Just a quick qn and will be super grateful for anyone who replies.

Do our breasts continue to regulate supply and demand?

I ve had oversupply and fast let down for a few weeks down and I've done everythinggggg to make it better. .

It honestly feels better BUT. I just want to know does the body continue to regulate supply and demand OR is it once you're over the initial 6-8 weeks than that's it.

Right now I'm just letting time heal things.

FTM EBF to a 18 weeks old.

I delivered my baby via c-section on thanksgiving. She’s a 23-weeker and in NICU.

This is my first pregnancy and I really don’t know a lot but I am also learning a lot of things for the first time.

Are there any women here who have also delivered a preemie or went through PROM or PPROM (preferably under 27weeks) and were able to have a breast milk supply? What tips do you have? I’ve only produced a drop and it’s making me feel so hopeless.

Before I start, I fully believe fed is best, whether that's EBF, EP, combo feeding, or exclusively formula.

However, I wanted so badly to be EBF and I've never been able to. I had to supplement with formula from day 3 as my supply was too low. I finally got my supply up to just what baby needs a couple weeks ago, but baby was transferring so little I had to do a top off bottle every time. Now at 9 weeks, baby is so used to the bottle that he'll only BF through a single letdown on each side, then scream his head off.

I'm kicking myself because I'm sure it's partly due to often replacing BF sessions with a pump and just bottle feeding him because it's so much quicker and easier than triple feeding. However, the bottles also give him a lot more gas than BF, and it kills me seeing him uncomfortable when I feel I could have prevented it.

It feels like my only option at this point is switching to EP and giving up nursing altogether. LC and pediatrician haven't been able to help with nursing; he has no tongue tie, just a high palate.

My LC did say if I pump more than a few times a day I'll need to rent a hospital grade pump instead of using my wearable, which runs $60-80 a month and since I already got a wearable through insurance, I don't know if they'd cover the rented one. Not to mention I hated using the hospital one when I was boosting my supply, it always leaked and I could never be hands free.

I just don't know what to do. I feel like I've failed not only my baby, but myself as well. I just want to be able to nurse my baby when he's hungry and satiate him, is that too much to ask? I'm just so heartbroken.

Tldr; lots of BF issues, baby now mostly refusing breast and I likely need to switch to EP once and for all.

I've been using a nipple shield for breast feeding and I saw a raw spot on the hard pallet of my babies mouth . It doesn't hurt him when I touch it and it's not bleeding. Has anyone else seen this on their baby ? I showed the pediatrician and he said as long as it doesn't bleed there's no concern.

My daughter is 8 months old and has never stopped nursing at night. On an average night she wakes up twice and I nurse her and she goes back to sleep. I am hoping to stop bf when she turns 1, but is there a way I can support that transition now? My worry is that she is so used to eating in the night that when I want to stop bf is she going to have a tough time sleeping bc she will feel hungry? I’m a ftm and the transition to stopping bf is kind of feeling overwhelming to me so any thoughts are appreciated!

So proud to say baby and I made it 1 year breastfeeding!! I truly didn’t think I’d make it. I only made it 6 weeks with my first and it was such a hard pill to swallow that breastfeeding was just too much for me at that time in my life. I carried so much guilt even though i rationally knew formula feeding is amazing and a completely okay way to feed a baby. I just felt I failed because I was going through PPD and I wanted to breastfeed so bad.

I healed and told myself if I ever have another baby, I’d work as hard as I could to breastfeed because I wanted to so bad. But gave myself grace if I struggled again and told myself I wouldn’t beat myself up if I needed to switch to formula again. Well this journey was hard at first but we got through the obstacles and have been going strong! I am just so proud of my perseverance and working hard at something that I strived for. I’m proud of my body for feeding my baby for a year. I am just on cloud nine and just wanted to share that I made my goal of 1 year!

After months of pumping at work 3xs a day religiously and feeding babe when we're together, we've made it to almost 14 months of breastfeeding. My ~15 lbs of remaining extra weight are holding on for dear life. My ring still doesn't fit even though I'm only 10 to 15 lbs over what I was when I got preggo. I kept saying if I get close to my pre baby weight they'd fit but nope, only in certain conditions like at night so whatever reason. It was hard at first but now feeding her is easy. On the one hand I want to stop and hopefully get some more weight off and maybe my knuckles would go back to 'normal?' This week she was sick and teething something fierce and sometimes nothing else would calm her down. (Although a few times she was on for a few mins then back to screaming. ) I've read various ways to wean but what would y'all recommend or did you just keep going? I guess i could not offer boob during the weekend days when we're together and do cows milk like she'd be having at day care. She's had no interest in stopping voluntarily. She nurses at night a few times. So many thoughts and emotions. It's so hard. Thanks for reading if you're here.

For various reasons, it has now been 3 days since I was able to nurse my 8 month old. We were already down to 1-2 times a day for the last couple of weeks. I was thinking maybe I would be okay with ending our breastfeeding journey and now I’m having serious sadness and remorse that it might be over.

I can tell I still have at least a little bit of milk in each side. I’ve had a low supply for months and so he’s had to get mostly formula, but now I’m wishing so badly that we were still doing our once or twice a day. He’s been sick and refusing to nurse so I’m thinking maybe I should try to pump tonight? And maybe again tomorrow until maybe he might be willing to nurse again? He usually loves to nurse when he’s not sick and can breathe through his nose.

Looking for any helpful advice or experiences. Is it too late? Should I just be done? Feeling major mixed emotions.

We just got back from a week long vacation. My 2yo was nursing 2-3 times per day, mostly morning and bedtime. On the 2nd day of vacation we had to rush out the door after waking her and for the first time ever she didn’t nurse upon waking and didn’t seem to mind. At bedtime she was so tired she didn’t ask, I was shocked! And the days went on like that for 5 days. She asked twice and cried for maybe 2 minutes total but was easily distracted by a snack. We got home today and I thought for sure we’d have a miserable time getting her down without nursing but she asked us to tuck her in and that was it! I thought she’d be nursing until 4! I’m happy and sad at the same time. Anyways I was really scared weaning would be a nightmare and didn’t really believe it could happen by accident but here’s my story!

So I have had the greatest breastfeeding experience right from day 1. I felt very lucky and blessed as I never had any issues with it and always enjoyed it (to be fair I also live in Canada where I get a 12-18m maternity leave so EBF and not having to pump at all is an option for me). When my baby was 10m I became pregnant with my 2nd. I am now 16weeks pregnant with a 13m old and up until this point I have continued to nurse her. But ever since about 10 weeks pregnant or so I have noticed a huge decline in my supply to the point where my left breast makes pretty much no milk anymore and she can get a tiny bit from the right side. I continued to nurse first only first thing in the morning and before bed and wasn’t too worried about how she wasn’t getting much because my baby eats tons of solids and likes to drink water. I have attempted to give her cows milk in various sippy cups but she never really liked it. Well tonight I warmed up about 5 ounces and put it in a bottle that I found and I could tell my baby was loving it. I had never given her a bottle before as the few times I tried when she was much younger she refused it. But as I was holder her watching her just really enjoy this bottle of milk I realized that I think I need to stop nursing and let her have a bottle or two per day instead. It makes me so sad because I wanted to nurse her til 18m at least and even thought about nursing through my whole pregnancy and tandem feeding, but what I want may not be what is actually best for my baby. And it might actually be nice for me to have a little break between baby’s. It’s just sad to know it’s coming to an end. Thanks for listening to me express my feelings!

My LO just turned 4 months this week but for the past few weeks has been very fussy. He constantly arches his back and cries, more so in the late afternoon/evenings. It seems like he is in pain from gas or reflux. I’m constantly burping him, doing bicycle kicks, etc. he was gassy as a newborn but never cried like this so it seems odd if it were suddenly diet related as I’ve made no changes. He had a cold recently and I chalked it up to him not feeling well at first, but now we’re past that and he’s still struggling and I just feel so bad for him. I’m not sure if he’s swallowing a lot of air when breastfeeding as sometimes my let down is strong, but this also happens at daycare with a bottle. Should I have him checked for a tongue tie? He’s gaining weight totally fine. Anyone else have a suddenly super gassy baby around 3-4 months? He was so chill until now. Any other explanations I’m not thinking of?

I had an oversupply until four months, and now I have to do so much work just to get 20 oz. I can’t stop kicking myself for losing it. I should have pumped. I should have eaten more. I should have kept better track of how much the baby was eating.

I’m trying so hard but I can’t get over it. I’d love to hear if anyone else has dealt with this, especially if you took good care of yourself and it still happened. Would love it if I could magically stop blaming myself.

Hi all I am four months postpartum. I’ve been exclusively latching my baby and a bottle every other day to make sure he can still take a bottle. I was pumping for twenty minutes after every nursing session up until last week. I was in pain and reached out to a lactation consultant. She told me I was overdoing it and couldn’t believe I was still pumping for twenty minutes after every feed at 4 months postpartum. She made a plan for me to reduce to 10 minutes after every feed than 5 minutes, to only pumping for 20 minutes if my baby takes a bottle and I don’t nurse at all and for 10 minutes after the first feed of the day to continue a freezer stash for daycare. Well now that I’m a week out of following that advice my baby is so fussy at every feed!!! I regret following her advice and am scared I caused long term damage to my supply. What’s worse is he starts daycare on Monday and will be getting more bottles. I was hoping to continue my breast feeding journey despite daycare. Am I screwed? Should I go back to pumping? I don’t even care if I cause pain again. I just want to feed my baby :(

I am a server at a family owned restaurant and pump once per shift. They have a small office with a ragged chair and wood desk. Last week, i found mouse droppings in the office, and after asking multiple different people multiple times i was able to get it cleaned. This week, a flu is going around and a sick employee was face down on the desk. Its wood so it cant even be properly cleaned, but nobody would bother cleaning anyway… there is no HR, just the owner/managers. Nobody is willing to make extra accommodations nor has the resources to do so. I have no idea what to do, it doesnt feel sanitary to pump here. Any advice is appreciated pleasee

My husband said that to me tonight in regards to breastfeeding our 7.5M old.

I responded with "when she's ready".

Mini rant: we already combo feed and my daughter isn't booby obsessed, but she definitely prefers to nurse. She'll take a bottle for little top ups and is great with a straw and open cup.

We actually just got over her first cold, all of us got sick, but my daughter recovered before both of us and I'm convinced it's because she's still breastfeeding.

I dunno, that comment really bothered me and he doesn't understand why.

My 3mo old has slept through 10 hours the last two nights. (Ofcourse talking about it is going to jinx it). I've had to remove some milk via haakaa after getting her back down.

I'm slightly worried that going 10 hrs without removing milk. Because of toddler, I'm going to bed 1.5-2hrs after baby does.

Should I pump before going to bed? I'd really rather not. I super don't want to wake up in the middle of the night to pump, that's a hard no.

Or just let my body adjust? & then it will also adjust if/ when she starts waking more frequently again?

His latch is fine, weight and height are above 90th percentile and we’ve never had a problem with breast feeding.

Ever since introducing solids, he has almost completely lost interest in nursing. He really only nurses well during the night and during the day it’s a fight to get a good session in.

He’s so excited when he sees food and water and eats a lot. I’m just nervous because he’s supposed to be getting most of his nutrients from breastmilk at this age :(

I don’t know if i should stop feeding him so much solids, give him more, call his pediatrician or what. Does anyone have any advice or experienced something similar?

This will be long, so hang on. With my first daughter, I only pumped, so I got on a schedule and was an over producer.

My second daughter is almost 4 months old and we have been nursing and pumping. I cannot get my supply to increase, despite all my efforts. Her napping schedule is also a bit all over the place, so I never know when to pump. I was trying to pump on the side she nursed from afterwards, but by the time I could get to it, it was already close to the next feeding, so I was just taking away from that next feeding. I’m also feeling like my boobs are not refilling fast enough. Right now, I’m nursing her from both and having to feed at least 3oz from a bottle after. When I pump, I’m usually getting around 7-8oz combined. I pump about 4 times a day. How can I time all this better? Or get my supply to increase?

She’s also more of a grazer and is not obsessed with the boob, so once they start getting empty, she will quit nursing. I feel like I’m going crazy.

Ideally, I’d like to nurse her during the day to completion and then pump at work (working 3pm-11pm). Is that a pipe dream?

Tried power pumping, stopped using my hands free pump as the suction wasn’t strong enough, eating oatmeal, drinking coconut milk, lots of spinach, chicken, etc. I drink about a million ozs of water a day. My slacker boob feels like it’s one day away from drying up. Thank goodness for my other boob pulling all the weight here.

Halp!

Looking for anyone that’s been in a similar situation or has advice.

I started out trying to EBF from birth, my son is 8 weeks old. At around 3/4 weeks old, it became clear he was having difficulty feeding (falling asleep at the breast, feeding would last over an hour without satisfaction, infrequent swallowing, screaming, constant on and off breast, and breasts always felt engorged). After a really terrible day of poor feeding my partner and I decided to give him formula for the first time, and he finally seemed content. I still tried to primarily breastfeed and supplement with 4-8oz of formula a day, but he continued to have difficulty and my supply went down. I saw a lactation consultant at 6 weeks, and she deemed the issue a shallow latch and suggested we get him evaluated for a tongue tie. At the appointment we did a weighted feed, and he only took 1.3 oz from nursing. I had my period the week after and my supply dropped even more. He is now primarily formula-fed, but we attempt nursing anytime he starts showing hunger cues. He takes 4oz of formula every 3.5-4 hours, plus whatever he is able to take in when we attempt breastfeeding.

I have tried pumping, but have a hard time doing it consistently because my son does not tolerate being set down very well, and I don’t have consistent help available to hold him while I pump. My supply is also very low right now (I can get two oz max combined if I pump for 25 minutes, after attempting to breastfeed). Thankfully, my mom will be in town this upcoming weekend, and I am going to try to get my supply up during that time through pumping. My goal is to try to pump as much as I can while we wait to get my son’s tongue tie evaluated, and hopefully switch back to EBF.

I am wondering if other people here were able to switch back to EBF after combo feeding or formula feeding, and how that process worked for them/how long it took? Did you also have a drop in supply that you needed to get back up/were you able to? I am also concerned because today it seemed like he was able to take a little more breastmilk than normal, but has spit up more, and more forcefully, than when he only has formula. Is this normal? Does he need to be slowly transitioned back to breastmilk?

Has anyone used it? If so what are your reviews about it? Also if you get multiple ones can you use them together?

Basically what the title says!! FTM, our 11 week old has been sleeping 6-7 hour stretches at night. I’m worried that without a MOTN feed my supply will suffer. In your experience, would you still wake up to pump in the middle of the night if baby isn’t waking, or is this one of those things where my body will just adapt? I’m not too concerned about building a freezer stash because I’m incredibly lucky to be only going back to work in a very limited capacity. She’s still got plenty of wet & dirty diapers and is gaining the appropriate weight. Thanks in advance :)

My 7 month old has 2 top teeth and 2 bottom teeth and it is really starting to hurt to feed him. I enjoy breastfeeding him, it’s the one thing I can do for him that I know is pure and full of love but I don’t know how much more my nipples can take. What can I do?

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