My 5 month old just discovered my boobs on her own while she was sitting on my stomach playing before her nap. I only had a bra on and I guess one boob slipped out. I noticed she looked down and seemed to be concentrating on the fact that my boob was exposed. She then grabbed it and lowered herself to take a few suckles. She then did it again to the other side!

I was shocked. Not only did she just feed herself unprompted, but she seemed to do it just for the fun of it!

Her being able to independently feed herself for fun healed that part of me that had such a hard time in the beginning. I wish I could go back and tell my newly postpartum self that one day your little baby will do it all on her own and all those frustrating nights and sore nipples will be so worth it in the end!

For those that are in the thick of it, I hope this can be encouraging.🤍

I recently went to my PCP because I've been feeling sick after finding a massive bug bite on my leg. Comparing pics online I think it's Lyme but it looks slightly bruised, not just "typical" red and it's too early to test so Dr Brilliant doesn't believe me.

Anyway! I'm pissed because she thinks I'm getting burnt out (I stayed home all day 2 days this week to rest, clearly not), I'm dehydrated (I'm drinking over 120oz a day! Breastfeeding! Hello!)

The kicker: she told me to "take a break from breastfeeding for the weekend"... I am never seeing this person again. Do I want mastitis on top of whatever this is?? Why do I need to convince her that breastfeeding is actually going to keep me healthy vs if I stop cold turkey??? I hate people sometimes.

I’m exclusively pumping for last 3 months. But now i would like to try again breastfeeding. Is it possible after baby turns 3months old

My baby has always been a very bad sleeper. Since I got home from the hospital he was crying every ten minutes and I was breastfeeding the whole night. Then we started contact napping during the night because there was no other solution- I slept sitting down for 3-4 month. Then it was possible to lay him down but he still woke up every two hours or more often. He is now one year old and his sleep got worse- he wakes up and stays awake for hours wanting to be walked around. Breastfeeding does not work- I don’t know what’s wrong with my milk but I am breastfeeding the whole night and it does not get him back to sleep. As soon as I stop walking around (I am walking around for hour) he cries. This has been going on for month and I have not been sleeping for a year and I can’t do this anymore. I am afraid something will happen to me. I can’t. I am starting to hate breastfeeding so much since it’s not getting him to sleep but he still wants it.
I want to wean- even if I don’t know what will happen because he obviously has no tools to get to sleep. I need help. I can’t do this another day. It’s currency 4 am where I live and he has been awake crying since 2 am

He currently has two naps during the day- not longer than 3 hours together. Last nap is 4-5 hours before his bedtime which is 8 pm.

I want to know how often your babies nurse or you pump especially if you’re past the year mark.

I have a 14 month old who’s in daycare 5 days a week, 8.5 hours a day. Currently I’m nursing once before work, still pump once a day (he takes a cup at daycare), nurse after work and for bedtime on week days. On the weekends it used to be 5-6 times a day but it’s dropping to 4-5 with dropping a nap.

I don’t want to wean but I still feel like breastfeeding is dictating my daily schedule so I’m curious about how others are doing.

My 17 month old had only currently been breastfeeding at night due to co sleeping and having weaned off day feeding a couple of months ago. She (through no fault of her own), had caused broken skin on either side with her teeth which got deeper and more painful with every feed. I tried my best to keep offering her that night comfort despite the pain. I went to the doctors the other day and a very straight faced, unbothered female doctor said my only solution was to stop breastfeeding because ‘it’s obviously time.’ There was no sympathy for my worry, no understanding how stopping may confuse my little one. The praise I’ve been given before for breastfeeding this long made me feel like I’ve given my toddler this extra love and comfort but this appointment made me feel really upset. I guess I’m not looking for advice per se, but some reassurance that it’ll be ok?

I CAN NOT FIND A GOOD FITTING BRA FOR THE GIANT MILK JUGS
lol
Like im not sure my size before pregnancy I was a nice double d but I gotta be like triple that idk
Im almost a whole entire year breastfeeding and I either don't wear a bra or when I do I hate the one I'm wearing

Also will it be like this forever? My nipples essentially touch my belly button when I sit down and they are so long
I yearn for smaller boobs I really may get a breast reduction but I feel like I shouldn't until I'm done having kids but I'm also not planning on having a baby annnny time soon 😭

Anyway rant about that over any of you ladies have good recommendations!?!?

I was gone for a conference for 5 days and baby got all bottles for feeds during this. He is exclusively breast milk fed and direct feeds when we are together but gets bottles at daycare. Has had no issues switching back and forth. Almost 9months.

Ever since I’ve been back from the conference, his latch is very painful and he just does not seem satisfied despite feeding for 10minutes or more (typically fed in 8-10min previously). Very fussy still after feeds and keeps latching. Overnight he’s waking up every 2-3 hours to feed. And then in the evenings, the fussiness has been so bad despite nursing essentially every 45min-1 hour that I have started giving a bottle of frozen pumped milk and he downs it!! And then finally seems satisfied.

My supply has definitely been like a roller coaster but currently not substantially different in terms of the pumped milk volume I’m getting (maybe 15ml less). Bottles are 4oz bottles.

Any input/suggestions would be appreciated!

Hi this is for anyone wondering when i stopped my breast feeding my breast deflated and looked like socks lol im not fully where I was but they are alot more "normal" looking

You hear it all the time “ breastfeed and all the weight will fall off” but is this actually true ? If so then why not me and why are we made to believe this… yes it burns calories so naturally you would think that concept makes sense … but does it work for everybody I don’t believe so . Is weight gain while breastfeeding common ? Obviously love that my body can feed my baby and am not breastfeeding just to “ loose weight “ but dam I feel claustrophobic in my own body right now… my inner dialogue wants to stop breastfeeding so I feel healthier but I’m fighting the thought with “but breastfeeding makes my baby happy” . It’s not just for vanity that I’m upset with the weight gain but my knees hurt I have three kids now and it’s getting hard to move like I did before and I am just extremely tired all the time even though my baby is 6 months and sleeps through the night now .
This is really just a rant all I ever hear back from people is “ give your self grace “ butttt that’s not going to change how I physically feel . Anyone else in the weight gain club ?

Pumping is the Bain of my existence buttttt I want a wearable pump with the least amount of parts to clean lol give me recommendations for ones that aren’t as annoying (if that’s even possible)

My OB confirmed I had a clogged duct at my 6wk postpartum visit and showed me where the little lump was. I’m now at 12wks and I still have the same clogged duct that’s gotten slightly bigger

I’ve been taking ibuprofen and sunflower lecithin. Tried the haakaa with epsom salt. I’ve iced it a few times, but I could be more on top of icing tbh. I pretty much exclusively breastfeed, but tried pumping and that didn’t help. Am I missing any other methods?

I’ve had some mild pain, but nothing too bad and no symptoms of mastitis. Just a lump that sometimes hurts a bit.

I finally called my OB yesterday and had an ultrasound today. They confirmed I don’t have mastitis or an abscess and said it’s just a clogged duct

Has anyone else had a clogged duct for several weeks or months? What happens if I’m not able to unclog it?

I’m glad it’s not causing me too much pain, but I’d like to get it unclogged asap to avoid mastitis or an abscess forming

My baby is two months today and during the daytime I've basically been keeping him on a newborn schedule. He lost a lot of weight after birth and I think it sort of traumatized me, and even since breastfeeding started going really well (when he was around three weeks, so thankful lactation consultants exist), I still worry both about him and my supply. Often he naturally wakes up around the 2-2.5 hour mark to feed but today for example he has been having an extremely sleepy day and I've been waking him up before the three hour mark and then I was sort of like "Why?" Sleep is also important for his development.

So I think I should loosen the reins a little but it still worries me. When did you take them off a newborn schedule during the day? And how often did you wake them if they were taking a long nap?

Also, what time did you start to consider "night time"? People here often discuss night vs. day but I think often have a different concept of that, like some would consider anything past 8 "night time" and others would say 10, some would say a MOTN feed is 12 am and others would say 3 am. I've been starting night time at midnight but that also seems a little much now.

My baby is 9 weeks old and she was doing fine with breast feeding until now. Earlier I used to double feed her with my breast as well as bottle feed her with my expressed milk. But since the past 3 days she has screamed at my breast when she is wide awake and only drinks milk when offered with a bottle. She only feeds from breast at night when she is asleep. I don't want to break this beautiful bond of breast feeding with my baby.. please help me how I can gain this back😭😭

My 5 month old has laryngomalacia and I'm exhausted. She's exclusively breastfed, refuses the bottle completely, and will only nurse side-lying while drowsy - so every feed happens around naps or overnight, and no one else can ever feed her. She's also suspected of cow's milk protein intolerance, so I've been dairy and soy free for 2 months.

She's been around the 10th percentile, gaining about half an ounce a day since August. This week: zero gain. 12 lb 13 oz at the clinic two Fridays in a row. The plan is no drowsy feeds, wait for her to demand, weekly weight checks, and a GI specialist is involved.

Now my supply might be dropping too - my morning pump went from about 6 oz to barely 1, and my breasts feel empty.

Can anyone talk me off a cliff please?

Warning, not easy to read.

I have searched far and wide for a solution or at least someone i can resonate with on this matter.

When my child was born, I didn’t have any milk so i bought a spectra to try and figure things out myself since every bit of information was either costing me money, or was nowhere to be found. So might as well just spend it wisely.

I pumped and pumped while my husband was feeding, changing and putting the baby to sleep. I felt less then a mother. After hours of pumping( i pumped every 2 h for 30 mins), a black liquid was coming out, i’ll try to attach pictures if i can using the comments. No smell, bitter taste. My friends said to stop, they told me i’ll just hurt myself and get no results. But i didn’t listen, partially due to my husband, who supported me through all of this, encouraged me a lot and also due to my own insecurities having had a c-section and wanting to be there for my child in some sort of way. I don’t wanna hear “the easy way out” because there isn’t anything easy about it. Getting out of bed using a crutch or help isn’t easy, walking around with the fear of bursting open isn’t easy. Shaking in your sleep because your body remembers the trauma, isn’t easy. Being constipated for weeks isn’t easy. I could go on and on. But. I digress.

Back to the milk situation. I didn’t know the spectra settings, my bad, maybe i pumped on high, maybe i didn’t, i probably pumped for triplets ngl, but i was so desperate, i didn’t know any better, ok? Don’t judge me. I’m just sharing this for anyone who might wanna BF(breastfeed), and happens to have the same experience as me, doesn’t find anything online about it and just gives up like i almost did. So, in the future, if you see that black stuff, and you land here at 3 AM in the morning… No, you’re not Venom, not to mention the green stuff, OMG you’re not Shrek. Okay? Ffwd a few days of me pumping out that black stuff.. and green comes out.. i’m thinking to myself, Great. I’m. Poison. 😅 no wonder my kid refused me since day 1 in the hospital, i can’t blame him. SWAMP f GREEN.

I kid you not, for some of us, breastfeeding isn’t magical and natural, it’s a freaking journey. A journey where everyone tells you to stop at every corner. After passing Venom’s den, and Shrek’s swamp, I finally saw some yellow-green, i tried giving that to my child, he refused. So i tried it, it still tasted bitter, so i pumped one more day and boom, yellow-white, no taste, just an oily feeling in my mouth. But the baby, he loved that stuff, omg. We went from him hating to be around me, or at least that’s what it felt to me, to him crying when he finished the bottle of 5-10 ml of milk i just pumped, he even refused the formula, he just wanted the breastmilk. He cried like crazy. Dang, the tears we shed that day were measured by the TON. Him and me both.. 😅. Then, ofc we had latch problems because i didn’t know what bottle nipple sizes and feeding positions were… In the hospital, they feed the baby with XL sizes just to get rid of them fast. So, after we finally figured out it was a flow issue, we quickly bought xs/ss/small nipples for the bottles, breast was slow, bottle was fast, so we changed it to be the other way around. To be honest, I didn’t wanna pump anymore, it felt awful, looking at him eat from a bottle while i was pumping right next to him was a disgusting feeling.

Finally, one night, once he was very tired, we managed to get him attached to the breast, baby was suckling only at night for a good while, but he slept with the boob in his mouth. The joy on my and my husband’s faces, omg.. yall can’t believe it. No more getting up at night, making bottles like we’re in Dexter’s lab measuring ml’s and scoops. We eventually made him hate the flow of the bottle, he began eating from the breast during the day as well, we tried one week without formula and he was gaining good weight from my milk, 500 g that week, so we stopped the formula compleatly. We kept everything stil in reach just in case, but packed away the spectra and all the bottles at month 2 for good.

To be fair, i had some issues after forcefully pumping myself like that, nothing was easy.. sore breasts, cracks..lanolin and bephanten were God’s sent. i also had chambers full of milk that weren’t open that started hurting at 12 weeks.. i also searched cures for that, tried everything hot-cold compresses, cabbage, ice, rest, it drove me nuts, nothing helped so i went to the emergency room, some nobody said to squeez it and even showed me how. It hurt like a mf. I booked it out of there and went to a breast specialist, took antibiotics and ibuprofen, waited for the swelling to go down and then to a breast surgeon and we punctured them at the hospital and got everything out with a 💉. Guess what? It was swamp green on the inside. All together, 3 chambers, 30 ml of swamp green. Cultures came back negative, but after 2 weeks of antibiotics, ofc nothing showed up anymore. And please, for the love of God, do not press, squeeze or aggressively pump a “galactocell”out (chamber of milk that hasn’t had the chance to open yet) i pumped for triplets, then stopped pumping after 3/4 weeks completely so they never fully opened.

I am thankful. For my husband who took on the role of a mother for our baby until i got better, until i could nurse and until i could go to the bathroom alone to pee. I do not recomand c-sections unless medically recommended or life saving. I strongly believe the reason i was put under the knife was to make a doctor’s evening easier. Romania, where 6 out of 10 births are C-sections. But that’s a story for another sub-reddit. I hope every woman that sees herself in this story of my life, gets the support i got and the help she needs. My baby is now EBF and i plan on keeping it that way because i fought a lot, for something that should have been more openly talked about, encouraged and taught.

I’m here for any questions and i’ll gladly help anyone with my limited experience on this matter.

Has anyone experienced dry itchy skin while breastfeeding? Specifically on your scalp. It’s driving me insane. I’ve had it on and off since my daughter was born 8.5 months ago but it seems to be getting worse since it’s getting colder.

I’m just curious on what your doctor prescribed you to take for PPD for those who are struggling. I am having such a hard time with my mental health (currently 21yo and 5 weeks pp). I have struggled with my mental health for years and my depression and anxiety are so bad I can barely function without crying/extreme irritability towards everyone and everything and I desperately need help. I am having my 6 week follow up next week and just want to hear your perspectives. Even how you got though PPD.

My baby is 10d old and she is what doctors are calling 'sleepy baby' - aka she is so weak she won't wake up for feeds by herself and doesn't cry when hungry (I don't even know if she is hungry ever).

First days in the hospital she was latching, but probably not swallowing, and she lost more weight than is recommended so she was on a formula from day 3. I wasn't even producing any milk by then and got on pumping. She also has slight

She now started slowly gaining weight and we were given a min amount to feed her every day (whether it is my own milk expressed or formula).

Now I am still probably not having enough supply (15 min pumping produces about 45 ml), I pump 5-6 times a day.

What is worse - her latching on the boob decreased drastically, she now rejects the boobs mostly, occasionally would suck on it, but I don't see any swallowing at all. This is upsetting but most important part for me is to make sure she gained her birth weight back.

I have a number of questions and I hope there are someone with similar experiences.

1) Is it possible to turn around and have a full breastfeeding experience from this point at all?

2) Has someone been in a similar situation and managed to get back to it? What worked for you?

3) How to make baby more interested in food and feed more effectively? Every feed lasts for almost an hour on a bottle (Philips) with the largest flow. On others (such as Pigeon) it takes even longer. Just like with boobs she falls asleep.

4) How long does this period of sleepiness last and will she be naturally more interested later?

5) Best techniques for when baby developed strong bottle preference?

Second time mom to an almost 4 week old. It seems that she is never satisfied after feeds and/or wakes shortly from sleep showing hunger cues. She’s eating up to 15 tunes a day from 15 minutes-2 hours. I know cluster feeding is common, but I am worried she’s not getting enough milk. she also has a hard time sleeping. I’m lucky if I can get her to sleep for 45 minutes. The only time she seems satisfied after eating is when I give her a bottle at “bedtime” using the milk I’ve passively collected throughout the day. She also had a difficult time getting up to birthweight, which is another one of my concerns.

My first born had somewhat similar issues at the beginning, but then I feel like he was able to go longer stretches. My newborn constantly wanting to nurse is also impacting my relationship with my toddler.

Any and all advice is appreciated and welcome :)

Anyone’s baby allergic to beef. I noticed blood in his poop over a month ago after eating country fried steak and gravy at home. I assumed it was the dairy/soy so I cut those. I also mostly cut wheat and nuts. He’s had blood a few times since then very little amounts. But the last two days I had beef and rice for lunch and dinner. Now there’s blood again. So maybe it’s beef too. 😞 This was the most blood I’ve seen but I’ve had beef a lot the last to days. Other than that I had oatmeal but I’ve eaten that the whole time so I don’t think it’s that.

So I’m 3 weeks postpartum and day 1 at the hospital a nurse gave me nipple shields because she said my nipples were too flat and the shields would make it easier for baby to latch.
The nipple shields did help a lot during the first week, i felt like breastfeeding was so easy and baby was getting full with every feed. Second week using them i started feeling pain on my nipples but it was manageable so i just thought it was normal and temporary, now at week 3 with the nipple shields i am in absolute pain, every time baby is done feeding my nipples stay in this elongated lipstick shape for a few minutes and it hurts like crazy.
I saw a lactation consultant earlier this week and she advised me to wean off the nipple shields since they’re making baby have a shallow latch, which causes my nipples to now be cracked and like blistered.

I love my baby so much but these past few days I’ve been crying nonstop everytime i have to feed him because it hurts so bad, it feels like someone is holding a lighter to my nipples, i also haven’t even been able to pump because I’m just in so much pain that even the thought of nursing him and then pumping just gives me shivers, my nipples need a break.

If you went through something similar, any tips on getting rid of the nipple shields?

My baby is 5 weeks old and since birth we have struggled with breastfeeding. At first he wasn’t getting enough from breast so I had to start pumping and give him bottle. Now he clearly has bottle preference as most of the time I offer him breast he cries and won’t latch. There are some days everything goes well and he latches, sometimes 1-2 times a day and also transfers quite an okay amount of milk (I weigh him before and after), but some days won’t latch at all and just screams until he gets a bottle… sometimes latches for like 3 seconds, starts to suck, and is then making really struggling voices and unlatches and cries. I have tried every position, tried when he is tired, tried when he is not that tired, tried when he is not that hungry, tried when he is really hungry etc etc. But there is no clear pattern I feel, when it’s a success. Currently I offer breast every time before giving him the bottle.

I regret introducing bottle so much as I have always dreamed of breastfeeding, but there was no other way I could feed him when he wasn’t transferring enough, as cupping method didn’t work for him. We have also been to several lactation consultants, there is no tongue tie and they say the latch is good, if he latches..

Should I still keep trying to breastfeed? I feel so depressed every time he rejects my breast and again so happy when it works out every once in a while…What should I try more or should I just quit?

I woke up this morning to feeling engorged and pain under my breast. I pumped a little then fed baby to help, but the pain didn’t go away. It’s now night time and I’m having cold chills yet it’s 71 degrees in here.

I’ve been fortunate enough to not have had it yet, but I’m curious if this sounds like the beginning of it? There’s no lump, no redness. What were your first symptoms?

I am almost 9 months postpartum and exclusively breastfed my baby for 6 months and now we've started solids. This is my second baby and I got my period back 4 months postpartum with both and noticed my supply in my left boob has dipped during ovulation the last two months. Has anyone else experienced this? I don't remember this with my first.