Honestly, until I got pregnant again, it felt good. It sort of feels like sucking on your finger. If it hurts, it's a good sign something's wrong with the way your baby is latched on. The only time it ever hurt (again, not counting while pregnant) was when I didn't have whichever daughter latched on right. Mostly, it felt like a relief. It's hard to explain. It's like, my breasts would get so full, so when the baby started to nurse there was a wonderful release of pressure.

Of course, now that I'm pregnant again, half the time it's like my nipples are being stabbed repeatedly with needles. But I've moved from a point where it seemed like it would be an incredible accomplishment to nurse for 10 or 12 months to where 18 months is just too young to think of weaning. :)

i know what your saying, i love nursing my son and the only time it hurt was in the begining where i couldn't nurse him and i had to pump. his nursings are down to 1-2 aday he's being supplemented with formula the pedtrition didn't thing he was getting enough i mean in the begining he would nurse 15 mins each side every 1 1/2.

so know he's kinda weaning himself. the ped. said nurse him as long as i can. my friend with her son he weaned himself at 4 months he prefered the bottle. her daughter know just turned a yr. i think weaned her self at 10 months and was being supplemented and now drinks regular milk.

so i'm kinda emotional right now that my son is weaning himself. but i don't want to force him to BF, my husband is trying to comfort me by saying that we did it past 6 months and that's the important part. but if i have another one i can't wait to BF him or her it's the best feeling in the world.

I'm sorry, but that is normal, and if your pediatrician led you to believe that meant you had a low supply, then he did you a grave disservice. There is only one way to truly diagnose low supply--by weighing a baby immediately before and immediately after a feeding, on a digital scale capable of measuring in grams. Of course, as mama you'd be able to tell if he was still hungry immediately after nursing. A baby who isn't getting enough at the breast is going to nurse frantically and cry in hunger.

Far too many mamas are sabotaged--and yes, I use that word on purpose--by their pediatricians. I have heard low supply being "diagnosed" through such specious means as baby not gaining weight as quickly as the pedi thinks he should (breastfed babies tend to gain on a slower schedule than formula-fed babies), baby nursing too often, baby nursing too long or not long enough, or--my personal favorite as far as crap--only being able to pump an ounce or two at a time, even after sitting with the pump at your breast for 30 minutes. {As I've said in other threads, even at the time I had to keep a towel handy while nursing because of profuse leakage from the "free" breast, I could never pump more than 2oz at a time.} And then of course the immediate advice is "supplement with formula," and as too many women have found out, babies often prefer the method of feeding that gives them food the fastest. Not to mention the fact that supplementing WILL damage your supply, because your body isn't getting the stimulation of your baby nursing as often, and thinks it doesn't need to produce as much, so of course you wind up supplementing more and you get less stimulation, so you produce less milk--it is a vicious circle.

Dammit, though, you ought to be able to count on your pediatrician to have your child's best interests (and yeah, breastmilk is your child's best interest!) in mind, and to do everything s/he can to encourage the nursing relationship. I would love to see it required of all medical professionals who work with new and nursing moms that they must become IBCLC certified, or at least attend regular classes given by La Leche League, or some other group that is well-educated about breastfeeding, since most doctors aren't.

(Shanna, please don't think I am attacking you here. I am attacking your pediatrician.)

i know your not attacking me. we did weigh him immediately before and after being fed. and after feeding he would just do this awful cry arching his back while he was doing it. and he was loosing weight not gaining weight. but by the age of 6 months he was nursing alot but not gaining any weight and he was loosing weight so that's why we supplemented him. i'm still trying to nurse him 2 times aday, and he has the playtex bottle with the slow flow nipple. but with the BF and supplementing and the solid foods he's growing like a weed.

Its funny but in some cases asking your ped if they are pro bfing doesn't mean anything. My SIL swore her ped was pro bfing, they completely will do a 180 once the baby is born. When I had my son I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone.
He was hospitalized for Jaundice. All the nurses in my doctors office went totally against me bfing my son. They told me I wasn't producing enough for him. This of course stressed me out so much that I started not to produce enough (if that made any sense). While he was in the hospital I pumped the first time there, I pumped 6 oz. The nurse told me I had to pump the same amount every 3 hours if I didn't want them to give him formula. B/c or all the stress I couldn't even produce 2 oz. To make matters worse he started to eat more. So they ended up giving him formula. He made the uglyest face when he first took a drink, he spit it all up then when he finally downed some he ended up throwing it all up. They started telling me he had to eat something, my husband insisted I bf him right there. They resisted at first, then they finally alowed me to bf my own son. He ate alot and kept it in his tummy.
They did end up giving him formula eventually, since I couldn't pump that much.
He was in there for 3 days. The first 2 days I didn't sleep at all. The third day the dr. told me the best thing for me and the baby would be to get some rest. So my husband took me home. It did do the trick, the next morning I was so full :)
Now he is a 25 lb. 1 y/o. He started weighing in the 20's at around 8 months.

Thanks for the advice :)

One more benefit to breast feeding is that when your significant other makes you angry, a good squirt in the eye will usually shut him up :devil: Oh yes I most certainly DID do that.

I breastfed both of my kids. I had my daughter in California and they were very very supportive (the midwife and the hospital staff), but I had my son in Texas and they all acted like I had the plague or something. I didn't discuss it before his birth, but I mde it extremely clear in the hospital afterwards and I guess they were just too stunned to say anything because they all just started looking around at each other like they didn't know what to do or say. Neither of my kids EVER drank formula- we tried at one point because I got sick when my daughter was small and it was highly contagious, but she just screamed for the two days I couldn't breastfeed. I'm not sure anyone ever got her to take the formula. Then again, I was pretty delirious the whole time. I pumped a few times and tried to get my son to drink from a bottle and he screamed too. He apparently did not like the fake nipple. I think it is BEST to breastfeed and also pump and feed from a bottle VERY early on otherwise, they might reject the bottle completely and you never know when a situation might come up that you NEED to be away for a feeding or two.

The worst part about it was the drying up. I didn't take anything to help with that and I was so swollen and red- it hurt so bad. I wouldn't have had it any other way though.

Breastfeeding is wonderful.. I felt quite ambivalent about it before my daughter was born, but once those first few tough weeks were past it developed into a lovely relationship that we still enjoy now she is a toddler.. I wouldn't have it any other way. I think that it definitely help with reducing my past partum weight as well.

I hear you on the fake nipple issue. I tried to get both my girls to take bottles, and they just would NOT. Bobbie took one bottle of EBM during our one trip to church when she was a newborn (she had colic, and happiness & joy her fussy time turned out to be the same time as services!). Linda never would. And goodness, we tried bottle after bottle and nipple after nipple with her, because I was determined to start young enough that she would take a bottle. She looked at me like I was trying to kill her. :lol: I'm at the point where I'm not sure if I'll bother with #3 or plan on relying on a syringe or cup if it truly becomes necessary. I'm not looking forward to another round of the bottle/nipple dance, or of having to pump six times to have enough for one bottle.

I have always declined to discuss breastfeeding with pediatricians as much as possible. I have been met not with disdain, but with utter amazement that I was still nursing my first after four months. The main frustration I encountered was in the hospital where they required me to keep a feeding log. The nurses obviously had no training in the differences in feeding patterns between breastfed and formula fed babies. I finally just filled in what I knew they'd want to see. ;) Too many seem hung up on time breastfeeding. I remember going to Linda's very first appointment and being asked the usual questions: How often does she nurse? For how long? The poor corpsman, there was no place on the paper for my answers: "I don't know; I look at my baby, not at the clock."

This was my main annoyance with the whole hospital birth experience as well. They told me from the first feeding, "You want to feed her every three hours during the day and every four hours at night." Now, how is a newborn baby supposed to know that's it's nighttime and so she can't be fed for another hour??? And do THEY always get hungry in three-hour intervals? I'm 26 years old and sometimes I feel hungry an hour or two after eating and need a snack! So, I also started fibbing and telling them, "Oh yeah she nursed for 10 minutes on each side at 8:00 and 10 minutes on each side at 11:00." Like any baby is going to be that robotic. :dizzy:

I just BF on demand when he's hungry i feed him plain and simple, he's starting to wean off a little bit......but you can't go on what they tell you that's for sure.

One of the big problems with the BabyWise books when they first came out (& I gather they have since toned things down a bit) was their advocacy of a strict feeding schedule led to some seriously underfed babies.

I did make sure to feed at least every three hours when my girls were first born, to make sure my milk came in well. I had problems with the observation nursery the first time around, as I told them to bring her to me every three hours or whenever she showed signs of hunger. And the :censored: didn't want to do that, I had to keep calling down to them to demand they bring her to me. Frustrating as heck.

Very true. There seems to be this theory that only women who love breastfeeding & have an easy time of things stick to it, but that's not true. I do love it for the most part, but I can think of few things less appealing than nursing on incredibly sensitive nipples while experiencing morning sickness so severe you can barely move. (But then, I also had to figure that if you don't stop once blood has been drawn, you're pretty much out of reasons. :lol: )