Hi all! I’m looking for any support and experiences around breastfeeding weaning/combination feeding ❤️
I’ve exclusively breastfed my son for 9.5mo, which I’ve loved and am proud of, but of course have found really challenging at points. Since having my son, I’ve noticed huge hormonal shifts around my cycle (and ?ovulation), as well as initially postpartum. I feel super low, sad, depressed, then it passes as my hormones settle again. It’s quite hard to deal with as it lasts almost a week before I come on, then just stops. It completely stops me feeling like ‘me’. This was not an issue before baby, and I am pretty sure breastfeeding is at least partly contributing to the ups and downs I’m having.
I will be returning to work in a couple of months so daytime feeds will naturally need to stop/move to bottles. Recently my son has had a couple of nursing strikes too due to illness/teething, and the pressure of pumping enough for him/maintaining supply was so stressful. It’s been making me wonder if our journey is naturally ready to start slowly coming to its end.
My plan is to gradually reduce daytime feeds over the next couple of months, introduce bottles (formula), and keep morning/bedtime and a night feed, then look at gradually weaning fully over roughly 11mo - 13mo.
I’m struggling with guilt and feeling like I’ve failed. I have been aiming for exclusively breastfeeding to at least a year, and I feel like I’ve somehow failed by starting this process earlier even though deep down I know we’ve done really well with it. I also feel quite a bit of shame/feelings of failure about introducing formula, which I logically know is so silly as I absolutely don’t judge anyone else for not BFing/using formula etc.
Any encouragement/experiences from those who moved to combination feeding around this stage / weaned from BFing around (or before) one year / found that gradual weaning and stopping BFing helped with intense hormones??
I’m hoping for some reassurance that this could be the right thing for both of us ❤️ Thank you!!