r/NurseAllTheBabies

I’m 5 weeks pregnant and currently down to nursing my 16-month-old once to twice a day. Shed like to feed much more but I’ve limited it. I’ve been trying to wean completely because I’m really nervous about any possible (even small) increased risk of miscarriage, but my toddler is not happy about it and it’s been bringing up a lot of guilt for me.

I don’t necessarily want to stop nursing yet, I’m just feeling anxious and trying to do what feels safest. I keep going back and forth between trusting my body and feeling like I should be extra cautious, even though I know the evidence on breastfeeding and miscarriage risk is limited and generally reassuring.

Just wondering if anyone else has been in a similar situation and how you handled it emotionally and practically.

Hello, I’m so glad I found this group

I’m feeling desperate.

I found out I was pregnant when my baby was 4 months old. I’m currently 8 weeks pregnant and still exclusively breastfeeding my baby. My OBGYN told me to stop breastfeeding right away because of the oxytocin produced while breastfeeding, and said it could be risky for the pregnancy.

Has anyone gone through something similar or experienced this before? I would really appreciate positive advice and positive stories only, please. 🤍

I’m currently nursing my four year old and my 21 month old. In about two months I have a weekend trip coming up in a few months without the kids. It’s a commitment I can’t put off. I’d nurse the baby Friday afternoon and Sunday afternoon. My 4 year old only nurses to sleep. My mom told me she thought my milk would dry up. I’m not ready to stop nursing and my baby definitely isn’t. I have an older child who I also nursed for an extended period but was never away overnight except for a hospital stay during which I pumped. I don’t pump any longer and I’m not even certain I would respond well to a pump this far out.

Does it seem likely I wouldn’t be able to nurse after about 40 hours without? I do not anticipate my baby wanting to stop even after that break. It’s a drive, but technically close enough that my husband could bring the baby by to see me once on Saturday to nurse him if I needed to. It would be very inconvenient though.

I hadn’t considered this at all so I’m spiralling a bit. I thought I might be a bit sore come Sunday, is all.

Did you start getting a letdown sensation again in the third trimester? When my son is crying hard or cuddling me in the position he used to nurse in, I swear it feels like I’m going to have a letdown! It’s kind of uncomfortable since I have no way to make the feeling go away.

I’m 5 weeks pregnant now and my youngest daughter is 15 months old. She eats solids of course and drinks water but I still breastfeed her a lot , especially at night but a lot during the day too. She loves it and I love it too and it makes me sad that my milk will probably dry up.

It happened when I was pregnant with her and still nursing my son who was almost 2,5 years old. But I was thinking it was mostly because I was nursing very rarely , not at all like I’m doing now. I still had milk the first months , then it dried up almost completely I think during a few months then I had some milk again the last months but it was clear, not white and not a lot.

I’ve been reading a lot of posts and comments and it seems like it almost always dries up. That’s something I honestly didn’t know before. I hope you don’t think I’m a horrible person but it almost makes me consider not keeping the baby. For other reasons too, this would be my 5th child and I’ve already had 3 C-sections.. and other reasons, complicated pregnancies before and not being sure if really want this.

Nursing means so much to my daughter , I feel like I’m failing her if I can’t do it anymore. And I also really love it.

Is there a chance I won’t have to quit? Happy to hear about your experiences and thoughts.

This happened with my now toddler, too. I have a pretty giant oversupply and had mastitis 5 times before she was 6 weeks old. I’m now 2 weeks into tandem feeding my 23 month old and newborn, and am in the middle mastitis case #2. Neither of my children have latch issues and have been assessed by LCs. Toddler is great at draining the infected breast, which clears it quickly, but it just keeps coming back. What can I do??

We just welcomed our newborn 16 days ago. My 23 month old was not night weaned before hand because he would usually wake up only 2~ times during the night and would quickly nurse to sleep or accept my husband cuddling him back to sleep as well. 

We all share a mega family bed and my toddler’s sleep has degraded day by day. I still nurse him to sleep every night though I have had to limit his nursing time due to a strong nursing aversion. Bed time routine goes okay and he has stopped crying after nursing is done the last couple nights, but he now wakes up hourly to ask to nurse, if we don’t he loses it and struggles to go back to sleep. Even if we will but I tell him to wait a little to arrange myself and newborn he loses it all the same and we can’t nurse because he becomes dangerous to the newborn.

I have been trying to maintain our set nursing schedule of wake up, nap, wake up from nap, and bed time nurse sessions. But his asking through the day is pretty frequent, though if denied gets over it better. 

We are at a loss on what to do next, we don’t necessarily have the capacity to plan night weaning at the moment and it feels like the least ideal time to put toddler through it. However the nights are just getting worse and we are not getting more capable at handling them since we are so exhausted. 

Toddler is going through a hard time with his new sibling and his beloved grandparents and aunts and uncles being away since grandma has been hospitalized for almost a week after a life saving surgery. They were a great support after his sibling was born and now he doesn’t have that. I feel so sad for him and want to make sure whatever we do is considering everything going on.

Please share any experiences, input, advice, etc. that you think are relevant. We could use all the help possible. 

I just found out I’m pregnant at 6 months PP and trying to figure out if/when my supply will drop. I’m seeing so many people here casually saying things like when their supply dropped they just nursed for comfort until after they had the baby. But I’m assuming this means their babies were older and not reliant upon a majority of their calories from breastmilk? My son is starting solids ~1-2 “meals” a day but still heavily relies upon breastmilk for his caloric intake. If my supply dried up, nursing for comfort would not be casual for him and although it is comforting, it wouldn’t be okay. Does that mean these people are supplementing with formula? I just feel confused how that can be a nonchalant event haha. Also is there anything I can do to help my supply stay up or am I at the mercy of my body here? For context, he nurses every 2 hours almost around the clock.

Mistakes have been made. I slipped into a habit of feeding the toddler on one side and the baby on the other. Exclusively. Now I'm weaning my nearly 3yo and I can tell my milk supply on the right side is almost gone..... And now the left is at least double the size and is obviously still a breastfeeding boob. Lol. Help 😭

There's nothing I can do right now until I wean the baby (which I don't feel ready to do yet, so.... I guess that'll just have to wait) but I just need to know if anyone else has experienced something similar and if they'll reasonably even out again once both kids are weaned.

I have posted here before about the pain of breastfeeding while pregnant. My toddler just turned 2 and I'm 22 weeks. At the begining the pain was so severe that I night-weaned her, I let her cry with dad so that I could do this because the pain was so bad. Now we are down to once or twice per day, just for naps and bed time. It's been fine up until the past couple of weeks - well still painful but a lot less than it was. But she's bit me a couple of times recently and I feel like even with the small amount of nursing sessions I'm still really sore. She has actually started to fall asleep at night without it, which is unheard of. This in itself is making me so sad. I know that she's old enough to not need it and she's not really getting any milk anyway if anything - I seemed to dry up completely around 12 weeks.

And I know that tandem feeding isn't easy, but I did think that it would be quite healing for me. We had such a difficult journey to get where we are - she had a tongue tie that was missed, quite severe jaundice, she ended up getting used to the flow of bottles and not feeding well on my breasts and it took us almost 6 months of triple-feeding then exclusively pumping to get a decent latch. I had to supplement with formula through a lot of this to take the pressure off as I was never a high producer. We managed to drop to one bottle a day when she was 6 months and I was so proud. Happy to go for as long as she wanted, then bam - pregnant. It wasn't an accident however it took us 11 months to conceive my daughter so I wasn't to know I'd get pregnant after literally one try.

I'm just really emotional and I know hormones won't help. I miss that bond and I'm really heartbroken. How can I move past this? Please be kind as I'm really fragile.

Hello all,

we have a 5 month old and as she is sleeping better, we are going stretches of 9 hours or so, without needing to feed.

I was hoping that my cycle would return, however, CM is totally dry. There were few days of thick creamy CM, but now since 4 days totally dry. What is happening?

Does it always happen like this before ovulation/period? or ?

I primarily breastfeed but also pump. I have been in the oversupply realm, pumping an extra ~10 oz a day since my milk supply came in. My son has been sleeping through the night since he was about 8 weeks old. I would always get engorged in the middle of the night and pump to relieve (only about 5-7 minutes). I’d usually get 7 oz for these middle of the night pumping sessions.

Our little family took a 3 week road trip at the end of my husband’s paternity leave and I noticed I wasn’t getting engorged in the middle of the night and I wasn’t getting up to pump in the middle of the night. At the end of our trip I also noticed I wasn’t getting as much from my pumping sessions but didn’t think too much about it. Then towards the end of the trip I got a clogged duct which was weird because I wasn’t getting engorged at all. After I took care of the clog I decided I didn’t need to be pumping since baby was getting milk straight from the breast.

But then I noticed my boobs just felt a lot smaller and less full. My son started seeming fussy at the breast and I felt like he wasn’t swallowing as intensely rapid as before. I decided I needed to build my supply back up, but since being home a few days, pumping is dismal - I only get like 1-2oz each time. I am nursing a lot and baby is pooping and peeing normal (2 big poops a day and like 5 pee diapers).

Is my supply just leveling out and I’m freaking out over nothing? Baby seems less fussy so idk if it was me or something else. Would love your honest advice as I am a FTM! Thanks so much for reading!

My son was exclusively breastfed since birth but around 2 ish months old he started getting very fussy at the breast and it got worse to the point where he would push me off scream cry get angry go red and even start fighting me if I got him into a breastfeeding position. His weight gain stopped so I had to start pumping and giving him my breastmilk in bottles around 3 months and now he hardly ever latches onto my breast he will scream and cry until I give him the bottle and I am heartbroken as I really thought this would be over by now and we would go back to breastfeeding. He will be 4 months old in about a week and I am soo upset that currently he only takes bottles. I have tried all sorts of positions, feeding him in a dark room with no distractions, feeding while walking and even singing it to him but nothing works anymore as soon as I put him into feeding position he kicks off or sometimes rarely he won’t but then as soon as I get him to latch he starts. I am really worried that breastfeeding is officially over for us 🥺

2 months PP and still nursing my toddler 3-4 times a day. Mostly I try to only nurse her after the baby is totally full/done, or I’ll nurse her on the last side he was on where I’m basically empty. She got used to no/low milk during pregnancy so she’s generally happy to get just a little and mostly wants the comfort.

However, a few times now I’ll try to get the baby satisfied before the toddler’s daytime nursing session, and then he is hungry again soon after and gets very frustrated that I don’t have more milk. Today it was a huge meltdown… but I’m not certain it was about milk or more that he was tired. But he did take a pumped bottle after he finally settled down and then passed out— so I think he was hungry and not getting what he needed from me.

I can’t tell if this has anything to do with my toddler nursing or if my milk is just settling in and I’m not producing enough for them both. There could also be a hydration factor.

I’m wanting to gradually wean my toddler anyway, but I’ve been waiting until the fourth trimester is over to not stack on too much adjustment at once.

I’m thinking I maybe need to cut out these daytime nursing sessions for her but that’s a tough one because she still wants nursing to go down for a nap…

Has anyone been through something like this?

I want to share my story because things went differently than expected, but it turned out to be a positive experience in the end.

I know lots of us in this group are here because we’re about to get pregnant or newly pregnant, wondering what’s going to happen with our nursing relationship with our children. I was very much planning and hoping to nurse my first through my second pregnancy and to tandem nurse afterwards. I loved nursing her, the closeness it brought us, the ability to soothe her, the fact that she was benefiting from the antibodies in my breast milk, etc. However, I knew that I couldn’t control the effect my hormones would have on my milk supply, and I was also quite a bit sicker than with my first and had some mild aversion. I believe my supply decreased pretty significantly, because my daughter gradually through the first trimester stopped asking to nurse quite as often, and nursed for shorter and shorter periods at bedtime until she just stopped being interested at all. I’m so glad that I was able to hold all this loosely during that time, and did not try to force it or keep her nursing as she lost interest. Ultimately, our last nursing session came and went without me realizing it. I’m not even sure of the exact date, but I sensed it was coming. And yet, our relationship has remained as close as ever, I got relief from the physical strain of nursing, and I still have another breastfeeding journey to look forward to with this next baby.

I wanted to share this as a positive counter-point for the many moms who post here with worries about ending nursing earlier than they expected. I am not here to convince you not to grieve the end of one nursing journey, but just to reassure you that it may not be as difficult as you fear at this moment. Your special relationship with your nursling continues, and the foundation you built with nursing for however long will always be there. ❤️

Ugh. This is so niche that i doubt anyone has advice. I’m on day 7 of stims (300 menopur) for a TI cycle at home. I’m still nursing my 16 month old. We missed a consistent morning feed yesterday and today I am tender and sore. I iced it for awhile and I took Tylenol but not sure what else I can do. Currently planning on stimming until Friday when I have another monitoring appointment. Fingers crossed I can trigger this weekend but obviously I can’t take Advil. Ideas?

35 weeks and still nursing my 2.5 year old. I started experiencing a nursing aversion around 28 weeks or so that has gotten progressively worse. I can only tolerate like two minutes per side now if that.

Sometimes it seems like my daughter is losing interest … I will ask if she wants milk and she will say no or put it off and then ask for it when I say I’m going to do something else, for example, in the morning when I tell her I’m going to get up and get dressed then she will want it. We typically nurse morning, before nap and bedtime. If she has a belly ache or is upset then she will ask. If she doesn’t want at normal times we just skip, after all it’s up to her.

I was hoping to keep nursing her through the transition of a new baby coming home (not at the same time). I figured it would help with the feelings and we would keep some us time doing what she knows. I don’t want to make a change now and try to wean her or anything.

I don’t know what I’m looking for just words of encouragement I guess. Her lazy latch has started making my skin crawl and I’m really hoping this goes away after the birth of this baby but I’m scared that it won’t.

Has anyone gotten a period while night weaning? I have had two light periods so far but right now I’m CD12 EBF at 7 months pp. It started at brown spotting yesterday and accelerated to a light flow today. Just didn’t get this when I night weaned my first baby!

Of course I'm not promoting harvesting colostrum without reason, I personally don't think it's necessary and it's a marketing/ social media thing.

However, the recommendation is not to start before 36 weeks, so as not to induce early labour.

I'm wondering if one is nursing throughout pregnancy, couldn't she technically harvest colostrum all through, as soon as it comes in?

Are there pumping mothers (we tap feed, toddler is 1.10) who have pumped/ expressed colostrum?

Do the amounts increase? With a new born nursing you have a relatively small amount of colostrum, if you have a toddler nursing, do you end up with significant supply of colostrum or does it maintain an average?

I have a LC class tomorrow (I'm training as a lactation educator) so I will ask there as well, but better to hear first hand.