How long to BF

Hello ladies,

Hope everyone is doing well! 

My baby Ryan turned 4 months old on the 13th of this month.  Time sure is flying by.  He is at such a fun age right now.  Laughing and so aware of his surroundings. 

I have been BF since he was born (I also supplement with formula in the evenings).  It has been pretty tuff to pump at work and I am starting to get annoyed with having to pump every 3-4 hours throughout the day.  Now that he is sleeping through the night, I am noticing my supply is going down.  I am thinking about switching to just formula but am having a really hard time with it.  I feel guilty that I want to stop because its a hassle for me when I know how good it is for him. 

Wondering what your thoughts are on this?

I think that this question has to be every Mom's own personal choice. With all three of mine I pumped but bottle fed the breast milk. I did it for about 3 months with each and then slowly weaned to formula. I know I was told that the first few days are the most important because most of the antibodies are in the colostrum. So you really have to just think about what works best for you and your family.

With both of my girls, I got to a point when I just didn't want to pump at work anymore (it was a struggle to get 2 oz total for my 2 pumping sessions a day). I went to nursing ONLY at home or out with them and they got formula at daycare. Sometimes they got formula at home as well if I was busy and couldn't nurse. You will have some supply (even after you stop nursing completely) for a period of time. Really what we did when I stopped pumping is I nursed in the morning before going to work and then nursed in the evening after work. Don't feel guilty if you feel like you're done. Sometimes, it's better to just stop even if it's for your sanity. You have already given 4 months :) 

I typed out this long response to your post and then somehow my computer had a mind of it's own and I lost it.....ERRRRR.  So to make a long post short, I wanted to breastfeed all 3 of my children way longer than I was able to.  With my 2 older children, I didn't have enough milk supply and got very little when I pumped.  With my last son, I felt more educated on breastfeeding and ways to increase my milk supply and was hoping to solely breastfeed.  Turns out he was a sleepy baby and wasn't capable of bringing in my milk supply strong enough to solely breastfeed.  I tried the feeding and pumping (with a professional grade (rental) breast pump) and getting very little milk, I decided it was in my best interest to solely formula feed.  With all 3 situations, I felt so much guilt about breastfeeding not working out or nursing them longer but the guilt got better over time.  With this baby, I plan to do everything I know and can to solely breastfeed as long as I can, but REFUSE to let myself feel guilty if it don't work out the way I want it to.  Todays society is so much about breastfeeding, but they make formula for a reason and we shouldn't feel guilty if we choose to formula feed our babies over breastfeeding!  Your baby will still be healthy and develop as he should and you should be happy that you've given him 4 good months of breast milk!  Bottom line is, you have to do what is best for you and your situation!

My daughter was a trooper - nursed right away, 20 min/side every 2 hours. Well we couldn't get her to latch right so I was in pain. I swore that I was only going to BF for at least 3 months. Well a week later I was crying through every feeding. I dreaded nursing. My Mom finally convinced me to give her a bottle. STILL a happy baby. AND she does the same thing with the bottles that she did to my nipples, luckily they can't feel it! lol She is now a happy and healthy 16 month old. I would have pumped but quite honestly at that point I didn't know you could rent them and I couldn't afford to buy a new one.

I BF my first for exactly a year. Then she quit cold turkey and 2 days later I found out I was pregnant. Now I plan to feed Reese for a year too. It's up to you how long you want to go. It's great you BF as long as you have

Jessica

Your story sounds so similar to mine. My DD BFed like a champ and we loved it, but once I got back to work and had to pump, it was really hard to do 2-3 times a day. It started to really stress me out. I was stressed about having enough money for formula as well. My hubby was also kinda pushing me to keep BFing, but I ended up going to formula at 4ish months as well. There were 2 huge things that made me finally be OK with changing to formula. The first is that it's best for my daughter if I am not stressed out. She deserves to have a happy mommy and BFing was just stressing me out too much. The second is that we tried the Cosco brand formula and my daughter liked it just fine and because it's WAY less expensive, I felt much better about switching.

Good Luck!
Tina

Thanks everyone for your replies.  You have all given me good points.  I have decided to slowly stop BFing.  I will gradually stop over the next 2 months since my initial plan was to BF until he is 6 months old I will sort of be following through with it.

Thanks again.