I breastfed my daughter with no issues until i went back to work and lost my supply when she was 8 mo. With my son i barely made it 2 months, his latch was horrible i got mastitis TWICE which is by far the worst thing ive ever gone through and both times my supply went down it took me a week to try to catch up and in the mean time he was supplementing with formula anyways so i just stopped trying to produce altogether

@glencoco, that’s awful! I’m so sorry you had to deal with that. We need to be better about supporting working mothers.

@mswedes, they only have to allow pumping breaks for 1 year and since I was part time I didn’t get a break.

@glencoco, you weren’t allowed?! That’s crazy! Also there has to be something illegal about that

Both my kids had trouble latching so I exclusively pumped for both of them, for my daughter I pumped for 8 months, and I am still exclusively pumping for my son who is now 2+ months and it’s REALLY just draining. I have a SURPLUS of milk and have filled up 1 freezer completely with milk and have set a goal to also fill our second chest freezer with milk to last him another few months and when that happens, I am DONE!

Honestly I almost feel like spending so much time sitting there attached to a pump is only taking away precious time I could be spending with my little guy. Don’t get me wrong, there is a crazy feeling of satisfaction in knowing your baby is getting the best, but it’s just really really hard, even more so than the first time around because.. toddlers 🙃

I stopped at 1 yr with my first because I wasn’t allowed to pump at work anymore. I’ll probably try to go longer with this one.

@first_time_mom_in_ky I never officially BF my daughter, I only pumped. She was a preemie and wasn't able to latch so I just pumped for her and kept up with that. I never produced enough to get ahead and store very much so when I went back to work we switched to formula. I work over an hour away from home so it just wasn't convenient for me to continue.

@emily526, did you just pump or did you use formula

My milk never increased in no matter what I tried, he wouldn't latch, also no matter what I tried, and he kept losing weight so we supplemented and I pumped. The more I pumped the more depressed I became, so at about two month we switched completely to formula, and it was amazing how quickly the depression lifted when we did.

Sometimes babies have trouble latching for whatever reason and don’t gain weight until they switch to formula

I didn’t. Didn’t matter how much I pumped or fed. My girl also had a boob preference. I got so sore I cried in pain every feeding. I then started to pump exclusively and it was over then

I don’t think it works like that for everyone. I know some women that never really started producing milk or if they did, it was very little. One of my friends breastfed constantly for the 1st week and her milk just never wanted to come in. Her baby wasn’t getting enough and doctor said she needed to supplement with formula. She kept trying for a month straight with pumping and nursing around the clock and just couldn’t get her milk going. 🤷‍♀️ I feel lucky that I never had that problem. I also think people make the decision not to based on their lifestyle and the inconvenience of pumping/bf when on the go or working.

My daughter is 16 months old and im still breast feeding her just not as often and i still produce milk but ive over produced since the begining. The reasons i stoped with my first is because i wasnt producing enough milk same with my second but other than that for others it might be to painful or it might be inconvenient for thier life style there are all kinds of reason a mother might stop breast feeding

It was too much to keep up with when I went back to work.