Why did you stop breastfeeding your FIRST baby?

[BellyBelly]

One more poll - to find out why you stopped feeding your first baby. Please be honest, this too will be submitted to parliament and I would love for them to know what is going on with feeding rates from a community perspective...

[Trillian]

I voted for 'Nipple or breast damage or issues from breastfeeding' but could also have voted for 'lack of support' and lack of help and access to LC's would have been another one if it was there.

I had feeding issues with Lindsay from the start. I was never told how hard BF would be - I always assumed that it being the most natural thing in the world to do should also be the easiest - I was VERY wrong. Every feed hurt and I put it down to having extremely sensitive nipples during pg. The midwives told me that it should settle soon and that yes, establishing BF would be a bit hard on them. For my entire hospital stay of 5 days I didn't have a single BF that did not hurt me and the one time I did start to feed with no pain, the midwife told me that if it didn't hurt he was attached wrong and promptly pulled him off and put him on again which did hurt. I tried many postions with him and the hospital's in house LC came and saw me and gave me some great tips but he simply would not latch properly no matter how much we tried. I had full and painful breasts and I literally curled my toes everytime he attached and started sucking. When I left hospital the first three days home were horrible. I had cracked and bleeding nipples, he still wasn't attaching properly and I cried those three days and I wished that he had never been born and I remember telling DH that I want it to go back to being the two of us again. He was supportive, but adamant that i continue to BF, so while I did have his support, I didn't have the support necessary to overcome the problems.

[Tobily]

I said lack of support though my main issue was oversupply. Major, major oversupply. I had no knowledge of how to handle it and I found it very hard to get help. Most people said "you have TOO much milk? Wow wish I had that problem". Gee thanks.
Basically it was so bad that I couldn't feed her anywhere other than at home because there was milk everywhere, practically drowning her. Let down was so strong I could shoot milk 6ft across the room and I could pump 200ml in one sitting and still feed her straight after....it was a very messy problem.
Everyone said it would get better and I stuck it out until 8 weeks and it was getting worse...I couldn't do it anymore.
If I'd known then what I know now I could have sorted the problem fairly easily for her as I did with my second baby. Aah well the benefit of hindsight

[Phoenix]

I put lack of support as it was the closest to what the reason was. My eldest was 23mths and we were only feeding maybe 1-2 times a day usually at home. One day he was a little off colour but I was ill and at the Drs. Ina surgery full of patients he yells form the other side of the room "Mummy booby please" the looks I got were enough to melt glass. I wasn't strong enough to stand up for what I thought was right and I didn't really have any support from anyone to tell me that I should keep going. Since then I am very involved with ABA (nearly finished counsellor training YEAH!!) and am much more confident in doing whats best for my kids. DS2 is now 23mths and can keep going. As I told the committee when they were in Cairns. I will wean him before schoolies week!!!!

[Inanna]

I had such a damn struggle breastfeeding my first baby... It was horrendous - when we finally got it right I wasn't going to stop until she decided she wanted to. My first baby was almost 3 when she weaned of her own volition... It was time for her then I guess... By then I was ready too...

I did the same with my other children also...

[Antheia]

I said lack of support.

I was 18 and knew nothing about breastfeeding. I didn't even know anyone with a baby or yong child. The midwives didn't help at all and when i did ask i swear they rolled their eyes behind my back. They just seems so annoyed that i was asking for help. So, knowing no different i switched Lily to formula when she was 2 days old.

[Marydean]

I voted "Baby Self Weaned". I am delighted to say after a very rocky start, we went from strength to strength and made it through until 2 weeks short of 18 months, when DD self weaned. However, I can see it all could have gone horribly wrong, especially since the hospital staff gave me erroneous information. Lucky for me I had the support of ABA counsellors and an LC I had met by chance several weeks earlier.

I also attribute the unconditional support of my DH for my success, it also meant that I approached feeding in public with confidence and was *never* approached by critics, only by ppl commending me for breastfeeding. I think collectively, we need more imagery of women breastfeeding visibly in public to create an atmosphere of public acceptance, also so that breastfeeding becomes the 'social norm' by virtue of being the most visible form of infant feeding.

[ticklish]

Hi,
I wanted to vote TTC but there was no "other reason" option. After more than 12 months with no AF, I decided I wanted a chance to a least give DS a sibling. I have fertility issues and felt that I really just needed to get me right without the extra pressure of breastfeeding and having no cycles. If I wasn't TTC, I'd probably still be going if DS wanted to.
THANKS.

[bon]

I don't know if any of the options really apply to me...I don't know if I want to assign responsibility for my decision to stop breastfeeding to anyone else KWIM? I mean, there were a range of factors/emotions at play that influenced my decision, which I have gone into previously so I won't repeat myself. But I guess in the end it came down to the fact that I just didn't want to do it anymore. I won't say "couldn't" do it anymore because technically I could, but it did feel at the time like I couldn't do it, physically and emotionally. So in that sense, I was the reason I stopped breastfeeding. I guess 'had enough of breastfeeding' would be the best response for me then.

[Yael]

My son self weaned at 15 months, I was 3 months pregnant, and my milk supply had dropped, and i just let him go at his own pace and didn't really try to stop him weaning though - it was a bit rough having a few complications whilst pregnant and still bf. Was a bit sad when he gave it up though!

Like somebody else said, it could have gone horribly wrong, i had eczema there anyway, flatish nipples, then thrush and nipple vasospasm. I ended up seeing a private LC, and everything was fine from there, but if it wasn't my own self drive, i don't think the MCHN or even the midwives in hospital would have cared that much if i had stopped early on. My GP was pretty good though.

I'm just so proud i made it so far, and we weaned very gently (and as an aside, never had any pain/mastitis etc from wearning at all, but my neice is a few weeks older than my son, and my SIL decided to wean overnight, and is having a lot of problems with engorgement and pain etc, so i think the slow seld weaning was better on me!). The main reason why i was determined to let him self wean was that i didn't want him to get upset when he saw the baby being fed.

[~Raven~]

Mason self weaned at a tad over 12 months. I was only just a matter of weeks PG with Angus so who knows if it was just his time or there was other factors at play like PG hormones or drop in supply.
I didn't want to stop breastfeeding him at all and cried when he rejected me.

[Roryrory]

I had the same thing with Flynn when I got pg but he was 9 months old. I said "mother led weaning" because I feel if I had have pushed it I could have keep going but being tired with pg and working and trying to express it was too much, together with the constant crying from Flynn because he was hungry and wanted more....
I was very sorry to have weaned but just didn't thinkI could physically keep it up - maybe if I was not working and able to sleep 12 hours a day and not have to run a house I could have done it (yeah right

[Astrolady]

I went for own concerns over milk quality / supply.

Kameron was not gaining weight at a fast enough rate and "looked" sickly even though he wasn't, so I assumed that my milk wasn't "strong" enough or I didn't have enough of it to keep him sustained and eventually weaned him onto formula at 6mths old.

Love

[mbear]

DD#1 self weaned at 8 months. I think if i knew then what i know now, i probably could have persevered and gone to 12 months like i originally wanted too. But being a first time mum and all, i guess i didnt know any better.
I stopped b/f DD#2 at 12.5 months.....so i guess my wish did come true...

[aussienic]

I voted mother led. I am embarrassed to admit this and I can't believ how selfish I was. I quit smoking as soon as I found out I was pregnant but started again when I had Ethan. At 3 months my husband said to me either quit smoking or breastfeeding and I made the terrible choice to quit breastfeeding. I regret it. Nothing I can do about it now though..

I think more needs to be said about the dangers of smoking and breastfeeding.. I see it to often now. Thankfully I quit smoking over 4 years ago now..

[Berry]

I voted for baby self-weaned. By 14 months, he was having one breastfeed per day, each morning - more out of habit than anything else. We relocated to America for a few months at that time and with the different time-zone, he no longer had an urge to breastfeed in the morning. He was also too old to have any need for breastfeeding, in my opinion, and so was glad he self-selected to stop at that point.

[anney]

I voted Mother Led (but not mother ready). I b/f dd for 18 months and as we were TTC but having no luck, we thought we should wean in case it was having an effect on our ability to conceive. still no luck conceiving so sort of sorry we weaned.

[paradise lost]

I'm not australian so i dunno how useful it is but....

I didn't answer the poll as i didn't fit anywhere.

I started giving DD one bottle of formula from 4 months because i wasn't managing to pump enough for her to take with her when she went to her dads (no let-down for the pump) and he was FFing her, and i was concerned she'd get bellyache from suddenly having formula for 24 hours when she was used to BM. My milk supply started to drop off after 5 months due to a thyroid problem and my taking the mini-pill. One weekend she stayed 2 nights with her daddy (he was on holiday from work) and when she came home on day 3, despite pumping ever 4 hours when she was away, i had nothing. I managed to re-lactate over that week to give her 3 feeds a day myself, but this quickly reduced to 1 despite my best efforts and i weaned her at 7 months, by which time she was refusing to suck long enough for let-down.

In retrospect i was really quite ill (lost 20kg on my pre-PG weight) with my thyroid and stress of moving with a tiny baby and it was a miracle i fed as long as i did.

With #2 i hope to be in a more stable place and BF for the whole first year at least

Bec