bare minimum bfing duration

ted wrote:
little background here. A friend of mine recently had an emergency c
section and she had one heck of a time delivering the baby. now they
are doing fine. the baby stayed in icu for few days and for the lack
of knowing better they gave the baby a bottle and guess what! ended up
with nipple confusion. I warned her about this problem but still..

You know, the baby is still young enough to learn.
Pillbug was in the NICU for 5 days where he got
bottles a-plenty! Also, I'd hobble over, nurse
him, then they'd give in 3 oz. of formula because
he was still hungry.

I didn't have a problem with that. When we got
home and he still needed formula because he was
always hungry, the pediatrician told us at the
1-week WBV that we can ditch the formula if we
really wanted to BF, so we did. Within a few
days, everything was fine. (Everything meaning
we were on our way. There were a LOT of bumps!)

-- Anita --
--
SUCCESS FOUR FLIGHTS THURSDAY MORNING ALL AGAINST
TWENTY ONE MILE WIND STARTED FROM LEVEL WITH ENGINE
POWER ALONE AVERAGE SPEED THROUGH AIR THIRTY ONE
MILES LONGEST 57 SECONDS INFORM PRESS HOME CHRISTMAS.

With my first dd I did the exclusive pumping thing, but I never more
than half fed her. Anyway, I kept doing it until she was 5.5 months
old. 6 months had been my goal, but I had to go to training for a week
for my job, and it was quite grueling, so that hastened our weaning.

Anyway, I do think that my baby had more mental leaps before the ebm
was cut out of her diet, and then at 1 year when we switched from
formula to cows milk it seemed like she had more mental leaps again.
it could be coincidence, but I got very suspect of formula after that,
so I would say 1 year is the minimum.

KC -
buy or rent a Whittlestone Breast Expresser at:
http://www.alittlestore.com

(ted) wrote in message . com...
little background here. A friend of mine recently had an emergency c
section and she had one heck of a time delivering the baby. now they
are doing fine. the baby stayed in icu for few days and for the lack
of knowing better they gave the baby a bottle and guess what! ended up
with nipple confusion. I warned her about this problem but still..

Anyways, despite the pain and everything my friend is diligently
pumping and giving the baby ebm. When I called her last time we talked
about nursing the baby, quitting the bottle etc etc. She asked me how
long, in my opinon, is the absolute bare minimum that the baby should
get breast milk? I told 6 months.

What do you think? I agree that it would be best if the baby nurses
until he/she self weans. But for whatever reason if the mother just
can't do it, how long should she nurse the baby as a bare minimum
time?

Thanks.

Dan Kegel wrote in message ...
ted wrote:
Anyways, despite the pain and everything my friend is diligently
pumping and giving the baby ebm. When I called her last time we talked
about nursing the baby, quitting the bottle etc etc. She asked me how
long, in my opinon, is the absolute bare minimum that the baby should
get breast milk? I told 6 months.

What do you think? I agree that it would be best if the baby nurses
until he/she self weans. But for whatever reason if the mother just
can't do it, how long should she nurse the baby as a bare minimum
time?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/1974976.stm suggests that
breastfeeding up to 7 months increases IQ with each additional
month, but that breastfeeding beyond 7 months does not confer
additional benefit.

This agrees quite well with your six month estimate.
- Dan

But since the benefits of breastfeeding on IQ are still very much
debated, and the other benefits (boost to the immune system, perfectly
balanced nutrition, and of course the emotional benefits) do not end
at 7 months, there is no reason to pick 6 months as an estimate.

However, the OP's friend really just needs to take it one day at a
time.

Irene

UberMinx wrote:

I ended up struggling on through the colostrum stage (expressing
mostly) and then moving on to formula after that. In retrospect, I
think I would have struggled to keep him fed and happy after 3-4
months on mere milk, he was taking 8x 8oz bottles a day by then.


Your breasts will make as much as they're asked to make. There's no weight
limit on how big a baby your breasts can nourish.

--
iphigenia
www.tristyn.net
"i have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
i do not think that they will sing to me."

ted wrote:

little background here. A friend of mine recently had an emergency c
section and she had one heck of a time delivering the baby. now they
are doing fine. the baby stayed in icu for few days and for the lack
of knowing better they gave the baby a bottle and guess what! ended up
with nipple confusion. I warned her about this problem but still..

Anyways, despite the pain and everything my friend is diligently
pumping and giving the baby ebm. When I called her last time we talked
about nursing the baby, quitting the bottle etc etc. She asked me how
long, in my opinon, is the absolute bare minimum that the baby should
get breast milk? I told 6 months.

What do you think? I agree that it would be best if the baby nurses
until he/she self weans. But for whatever reason if the mother just
can't do it, how long should she nurse the baby as a bare minimum
time?


This minimum has changed over time. When my sister gave birth to her
daughter (14 years ago), she was told it was essential for baby to get
the colostrum and that was basically it. Then it was 3 months. A few
years later, 6 months. And now you hear one year which I think is a bit
unrealistic. The one year minimum just sets up a lot of women to feel
like failures.

I would agree 6 months would be a great minimum goal.

Jeanne (who started by setting her minimum at 3 months and then went on
for 3 years)

"Jenrose" wrote in message
s.com...

Given that my daughter was able to triple her birthweight in just over 4
months (She was not quite 8 pounds when born, was 20 pounds at her 4 month
check), you might be surprised. With a bad latch, it can be difficult to
get
anything out. With a good latch, it's very difficult NOT to meet the needs
of even a "huge" baby. Or twins. It is rare, when a latch is good and a
baby
nurses well and frequently, for a mother to not simply be able to produce
however much milk her kiddo needs.

If you were already expressing in the colostrum phase, I'm guessing that
nipple confusion added to whatever initial difficulties there were. What
kind of nipples do you have? (I know, odd personal question, but my
breasts
are very large and my nipples very small, and if you've got the same, I
can
probably tell you some ways of figuring how to make it work better next
time.)

FWIW--nursing was torture for me the first week. Then someone helped me
fix
my latch (and my nipple shape turned out to be completely irrelevant to
what
was making the latch bad) and poof, it worked and didn't hurt.

Jenrose



Hi, thanks for replying to me.

When I had DS, my nipples weren't quite "inverted" but they were completely
flat. This time around I have been using the Nipplette system to try and
draw them out a bit, and they have come out a bit more, so I am hoping that
will help somewhat. I am quite heavily breasted, and am having an elective
C-section this time around (emergency one last time) so positioning will
depend on what is most comfortable to maintain over a long period of time.
Someone suggested holding the baby in a kind of "rugby ball" hold, i.e.
holding the baby with the opposite arm to the breast I am feeding with,
across the stomach, but I would love to hear what suggestions you have. I am
very determined to do the best I can this time to make it a success, so the
more info I am armed with the better.

However, I don't want to disrupt the OP from their thread, so if you would
like to email me, please just remove the spam block from my email address.

Gill

I just wanted to say I used the nipplette too. With my first dd my
nipples were flat, and nursing always hurt, so when I was pg this time
I stumbled upon the nipplette. I was in my third trimester, and they
said not to use it then, but i did anyway :-) because I was so excited
to have something that would fix the flat nipples. My nipples did
stretch out with it, and boy they totally come out when my dd sucks on
them. It was nothing like that with my first, so I know those
nipplettes worked great.

KC -
buy or rent Whittlestone Breast Expressers at:
http://www.alittlestore.com



"UberMinx" wrote in message ...

Hi, thanks for replying to me.

When I had DS, my nipples weren't quite "inverted" but they were completely
flat. This time around I have been using the Nipplette system to try and
draw them out a bit, and they have come out a bit more, so I am hoping that
will help somewhat. I am quite heavily breasted, and am having an elective
C-section this time around (emergency one last time) so positioning will
depend on what is most comfortable to maintain over a long period of time.
Someone suggested holding the baby in a kind of "rugby ball" hold, i.e.
holding the baby with the opposite arm to the breast I am feeding with,
across the stomach, but I would love to hear what suggestions you have. I am
very determined to do the best I can this time to make it a success, so the
more info I am armed with the better.

However, I don't want to disrupt the OP from their thread, so if you would
like to email me, please just remove the spam block from my email address.

Gill

"UberMinx" wrote in message
...




Hi, thanks for replying to me.

When I had DS, my nipples weren't quite "inverted" but they were
completely
flat. This time around I have been using the Nipplette system to try and
draw them out a bit, and they have come out a bit more, so I am hoping
that
will help somewhat. I am quite heavily breasted, and am having an elective
C-section this time around (emergency one last time) so positioning will
depend on what is most comfortable to maintain over a long period of time.
Someone suggested holding the baby in a kind of "rugby ball" hold, i.e.
holding the baby with the opposite arm to the breast I am feeding with,
across the stomach, but I would love to hear what suggestions you have. I
am
very determined to do the best I can this time to make it a success, so
the
more info I am armed with the better.


I think if you *can* nurse side lying, that can be the most comfortable.
Otherwise I'd say go for the football hold.

Another thing which helped me (I have heavy, heavy breasts and tiny nipples)
was to support my breast with an "L" shape rather than a "C" shape. That is,
rather than simply cup my breast, I made an "L" (To do this, point your
thumb at the ceiling and hold your hand straight so there's a 90 degree
angle between your thumb and your fingers) and made sure that my fingers
were parallel to my daughter's mouth. This helped point the nipple into her
mouth rather than up at the roof of her mouth.


However, I don't want to disrupt the OP from their thread, so if you would
like to email me, please just remove the spam block from my email address.

Eh, don't worry about it! This is what this group is for.

Jenrose

"Shannon G" wrote in message
...

"Jenrose" wrote in message
s.com...

My *personal* minimum is two years. But that's the youngest I would
allow
a
baby to wean (I won't feed any child of mine under age 2 cow's milk,
period,
so they really must nurse.)


I'm certainly not disputing your minimum of two years. I am, however,
disputing your claim that a child *must* nurse simply because they are not
drinking cows milk. You can get Vitamin D from sunlight and calcium from
cheese, yogurt, etc. and what happened to good old fashioned water for
hydration? Milk should certainly not be compared as a substitution for
breastmilk, nor should it be construed as a staple food for humans.

My daughter was allergic to soy AND dairy. Not just milk, but cheese,
butter, yogurt, ghee, whey, casien. Also eggs. She is not lactose intolerant
(although she might be, since she really can't try out a glass of milk to
find out, we'll never know). She is in fact, milk allergic. Give her milk or
ANY dairy, poof, symptoms. Give her antihistimine, the symptoms get better.

Trust me, she needed my milk. She nursed more like a typical 8-month old in
terms of quantity through age 2 1/2. At that point she was taking in enough
rice milk, meat, etc. that she was able to cut back her volume of nursing.

I find it interesting that *all* of the "alternative" foods you recommended
are dairy.

Jenrose

Jenrose wrote:


I find it interesting that *all* of the "alternative" foods you recommended
are dairy.

Off the top of my head:
broccoli
almonds