DS & I established BF really well and very easily. I felt so lucky. BUT life circumstances are not always perfect. I had to return to work with DH being a SAHD for financial reasons. I did try working from home when DS was 6 weeks old and feeding him on demand. It would take me 6 days to do 3 days work. It was incredibly stressful. We decided to try expressing. DH would feed DS a bottle of EBM and I would express when I could. It would take over an hour to express just 100ml when DS was downing double that in 10 mins. The result - more stress and very painful nipples. I ended up taking more time off work as I was so stressed. This time was the best. But we could simply not afford for me to take any more time off. When DS was 5 months, I returned to work. Due to the previous stress, I chose to give DS formula while I was at work and BF him whenever I was home. From that point on, my milk simply dried up. His last BF was at 8 months exactly. I had been persisting with a night time feed for weeks - each night ended in tears - mine & his. DS would suck and suck and suck until I felt like my nipples were falling off. Yet he still seemed hungry. And so the stress started again. Finally on the day he turned 8 months, I made the decision to give him a bottle after yet another night of torture. He downed the lot in 10 minutes. I never BF him again. I didn't even get a hint of becoming engorged - there was just no milk left. It was an incredibly tough decision to make and even now I have tears in my eyes. I really wanted to feed to 12 months.
I hate being made to feel that I didn't try hard enough. But my boy is very healthy, very happy and very loved.
Last edited by Rowellen; October 18th, 2010 at 03:19 PM.
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