Breastfeeding for longer + cosleeping

lounakin

Hello all!
I'd love to hear opinions and experiences on the topics of breastfeeding past the 6 months mark and cosleeping for longer.
There was a time when specialist would say that it was bad, that the kids would become dependent and stay babies for longer.
But then some people dared do what they felt like and in the few documentaries I saw on extended breastfeeding showed that the kids were the opposite: very independent and confident.
What is your take on these practices?

Neyite

I'm continuing to breastfeed past 6 months. Mainly because I find it easy - both breastfeeding and the whole lack of equipment (bottles, formula, etc) and worrying if the milk is ok to drink, that its not been in the bag too long etc.

I think I will ease off when I return to work though - as much as I would love for him to keep drinking my milk, he will be nearly a year old and I know that I will find expressing stressful so for an easy life I'll probably stop then if I dont get pregnant again in the meantime. Having said that, he will be drinking water by then, and eating more meals, and there will be only a short gap until he can drink ordinary milk so I'm happy enough with that.

liliq

You know I'm very pro continuing breastfeeding and co sleeping lounakin!

Just over 14 months now and still going strong, I actually think he's even more of a booby monster now that he was 6 months ago!
Nursing is a cure-all... He fell and banged his head today when he lost his balance. He had a bruise within minutes (I feel awful), but he had forgotten about it within about two minutes because I was able to just pop him on the boob and he was instantly soothed.
I've flown a couple of times with him, and it was made so easy by being able to nurse him during take off and landing.
I inadvertently followed the La Leche League ethos of "Parenting through breastfeeding", and will keep doing that until it stops working!

The health risks associated with artificial milk are too many, so I was even more decided to continue with breastfeeding once I read more about them.

With the WHO and HSE recommending breastfeeding until at least 2 years old, that's my aim now.

With co- sleeping. that's a winner here for the moment too. I'm tired enough, I'd be even more tired if I was in and out to another room during the night. The co sleeper cot is great, even though the last while it's not used that much here, he's mostly in the bed the few months.
Again, the risks and damage associated with sleep training, controlled crying, crying it out, etc, are far too nasty for me to be willing to consider it.

While we were away we had a single bed pushed up against our double bed, and it was great to get him off to sleep in the single bed and scooch over to the double bed for a bit of space!! I think we might disassemble our cot and invest in a single bed to do the same at home.

Neyite, I went back to work part time when R was 6 months and pumped for about 4 months... Id up dumping so much of what I expressed it was heartbreaking. He just wouldn't drink anything from the bottle, and would only take maybe 2 oz from a cup, so I started storing what I pumped in 2oz lots and any leftovers I would use on his cereal.
At 12 months, he definitely won't have as much a need for breast milk while you're at work. I loved coming in after work and having an excuse to park my bum for half an hour while R had a massive feed. I can't remember if you mentioned before whether you co sleep or not, but if you do and you're happy to continue, he might switch to feeding a bit more at night to make up for missing the feeds while you're at work.

wmpdd3

Little man was about 6 months when I tried him on the cot and he loved it. He had only really woke at 7 am for a quick feed before going back to sleep so feeding during the night wasnt really an issue. He was getting really akward to sleep with, maybe if we had put a mattress on the floor, but as it was he was like a square peg.

I would have fed well past 1 year, but felt under pressure to introduce formula / water etc so I could go back to work. My shifts change weekly and I bearly have time to eat let alone pump.

pushkii

i really think that i would have given up on the bfeed if i didn't co-sleep. i was so worried that co sleeping would spoil my baby or that it was dangerous but she wouldn't settle in her basket from day one. Then i read the benefits of co-sleeping and it instantly put me at ease. i bought a bigger bed and haven't looked back since. she's 3 and a half mths now and i hope to continue the breastfeeding as long as we can. I do get people giving me their opinions on the co sleeping which is annoying but it what suits me the best. there's a website called attachment parenting it's a fantastic source for info on co sleeping

0ctober

Liliq 14 months is fantastic, you're my idol haha! :P my daughter is 15 weeks now and we're still going strong I really love how convenient the breastfeeding is, no hassle of bottles and sterilising etc. I haven't decided how long I'm going to keep up the feeding, definitely til 6 months anyway. I'm back to college then but hope to still feed her in the morning and evening, mostly for selfish reasons as I just love the bonding that breast feeding gives.
Even at 15 weeks I appear to be an exception compared to others I know, so its hard to get any advice or experience from others so I'd be interested to see some others peoples opinions

Also- looove the co sleeping! Saved my sanity in the early weeks

NextSteps

I breastfed for 18 months and co-slept for most of that time. It was lovely and I certainly don't regret it. I hope to do the same with the next child. My toddler seems (to me) extremely happy, healthy, independent and affectionate. I pretty much stopped pumping at 6 months, and if I was away from him for a while, we let him have formula, but I'd say he's had about 3 litres of it, ever. When I went back to work at 10 months, he had food and water when I wasn't there (and, later, cows' milk), then fed when we were together.

liliq

0ctober wrote: »

Liliq 14 months is fantastic, you're my idol haha! :P my daughter is 15 weeks now and we're still going strong

Awh thanks! Haha! Never planned on keeping going with Breastfeeding while I was pregnant or in the early days, it just kind if happens!
15 weeks- you're a long term breastfeeder by most Irish standards

liliq

0ctober wrote: »

Liliq 14 months is fantastic, you're my idol haha! :P my daughter is 15 weeks now and we're still going strong

Awh thanks! Haha! Never planned on keeping going with Breastfeeding while I was pregnant or in the early days, it just kind if happens!
15 weeks- you're a long term breastfeeder by most Irish standards

lounakin

Thanks for the responses! In my case, daughter is 6 months and we're still nursing while introducing food. She was obsessed with food from a very early age but in the last couple of weeks for some reason she never wants to eat food, just nurse.
We are not co-sleeping. She was by my bed in a basket until she was 2 months old, after that I flew to france for almost 3 months. All I had there was a cot, the beds are too awkward to sleep together in as there is a big huge dent in the middle and she'd always roll. The cot was near my bed for the first few days and then I moved to another bedroom that has a second little room and she slept in there on her own. It wasn't really my choice to have her away from me but rather the lack of room. When we came back to Ireland the cot didn't fit in our room at all so we had her sleep in her own room with a door and everything! She didn't mind at all and we never did controlled crying. We'd just rock her to the verge of sleep and put her down. It's been like that for 3 months without tears.
Liliq, there was a study done on controlled crying/crying it out technique recently. They took older children who had been left to cry and other who hadn't, turns out there was actually no difference between them, no issue with anxiety, self-esteem etc... I'm not saying let your kids cry, I'm really just curious about both sides.

pushkii

im bf 15 weeks too and i want to continue after the 6 mths if i can. I don't know why but i just hate the thought of my lo taking formula. the two times she took it i felt awful. I just love the bond we have . i just wish more people would be more encouraging bf for longer. A lot of people i know would think its weird bf after 6 mths

Squiggler

I've only been breastfeeding for 10 weeks, but I have a different background to most Irish people in that my mother breastfed and co-slept with all 4 of us. I was breastfed for the shortest period of time, because she fell pregnant with my brother when I was only 6 months and her milk dried up shortly after. But the others were spaced out 3 years apart and all bf until they were at least 2. The youngest slept in with my parents, until the next was born and my youngest brother moved out of my parents room at 4.

My sister has breastfed all three of her girls for 2 years plus, although co-sleeping didn't work out with all of them. The older two each slept with mum and dad until the next was due and then moved into their own room and bed. Her youngest was moved to her own room at 9 months because she was an extremely noisy sleeper and they couldn't sleep much with her in the room.

My sister-in-law also breastfed my nephew. He was born almost 3 months early and was fed only expressed breastmilk when he was in the hospital. Once he was home she switched and they co-slept, but maybe for too long as they were very protective of the little guy that they almost lost. They really struggled to get him out of their bed, but my brother and his wife only tried to move him to a room of his own when he was nearly 6.

For me the idea of messing around with bottles is alien. Breastfeeding on demand, co-sleeping and baby-led weaning are the norm in my family. I'll be going back to work when L is just about a year old. I hope to breastfeed him as long as he wants it, just hope daytime feeds will be reduced by then.

lounakin

I really hope I can still breastfeed my daughter after I get back to work! I'm the same about formula, don't even want to give it to her! I'm not keen on cow's milk either, thinking of giving her goat's milk.

Blueskye

It's great to hear this from you all. I'm just pregnant with first baby and definitely hope to bf and very interested in co-sleeping (which is total alien in my family) but was concerned about when I go back to work and bfeeding. Finances will dictate whether it'll be when baby is 7 months or if we can push it a bit longer. I'd like to be at home as long as possible and breast feed as long as I can. Maybe I'll feel differently in the future but that's how I'm thinking about it at the moment.

Blueskye

lounakin wrote: »

I really hope I can still breastfeed my daughter after I get back to work! I'm the same about formula, don't even want to give it to her! I'm not keen on cow's milk either, thinking of giving her goat's milk.

I feel the same. I don't drink cow's milk and OH is lactose-intolerant so would like to avoid cow's milk totally if possible.

ceadaoin.

I'm not breastfeeding unfortunately but we do co-sleep for most of the night. My daughter goes to sleep in her cot and after a few wakings where she settles back to sleep easily, she wakes up and won't settle until I bring her in to bed with me. Just wondering if anyone has any experience of stopping co-sleeping? Will my daughter just stop waking up to come in when she is ready? I hope that's the case as I can't bear the thought of sleep training!

iguana

I thought it worth mentioning that mothers who are in fulltime employment are entitled to an hour a day of paid time off in order to pump breastmilk.

pushkii

that is good to know iguana thanks. i think not many people know the benefits of co-sleeping and just think of the negatives. but it is so natural . Only for co sleeping there's no way id have been able to continue breastfeeding.

pwurple

pushkii wrote: »

that is good to know iguana thanks. i think not many people know the benefits of co-sleeping and just think of the negatives. but it is so natural . Only for co sleeping there's no way id have been able to continue breastfeeding.

The negatives can be pretty severe is why pushkii. Plenty of natural things are dangerous. Nature is far from universally benign.

Understandably, some people don't wish to take any perceived risk of their childs death, however small that chance. We all chose our own risks every day. This one is acceptable for some parents, not for others.

Each to their own.

lounakin

Again, not everyone has a nice bed with a new mattress I was completely unable to let her sleep with me in the bed, I tried a few times, she was always trapped and would wake up because she liked to sleep on her stomach.
Anyway, just wanted to add that yes, bfing women are entitled to an hour to pump but only up to 6 months!

Squiggler

lounakin wrote: »

Anyway, just wanted to add that yes, bfing women are entitled to an hour to pump but only up to 6 months!

My understanding is that you have to have given birth within the previous 6 months, not that it is only up to 6 months. My current employers stated policy is that they will support bf by providing me with the extra hour up to 18 months after the baby's birth, but have indicated that they will facilitate me for as long as is necessary.

If employers don't have a written policy then it is important to discuss it with them (sooner rather than later) and get something in writing from them.

Oh, and co-sleeping doesn't automatically mean sleeping in the same bed. We've baby in a cot bed fastened to our bed with one side off which acts as an extension of our bed, some people use special co-sleepers. But having L right beside me, so that I can immediately notice any change in his breathing, or indications that he's awake and looking for attention, has been great.

You get used, very quickly, to normal breathing and movement and it's amazing how quickly I can be wide awake if he coughs, spits up or just grunts because he has his arm stuck in his blankets - stuff that a baby monitor might not let you pick up until it was dangerous or baby was crying in frustration. I can check on him and solve things without disturbing him or getting out of bed and we can both quickly get back to sleep.

It means that I'm not waking to a crying baby who will take longer to soothe back to sleep. Night feeds now can take as little as 5-10 minutes with him sleeping soundly at the end of that.

I wouldn't like to be relying on a baby monitor.

lounakin

I'd love to have the baby still in my room, but said room is so tiny all we could fit was the basket! I had to put her in her own room and I hated the idea at first but then it just worked out fine. I did miss her for ages though...
It works out the same as when she was in the bedroom. She doesn't cry, just starts moving, that still wakes me up: then I get her, feed her for 5 min and she falls asleep, I take her back, no need to soothe back to sleep at all at night. It also just takes 5 minutes, the only difference is I have to get on my feet.

As for work, I read that too and couldn't really understand the implications. I have extended my maternity leave with work beyond the 6 months mark, that means when I go back to work I won't have had given birth within the last 6 months, does that mean I can't pump at work? That seems arbitrary...

LegacyUser

pwurple wrote: »

The negatives can be pretty severe is why pushkii. Plenty of natural things are dangerous. Nature is far from universally benign.

Understandably, some people don't wish to take any perceived risk of their childs death, however small that chance. We all chose our own risks every day. This one is acceptable for some parents, not for others.

Each to their own.

I would love to see the statistics of baby fatalities while in a BED compared to those babies who die alone in a cot.

Most co-sleeping deaths are babies asleep on a sofa or being suffocated by someone drunk.

It is the most natural way to sleep for many reasons. It is extremely unnatural for a young baby to sleep alone in their own room and is usually done for the parents benefit, not the baby's.

If they had a choice, a baby would obviously choose to sleep with their Mother.

pushkii

I was just wondering what the HSE's stance was on co-sleeping. When I was in the maternity with my lo one of the midwives came in during and put all the crying babies in beside their mothers in their bed and pulled up the cotside . I heard from someone that this is not allowed anymore?

Neyite

pushkii wrote: »

I was just wondering what the HSE's stance was on co-sleeping. When I was in the maternity with my lo one of the midwives came in during and put all the crying babies in beside their mothers in their bed and pulled up the cotside . I heard from someone that this is not allowed anymore?

They did it with me in May after my section. I think that was why we were so successful with breastfeeding, from the afternoon until late at night they positioned baby at the breast for me and only took him to change him or move him to the other breast.

Once I was up and about I was left to my own devices though.

lounakin

pushkii wrote: »

I was just wondering what the HSE's stance was on co-sleeping. When I was in the maternity with my lo one of the midwives came in during and put all the crying babies in beside their mothers in their bed and pulled up the cotside . I heard from someone that this is not allowed anymore?

In the rotunda they kept saying under no circumstance should we have the baby in the bed, that was their position. When my baby was born I kept taking her into the bed with me at hospital (only stayed one night) and the nurses relentlessly kept taking the baby back.

January

Same when I was in the Rotunda in 2008 and 2001. No babies allowed in beds and if you dozed off they'd wake you and make you put baby in cot.

The Coombe were a lot more relaxed in 2010, if you were dozing they'd keep an eye on you and leave baby be.

Hannibal Smith

Holles street were telling us as far back as the ante natal classes that we weren't to co sleep...that was 2009...but one night I couldn't sleep because he kept shaking...the night midwife came in...swaddled him (which we were also told to do) and put him in beside me lol....she was a right rebel rule breaker

We never let him sleep with us because my sister in law told me a friend's baby had died because one of the parents rolled onto her and smothered it was a while after I asked who exactly died...it turned out it was her friends uncle's brother"s sister's cousin...if you get me . but ours was a summer baby so it was no effort to go in and stick the soother back in.

So now if the youngest cries and he's not settling its far too cold to be getting out of bed so now we bring him in. to be honest...half the time we poke him to get a bit of chat out of him ....we're flying in the face of all the rules on this one...I can only imagine what you guys do when you get to child number 3 and 4

Squiggler

I had L in the Coombe in September, he was in the crib thing they provided for about 30 minutes in total in the 15 or so hours he spent in the hospital. After the birth he was given to me straight away. I carried him to the room.

When I did put him in the crib so we could get some sleep (I was nervous of the narrow bed) he threw up and got really upset. I took him into the bed with me and put his face level with mine, he calmed down straight away and then reached up both hands to my face. We fell asleep like that.

After that I just kept him with me and nobody said anything.

pushkii

i think the same neyite that only for that midwife doing that that night i would have found it very difficult to get through the night. the following night i had baby next to me they took the baby out of the bed said i should get some sleep and offered to take baby and give a top up. i just didn't feel this was right so a few mins later i asked for the baby to be brought back. haven't looked back since. I was very confused about the idea of co sleeping though

How Strange

We were told in the Coombe by the day midwives not to have the babies in bed with us under any circumstances. One midwife told me they had a path beaten to Crumlin with babies that had fallen out of the beds because the mums were so tired. On my 1st night my son woke up at 9pm (after sleeping all day!) and howled the place down. One African midwife that I'll be eternally grateful to came down to me and told me to take my baby into bed and breastfeed him all night. I did and I honestly think that's what started me off positively on breastfeeding. She used to come down to me every do often and tell me I was doing a fantastic job.

When we got home our son, the divil!, would only sleep on me. Not in a cot or a Moses basket or beside me but on me. We spent the first two weeks like that. I was driven demented listening to the making a rod for your back comments. In the end I decided to make the rod and in he came into our bed. Our phn was 100% pro breastfeeding so while hse guidelines say its not recommended she just said we've all got to do what works for us.

We lasted until 6 months at which point we realized that he didn't like sleeping in our room. Honestly! As soon as we moved him next door he started sleeping better. I was partly relieved because my back was in bits but I missed our snuggles. The only time he will sleep in our bed now is when he's sick.