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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My first nursed until 2 years, 5 months and my second for 2 years, 7 months and both didn’t stop night nursing for years (probably nearly 2 for both) so I get it. Really, I do. Honestly? I wish I had formula fed my second child from day one and never nursed him. We did combo feeding for him but I still went through all the tongue tie, nipple shield, mastitis, latch hell, baby still didn’t sleep well, husband still thought nursing was “easier” than him getting up to fix a bottle, baby still preferred breast milk - always, I still couldn’t get him down without nursing, etc. I am honestly still not recovered from 4 years of sleep deprivation, and it  damaged my marriage and made me  resentful of my husband to have been so physically attached and tethered to the kids.

A friend of mine refused to nurse her kids because she felt it furthered inequality and she wanted to force her husband to be just as responsible for feeding the kids as she was and just as capable in the exact same way so she wasn’t always responsible. She also didn’t want the physical responsibility - after pregnancy and birth, she said, it’s his turn to step up to the plate - I’m not sacrificing my body any more. At the time? I thought she was being selfish. In hindsight? I regret not making a similar choice.

Here’s the truth - for a lot of women, breastfeeding does limit your freedom. It can make you more housebound if your kids don’t nurse discretely and well in public (mine didn’t). It can further, in my opinion, inequality between partners because feeding solely becomes one person’s responsibility. It limits your ability to do anything - because you are tethered to a baby or pump every X hours, so yes, your freedom and agency become stifled. For me, it killed my sex drive for many years, on top of my sleep, and I dealt with so many issues, oversupply, undersupply, mastitis multiple times, dysmorphic ejection reflex, etc. that any health or bonding benefits were outweighed by my resentment, and by the time I realized the nursing wasn’t going to easily and nearly conclude at 12 months like I planned, the babies had such a strong preference for it and refused formula, and since both my kids took slowly to solids (and one had eating issues and the other bad allergies and both had some weight issues) was forced to continue being their food source long past the time I wanted. I also had to stop traveling for work, which was my choice, but then never got back to it because everyone sort of “mommy tracked” me. Also, I pumped 2-3x a day at work for over a year for both, which killed my productivity and was just a tremendous time suck and PITA, and source of daily scheduling stress at work. And also nursing gave me looser joints and ligaments and made me exhausted so I did not get back any semblance of energy for fitness or ability to really build muscle and lose weight until I weaned the kids each time, so that was a lot of years I was fat and soft and stuck in saggy nursing bras and ugly clothing.

Now that they are older, while I do recall the snuggles and some of our nursing sessions with fondness, the main feeling I’m left with is still regret for breastfeeding. I can never forget the husband who just wanted to roll over - for literal years - while I was the one who had to get up at night. And I will never forget being so ill with mastitis - multiple times - that I wanted to die. Reducing me to my biological function to be a food source for my kids when we have wonderful alternatives, and there’s not such great evidence for breast milk over formula past the first few weeks, was
In hindsight the wrong decision for me. It felt so important at the time and I felt so much pressure to do it, but on reflection now years later I feel like a sucker and often wish I had never done it. [/quote]

I’m the OP. YOU GET IT. Wow, you get it. All of it. This is exactly what happened with my first. I feel it ruined my life. It took us years to even consider a second because our first still does not sleep through the night and has severe, severe sleep issues that all medical tests and sleep studies have determined are purely behavioral and not medical. I think it was the breastfeeding. She never learned to self soothe or sleep any other way even after weaning. The sleep deprivation and bring always tired and short due to it and the guilt from being that way with my toddler are horrible. If I could go back in time with this particular kid, knowing her temperament, I would never have breastfed at all.

So I’m trying to figure out if there’s a better way to breastfeed like weaning super early or something that doesn’t result in the insanity or whether I should just not do it at all. After reading your post I’m strongly leaning towards not doing it at all. [/quote]

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