Is it better to give my baby as much breast milk as possible in 6 months or space it out in smaller amounts for a year?

[terrywinkle]

Posted in r/exclusivepumping and recommended to post here

I became a FTM to twins 8 weeks ago this Thursday!

After lots of triple feeding and really trying to make breastfeeding work, I went to exclusive pumping last week and it's worked so much better for us, and has been a life saver for my mental health.

That being said, no one ever told me how hard breastfeeding/pumping is. I just assumed it would be easy to do for an entire year (my original goal to give my babies a year supply of breast milk).
I'm not entirely sure I can make that it long, so now I'm thinking 6 months is also a great goal.

But what is better, scientifically and health wise speaking, for my babies: give them as much breast milk as I can for those 6 months OR start to freeze enough so that they can at least have one serving a day for the remaining 6 months of the year?

I have a decent supply, but currently supplement with formula for about 2 feedings/day, so saving any means less now for the babies.

I can't seem to find any research on this, hoping someone here might now so that I can develop a plan

 

[seye]

@terrywinkle I don’t have a study on what you’re asking specifically but I just finished feeding my frozen stash to my daughter in April. I would make sure your babies will accept your frozen breast milk if you haven’t already. I had high lipase in my milk and once it was frozen and thawed it smelled horrible and metallic. Some babies won’t drink it like that. I was lucky my daughter didn’t care. I had the same goal as you (feed to 12M) but since you have multiples you may consider combo feeding closer to 12M so they can still have your milk sometimes even if you don’t have enough supply for them to drink it constantly. Here’s a link below on high lipase.

https://llli.org/breastfeeding-info/milk-issues/#:~:text=However%2C%20when%20lipase%20activity%20is,be%20distasteful%20to%20the%20baby.

 

[molinist]

@seye I came here to say this but want to add that my daughter was cool with my frozen milk until she started on solids, and I guess got a sense of what food SHOULD taste like, and then was like “hell no I’m not drinking this” and that’s how I found out I had high lipase and donated my entire freezer stash

So anyway, I’m Team “Use it Now.”

 

[jointron33]

@molinist Came to second this: exclusively pumped… it was hard and thought I’ll take it to 6 months, then it got much easier after 4 months, and of course the more you pump the more milk you get, so then I was overflowing by 6 months, so decided to go to 12. And freeze enough for 1.5 years total . Def had high lipase taste…Frozen milk was mostly wasted at daycare esp when she started w solids … she really didn’t want it.. (and day care didn’t want to deal with it) …so use it now

 

[molinist]

@jointron33 Oh my god yes. I think I gave away six months’ worth of frozen milk in the end. At one point I was producing almost enough to feed twins, and very little of the excess actually ended up in my kid I started weaning when my beloved little traitor tried cow’s milk for the first time and yelled “MMMMMM!” Like ok kid

 

[jointron33]

@molinist Mine verbally said “MORE!!” to the cows milk with wide eyes while also using sign.. at that point never asked for more anything in her life …. my husband quickly was like .. maybe it’s the sugar .. like dude breast milk has sugar…

 

[molinist]

@jointron33 Ah I see our kids are soul sisters

 

[melanie66]

@molinist Wow, I never managed to breastfeed nor pump, so this is something I had no idea about.

 

[sherry4glorifythelord]

@seye Maybe something to try in that case would be to make a bib with half breast milk and half powder milk?

 

[terrywinkle]

@seye Thank you so much I had not thought about this!

 

[seye]

@terrywinkle No one told me and I wish they had! I froze 2000 ounces and then figured it out. I got very lucky. I also exclusively pumped for 7 months and I understand how exhausting it can be. Best of luck to you and your sweet babies!

 

[myredeemer3]

@terrywinkle I don't remember where I read they have to be the same temperature, though and you still need to prepare the formula according to the instructions (meaning don't lower water content, etc.). We mixed but used the ready-made formula.

 

[dzwakenberg]

@seye I also have high lipase milk. Scalding worked for me, but it's like a full-time job. I also learned that if I put freshly pumped milk right into the freezer, the lipase isn't an issue, at least within a month of initial freezing. It may be worth experimenting. I put a few ounces in a couple of bags and thawed one weekly to see if lipase was an issue with this method.

 

[hairykid34]

@seye I have high lipase and found out after pumping and storing a bunch of milk. Now I put the bottle of pumped milk into an ice bath asap after pumping and then freeze or refrigerate and it has help tremendously. I read you can also flash boil your milk but I didn’t want to destroy any nutrients and the ice bath has worked so well.

 

[kevinkret86]

@seye I just tossed a freezer drawer of frozen milk that was g r o s s. I was EP for a while while baby refused to nurse so I just had extra at the end of the day. So no extra work for me really but still so sad to toss it. But we need the freezer space more than we kneed to keep milk baby won't drink. I scald what I pump now but she's also refusing bottles now lol.

 

[zenoboy]

@seye Sammmee.

 

[drizzt777]

@terrywinkle There is research that the magnitude of benefits from breastfeeding have been over exaggerated in recent years. There is also a lot of pseudoscience-y mom-shaming-y info on the internet about how breastfeeding is the only responsible way to feed your baby and it’s tough to wade through. Here’s a meta analysis which found that the primary benefit of breastfeeding longer than 3 months was a reduced risk of gastrointestinal diseases. Since the analysis leveraged studies from developing countries, if you have access to clean water you may find the increased risk of gastrointestinal diseases to be negligible. The primary benefit to the mother was delayed menses and therefore delayed pregnancy, which, again, if you have access to birth control is a negligible benefit.

Anecdotally, I’m weaning after EP’ing for my 3 month old because of the mental and physical toll EP’ing had on me. It is HARD! I’ve found I’m a much more present parent without pumping and that, to me, is more important than feeding my baby breast milk. When I decided to start weaning I asked my pediatrician if there was a minimum amount of breast milk to be beneficial and the response I got was that the right amount of breast milk is the amount you can give baby while staying sane and present. Sometimes that means breast feeding for 2 years, sometimes that means baby is formula fed from day one.

 

[kyleeak]

@drizzt777 It is 100% morally fine for any woman to choose not to breastfeed for any reason. No woman has an obligation to breastfeed. If every woman on the planet decided to not breastfeed that would be fine by me.

That being said.

This is a science based sub. The WHO, CDC, AAP all disagree with you. You do not get to just make up stuff and provide misleading information about the meta analysis you present. Not cool. Please reread your study and edit your post to reflect the groups actually studied. ASAP. Thanks.

 

[drizzt777]

@kyleeak Here’s the authors’ plain language summary of the study:

“Exclusive breastfeeding for six months (versus three to four months, with continued mixed breastfeeding thereafter) reduces gastrointestinal infection and helps the mother lose weight and prevent pregnancy but has no long‐term impact on allergic disease, growth, obesity, cognitive ability, or behaviour.”

You’ll note that my summary above is consistent with this summary. You’ll also note that this summary does not disagree with the WHO’s recommendation to breastfeed. This study provides context to why the data supports that recommendation, which is primarily to reduce infant deaths from gastrointestinal diseases. If your baby is vaccinated, and you have access to clean water, and access to reliable medical care, your risk from not breastfeeding is not the same as the risk to baby if you do not have access to these things.

This is a science based sub. We should be encouraging people to make risk-based decisions based on science. Sometimes those risk-based decisions are different from the WHO’s recommendation.

 

[sagarjackey]

@drizzt777 Lose weight?!!

I feel cheated lol. I knew people always said that breastfeeding supposedly helped them lose weight, but it does not for me! I get so much hungrier I actually lose weight once I finally wean.

Not to interrupt the thread, but I had no idea there was considered to be some scientific basis to the whole lose weight thing Off to feel bad about myself