After exclusively being breastfed for 6 months and supplementing with formula for 2 more months, mummy have had enough. She initially aimed to breastfeed me for 1 year but had to stop at 8 months. She is not proud but she knows she has done her best.
I am not sure if this happened to other breastfeeding mothers out there but mummy encountered several difficulties. Firstly, she couldn't use the pumps. You heard me right. When mummy use pumps (we've got the Avent manual pump) it will take her ages to clear the breasts. In desperation, she tried manual and it was surprisingly much faster. Mummy have since then expressed manually using her hands resulting in bruised breasts (not sure why but I guess if you press your fingers onto your breasts for like 4 - 5 times a day and 20 mins each time, you will end up with bruises). Mummy used to express every 3 hours when I was 2 or 3 months old, so imagine the bruises!
Mummy also lost a lot of weight. We know breastfeeding help mothers to lose weight after giving birth but she wasn't expecting to lose this much weight. She lost 5kg! The miracle of breastfeeding is that she was back to her usual weight during the confinement month (amazing huh) and she lost another 5 kg in the following 2 months. She look so skinny that she could no longer fit into her usual pants, those she use to wear before she got pregnant. Everyone who saw her said she looked frailed and lethargic, probably because of the weight loss. She doesn't look like someone who just had a baby!
The biggest reason why mummy gave up breastfeeding is because of thrush. I developed thrush when I was 3 months old. Not sure when, how or why. I had white spots in my mouth and bad rashes down under, they were itchy. Mummy's breasts were fine. Mummy wasn't even sure if it was thrush but pediatrician said it was. She continued to breastfeed me and pediatrician prescribed Daktarin cream to apply into my mouth and onto mummy's breasts. While her breasts showed no symptoms of thrush, mine refused to go away. The moment she stopped applying the cream on my mouth, it will come back. When she applied, they will go into hiding. Mummy continued to put the cream with hope that it will go away permanently but it didn't. The thrush stayed on until I was about 6 months old. She didn't know what else to do and decided to stop breastfeeding me directly cause we all know that thrush will spread from mommy to baby via breastfeeding or vice versa. She didn't want to continue applying the creams on me as we do not know if the cream will cause harm if taken over long period.
Mummy then decided to express and feed me from a bottle. She also continued to clean my gums and mouth thoroughly every morning and night with clean wet cotton. I love it when she does that as I can bite her finger. Eventually the thrush slowly disappeared, without mummy putting any cream. We were elated. But at the same time mummy's production of breast milk slowly diminished no matter what she do. She continued to drink lots of fluid, taking plenty of fruits and expressing frequently but nothing helped and I wasn't helping either as I refused to suck on it anymore. I prefer teats!
Anyway, mummy convinced herself that 8 months is better than nothing and she is happy that she managed to feed me for 8 months. I am also happy as her breastmilk keeps me healthy. IF she is going to have a 2nd baby, she said she will do the same :-).
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