New here, reaching 12 months mark, some questions

[@llli*liah.arien]

Hi ladies,

My LO is 11 months old and I have some questions, hope you can give me some advice. I'm sure I am worrying to much, but better ask

A little background... when my LO was born I was hoping for a natural birth, but ended up having an emergency C-section (full term) and after that a lot of things went wrong. She was separated from me the whole night, next morning she had no suction reflex at all, nurses and midwives pushed her a lot to try and get her to latch which caused her to cry each time she was even near my breasts, then they started giving here formula, no one told me I had to pump so at day 6 I still had just a few drops of colostrum, no milk, and ended up having post partum depression. Long story short, first months were terrible... but luckily I found the best lactation consultant ever, and with a lot of patience and pumping around the clock, when my little girl was about 2 and a half months she finally started to nurse, and here we are, at 11 months and happily nursing, hoping to continue at least until she's 2.

She still nurses like a newborn, every 2-3 hours day and night and it is a very healthy little girl, has always been above average in both length and weight. We started solids at 6 months and she's a good eater.

At 8 and a half months I got back to work. Since about 7 months she refuses to drink milk in anything but boobs, I have tried bottles and sippy cups, even normal cups, she drinks water and juice on them but if they have milk she throws them away.
Fortunately I can go home at noon so she gets to nurse in the morning, noon, and evening when I get back home, and a lot during the night. I have the best SAHD ever which takes care of our little girl.

My concern is that in the 10 months check up she gained very little weight, a lot below what we expected, although she is still above average in length and weight/length is still normal. It seems to me that since she's used to nurse constantly when I'm around she doesn't drink much each time, so not sure if she's getting enough milk since I got back to work. Also I should mention that since DH is a vegetarian (ovo-lacto vegetarian to be more specific) she's also following a vegetarian diet, so milk is important to provide protein and vitamins. I'm not a vegetarian so she gets everything she needs through mommy's milk.

I guess milk quantity is not that important at this point since she's almost 1 year old. I plan to add some sort of milk if required, but I would prefer to just nurse her. I never had that much milk, but when I do pump at work I get about 3 oz so I think I'm doing ok.

Am I worrying to much? Guess I just need some reassurance

Thanks!

[@llli*auderey]

hi mama,

wow, what a rough start!! you are a trooper for making nursing work.

it is totally normal for bf babies not to gain much in their second 6 months - mine gained nothing from 6 to 9 months. but in your situation i'd be slightly more conservative since her access to milk is limited during the day. if she nurses on demand through the night she could make up for a lot of that, though.

3 oz in a pump session is normal/average, not low. when did you last try giving her milk in a bottle or cup? are you pumping now, or just nursing before/after work and at lunch?

you still want milk to be her primary nutrition until she's 12 months. you can continue to nurse past then as long as you both like; the common wisdom is that as long as she's nursing 3-4x per 24 hours she's getting her "dairy" requirements met.

[@llli*liah.arien]

Hi auderey,

Last time I tried to give her milk in a cup was a few weeks ago, I'll try again and see how it goes. I only pump if I feel uncomfortable at work or if I feel LO didn't nurse much at morning or lunch sessions (she sometimes just falls sleep after nursing a couple of minutes), so I don't do it every day. When I went back to work I was planning to but since I can go home at noon and she is not drinking what I pump I figured it was useless. Plus I really don't like pumping because of my experience in the early months.

Thanks!

[@llli*bfwmomof3]

I agree with auderey, it's common for weight gain to slow down or even stall during the second half of the year. Babies get active and burn off more calories. And there are definitely babies out there who will only nurse/reverse cycle and do fine. Is your doctor worried?

Would it be possible for your husband to bring your LO to you one more time during the day? That way maybe you could get another nursing session in without worrying about cups/bottles/pumping.

It really sounds like you are doing great - that's wonderful that you have made it to this point with all the challenges you faced at the beginning!