My Milk disappeared, 5 yo daughter not ready

[Oak]

Hi -
My 5.5 year old girl (she's an only) was down to nursing to sleep and wake up, when about 2 weeks ago my milk just stopped. I've tried various herbs, acupuncture, etc., and she still tries "with the uncooperative boobs" to try to get the milk back, but so far to no avail. She's so sad, and I am sad mixed with feeling guilty because I'm kind of ready - but ready for her to stop, not for her to be forced. It could not be at a worse time as almost everything in our schedule is changing - her preschool, my job, worries about K, seperation anxiety about her best friend who will go to a different school, etc. I am also worried about what this may mean about my health. Plus, I feel like this is the only place where we will find understanding and sympathy - I haven't gone to a MD yet because I can't deal yet with all the baggage they bring to breastfeeding issues.
Now I'm crying again.
Any advice?
thank you!

[butterfly_mommy]

I don;t have any advice but I could not read with out posting.

I am sorry you guys are feeling so sad. I hope you both find peace soon.

[JMJ]

I don't know much from the health perspective what would have caused that. My best guess is that if you've been under a lot of stress, you may be having a hard time getting the oxytocin to have a letdown. If this is the case, it doesn't mean there's anythign wrong with you, just that you're under stress, which it sounds like you are. I don't know anything that would have caused the milk to stop making milk, just things that would make you stop releasing it. This could explain why the herbs, etc have not helped as well. It's the same thing that causes mothers to "lose their milk" in an emergency.

What I would recommend would be 2 things:
1-Oxytocin is released when you relax and have skin to skin contact. I would recommend having a lot of cuddle time with skin to skin contact with your daughter, and try to relax. If you're worried about it coming, it's going to be harder for it to come. Remember that it's very unlikely that your milk is no longer there. Just relax and trust that it will come out.
2-If your daughter is getting stressed out about it, you can use something called the "drop-drip technique." It is used in emergencies to help mothers get their milk back in an emergency and is similar to SNS to help new moms. (SNS would also work if you have access to it.) Take a cup of milk (pumped milk if you have it, donor milk if she needs breast milk, or other warm milk that she likes) and drip drops down onto your breast as your child nurses. Warning, this will make a mess. Some of the milk will make it into her mouth, and it will encourage her to keep trying and help ease frustration for both of you.

To be successful, you may need to nurse her more than twice a day for a little while. Make it some special time with her this weekend. Explain to her that if she wants the milk back, she can help you get it back by spending a lot of time cuddling and nursing, and then when the milk is back, she can nurse as much or little as she wants until she is ready to wean herself. I know you don't really want to get her to nurse more than she wants to either, but her choices are more than she wants or less than she wants right now, and I would guess she's old enough to understand and be given that choice. If she is near weaning, the drop drip technique could be used just a couple times a day to ease her frustration until she is ready to wean entirely.

Hope that helps! Hugs, mamma.

[pumpkinhead]

My youngest nursed long after my milk had all but dried up. You're not forcing her to stop.

Personally, I wouldn't take drugs or herbs to try to relactate for a 5.5 year old, but that doesn't mean that I think you should not. I think it is worth noting that sometimes, this is how children wean: milk runs out, child weans. Sometimes, the child is not deterred at all by the lack of milk or the low volume. I don't think this necessarily has anything to do with your own health. Nursing mothers stop making milk for a variety of reasons. In my own case, nursing once a day wasn't enough for my body to maintian any kind of a milk supply. We're all very individual.

Can you try other things to comfort her? Like snuggling her close to your chest while she drinks warmed milk from a sippy cup?

I'm sorry that you are both having so much stress about this. I hope you find peace.

[rparker]

Is there any chance that you could be pregnant?

[pumpkinhead]

Originally Posted by rparker

Is there any chance that you could be pregnant?

I hadn't thought of that, but it's a good suggestion. The other thing I was thinking is that my supply started tanking when AF was expected when ds was 2.5.

[pinky]

By the time by younger dd was around 5, my milk supply was definitely dwindling. She was also nursing 1-2x/day by this point, and usually not for very long, since there wasn't much there. She would often complain that there wasn't any milk, and then eventually would comment on the few occasions that there was milk. She surprised me at 5.5 by declaring herself weaned (she loved nursing so much I thought she'd keep it up for much longer!).

I do think that this is the normal physiological course of weaning. As your child nurses less, you make less milk. Which makes nursing less appealing, and in our case shortened our nursing sessions. So eventually the milk more of less stopped, and then she decided she was done nursing.

For my dd, lots of physical contact has made all the difference in easing the transition. She still almost always goes to sleep with a hand on my breast, and prefers to start the day "snuggling the nursies." So she still gets a lot of the physical contact and comfort of nursing, even without the milk.

Sorry you're both having a hard time, hope things feel easier soon.

[blessedwithboys]

this is normal, its time to stop. if your dd was 12 mos, i would suggest all sorts of things to try, if she was 2 or 3, i would maybe say it could be time to stop, but if you want to try for some more, do these things. your dd is 5 yrs old. shes about to start kindergarten. you did great for her. let it go and start moving on.

she has CLW. this is how it works, mama. she is down to 2 nursings/day. many many mamas cannot keep up a supply on 2x/day. if newborns were only put to breast morning and evening, no one would succeed. but reducing frequency is part of the path to weaning, which she has done.

every change in our life's path comes with emotional baggage. weaning is very bittersweet. i think at this point you may wish to offer your dd to keep suckling, but explain to her that the time for your breasts to make milk has passed. give her lots of love and attention to help her through missing the milk, but keep reminding her that she is a big girl now and milkies from mama helped her to get there.

FWIW, i CLW both of my kids, ds1 til 24 mos (had a big nursing strike around 17 mos, thought he was done but after a month of sporadic nursing, he came right back with a vengeance) and ds2 til 60 mos. he nursed the last year with practically no milk. when he was about 3 mos out from his 5th bday, we set that date as his last nursing. well, the day came and went and we forgot all about it. he was so ready to stop that he hadnt asked in probably a full week prior to his bday. at that point, i had long since stopped offering, but a few days or a week or so after he turned 5, i reminded him that we missed our last nursing. we laughed about it and i offered one last time. he sucked for about 30 seconds and BAM! he was officially weaned. LOL

[nummies]

I think that this your body's way to tell you that it is ok to be done nursing. You have done a great job.

[JudiAU]

I am sorry this is not how you planned it. I hope you all adjust soon. But I think this is you body's way of saying that is enough and maybe that is worth honoring as well.

[Oak]

Thank you

[Oak]

oops, I'm not that good at this way of posting yet. Thank you all for your empathy and advice. We will do some cuddling and I will think about the stress/letdown part.
I was worried that I might be pregnant, but am not (I did a test, then got my period). However I might have been pregnant and miscarried a few months ago - I felt PG, didn't yet confirm with test, and had a late very heavy period. Could that have cause this 2 months later? I didn't realize that could make the milk go away overnight like that.
And, yes, I suppose that because she's older and down to a few feedings, my milk could diminish, but from fully there to gone overnight? it just feels unnatural to me.

I don't feel like I haven't done enough or have not done a good job or anything, really. It is more about wanting our nursing to end in the same natural, easy, mutually agreeable way it has been all along.

to "Blessedwithboys", I feel like your tone of "just move on and get over it" is a bit of what I hoped to not have to deal with in this particular forum. Believe me, I am the queen of changes, I get that part, and I am a practicer of CLW because I don't think the nursing is something only babies do. yes, she's 5, and yes, for some kids, that is not yet time.
If she seemed truly ready, I would not have bothered to post.

[greenmamapagan]

Originally Posted by Oak

However I might have been pregnant and miscarried a few months ago - I felt PG, didn't yet confirm with test, and had a late very heavy period. Could that have cause this 2 months later? I didn't realize that could make the milk go away overnight like that.
And, yes, I suppose that because she's older and down to a few feedings, my milk could diminish, but from fully there to gone overnight? it just feels unnatural to me.

DD was only 2 when DS was conceived and breastfeeding numerous times a day but she noticed a change in the milk within days (and told me I had a baby in my tummy before I was due to bleed) and was quite frustrated trying to get any milk out. It seemed that there was more milk available again after the first trimester (but then there was the painful nipples and aversion on my side).
Hugs mama

[meemee]

oh mama!!!! its ok.

let me share my story.

single mom. dd started spending nights at daddy's at 3. i was at work so she was nursing only at night.

so soon even that little bit of milk dried up.

but i have a determined child. for her the main thing was nurse. drinking was just the icing on the cake. but somehow the whole nursing experience was therapy. in little over two months she will have her 8th birthday. i am not sure if she has finished nursing. she now nurses maybe once a month for about ten seconds.

so yes even with no milk, she nursed along like a champion. i am not even sure if you would call it 'nursing'. being a single mom with a 'screwed up' ex it really, REALLY helped my dd having nursing to fall back on for closeness and 'therapy'.

she is an exceptionally emotionally 'strong' girl and i attribute our nursing to it.

she did try pumping my breasts with her hands and feeding me lots of milk the first month to see if my milk would come back.

[Oak]

Well, I guess if I was pregnant it could have had a long term effect - I don't even know if i was, though, and there didn't seem to be any effect until 2 mo later. I wish there was more knowledge out there about non-truncated breastfeeding - I feel like we know more about almost everything than how breastfeeding, hormones, etc play out in a woman's body.
meemee, It is great to hear that your daughter just nurses along without the milk - I'm not sure if mine will or not once she has determined they won't come back, but it is nice to hear of someone continuing anyway. i love that she fed you milk to help you make milk - she sounds very resourceful!

[Jane]

As children age, they can lose the mouth shape and musculature needed to nurse well. Newborns suck so much harder, on average, than toddlers, because of the shape of their mouths. It's possible her mouth is changing into a shape that doesn't stimulate your breasts well to produce milk. Or she's forgetting how to get the milk out of the breasts.

[blessedwithboys]

Originally Posted by Oak

to "Blessedwithboys", I feel like your tone of "just move on and get over it" is a bit of what I hoped to not have to deal with in this particular forum. Believe me, I am the queen of changes, I get that part, and I am a practicer of CLW because I don't think the nursing is something only babies do. yes, she's 5, and yes, for some kids, that is not yet time.
If she seemed truly ready, I would not have bothered to post.

sorry, didnt mean it in a dismissive way. what i guess i was trying to convey is that relactating for a 5yo who naturally reduced her frequency isnt something most people would do. of course, most ppl dont bf at all, but you know what i mean.

i wasnt in any way trying to suggest you unnaturally shorten the duration of bf, or discourage true CLW. i guess i was just pointing out that you have in fact done CLW.

your dd weaned herself and then when the milk was gone had second thoughts. i think thats completely natural, having nerves over the next chapter life presents us with.

love your dd through it, but dont mourn the "loss" too much. help her to see the positive aspects of being a weaned child, acknowledge the sadness of the old phase being gone, but focus on the new phase beginning.

i really did intend my posts to be positive, sorry if that isnt conveyed via my typing



(this is simply bc my 3yo niece asked me to pick these:

[leighann79]

My 4.5 year old lost the ability to get milk out over night. I know I had enough because I was (and still am) nursing my youngest. But one morning, she came in to nurse like usual and after 10 mins I told her that was enough (as usual). She was upset because she never did get any milk. I used that to wean her because I was really needing to not tandem anymore.
Point being, it's possible for a chilld to be able to get milk one day and just not able to the next.

[BellaClaudia]

Sometimes my supply gets low for many reasons and I never know if this is IT or not.. so far it is not and I learned that she just jumpes up the frequency of nursing when my supply goes down as a preventive measures.. I think she figured it all out... but regardless sometimes she will complain that there is little milk.. usually during my PMS or period times.. or ovulation.. or for no reason at all.. or due to stress..

anyways.. when I see struggle I usually calm her down and talk to her a lot about how much I love her and how we will always cuddle and even if one day we won't nurse we will ALWAYS cuddle and I can make her feel safe, secure and happy just being next to her and cuddle for sleeping or falling asleep as it is with nursing , I notice how she takes deep breath and relaxes
becuase clearly in her little mind those two were connected and I figured
out that she feared that once there would be no milk she would loose my closness that she is not ready to do so, It is amazing how talking about this and making her trust that I will be next to her no matter what as long as she likes makes her happier and more relaxed.

I know she will one day be done with all this but till then she has all the closness she needs. I know I was eventually very independent child but I know also that when I was little I really was clingy and terrified and I liked being close to my parents at night. My mother nursed me very briefily so I never knew the CLW but I just want to give her what I have and how I can.