Breastfeeding question

I looked at your profile and for the amount of weight you want to lose, I would suggest you keep the 500 calories and not jeopardize your milk supply. Drink lots of water and maybe up your exercise a little if you're concerned the extra calories. Your baby is only going to need you in that way for a very short time so keep up the great benefit to your precious little one.

Good luck

I definitely agree with the post above. You are only going to be nursing for a short amount of time, I know when my daughter turned one she decided to wean herself I am currently nursing a newborn and have the extra 500 cals, but am not too worried about getting the weight off too fast. good luck! before you know it nursing will be a past time, enjoy it now

I also agree. :flowerforyou:

You wont jeapordise your milk supply, you body will look after baby before you! The more she feeds the more you'll make.

I think if you just track the calories & workout you'll drop it. It took 9 mo. to gain it they say it takes that long to loss it. When I was breastfeeding if I didn't eat or drink enough I didn't make much milk. But as someone else said we are all different so you need to find what works for you!

I breastfed all 4 of my children for 1 1/2 years. I always found that if I tried lower my calories too much, I just wouldn't lose anymore while breastfeeding. My milk supply didn't really suffer but my body did. Keep the calories until baby is only nursing like once a day, then cut them back. My kids nursed around 3 times a day all the way up until I weaned them so I kept the extra calories.

Great job on nursing so long! Don't see as many women nursing anymore. I am so glad that I did. My kids are never sick.

I dropped to 400, then 300 or so cal as I cut back on nursing and my kiddo started eating more solids, and I just stopped adding nursing calories at all. He's also 9 months and is nursing about 2-3 times a day still, but eats a ton of solids and is getting formula bottles during the day at daycare (I stopped pumping a week or two ago). I'm still losing pretty slowly and still seem to have a fine supply for the amount I'm nursing. (That said, I eat all my calories, plus exercise calories, and often go a bit over that, even.)

I am still breastfeeding my 9 month old daughter but I'm not sure how many calories to give myself. She does eat 3 solid meals a day, but still nurses pretty frequently. So I'm not sure if I still need the whole 500 extra calories, or of I should lower it to 300. I don't want to give myself extra calories but I definitely don't want to hurt my milk supply! Any advice?

Go with 500. If you find that it's too much, lower by 100 at a time for a couple of weeks at a time until you find what works.

As long as you're not eating over your TDEE, which you probably won't be even with adding 500, you're not going to gain weight. "Extra calories" means extra nutrition, and that's important, ESPECIALLY while you're nursing. Remember, when you're producing milk, any nutrition you consume (calcium and other minerals, vitamins, etc.) will go into your milk FIRST and then be distributed to your body. Your body's first priority is the baby right now, so your nutritional needs will come second. So unless the 500-calorie allotment makes you gain weight, which I doubt, use all the calories you can get. Your health needs to be your priority, so while it's perfectly ok to lose weight right now, you certainly don't want to over-restrict your calories. Just restrict enough to see a downward trend on the scale, but don't go looking for huge numbers.

ETA: I just saw that you started Insanity. Please eat your exercise calories. I would suggest getting a heart rate monitor if you're afraid of overestimating your burns. For nursing moms, it's important to keep your deficit small, for the reasons I stated above, and Insanity burns a LOT of calories. If you don't eat all of what you burn through exercise, at least eat a significant portion of them.

I was stuck at the same weight when my LO was 9 months old so I dropped my bf calories from 500 to 300 and I started losing again. Now she's 13 months and I only give myself 150 calories. I had no problems with my milk supply when I did this. Just make sure you drink lots of water (I aim for 64 oz a day) and if you are worried about your supply eating oatmeal seemed to boost mine up a bit. Congrats on continuing bfing!

I breastfed all 4 of my children for 1 1/2 years. I always found that if I tried lower my calories too much, I just wouldn't lose anymore while breastfeeding. My milk supply didn't really suffer but my body did. Keep the calories until baby is only nursing like once a day, then cut them back. My kids nursed around 3 times a day all the way up until I weaned them so I kept the extra calories.

Great job on nursing so long! Don't see as many women nursing anymore. I am so glad that I did. My kids are never sick.

This happened to me too. As soon as I upped my calories I started losing again.