Ok this isnt about whats best or breast vs btl, just about personal experiences.

Im nearly certain that the MWs promoted BF to me in pg as a way to shift the excess baby weight, my mum too would have said this - though granted said she only saw the weight shift after 4 mths or so, my friend became so skinny after BF (though imo went a bit mental with walking everywhere & eating really healthy - she swears BF makes you thin but I swear eating naff all and walking 8 miles a day does too ), Iv read that BF uses 700 kcal a day etc so in theory you should be dropping weight unless you are eating too much....

BUT I didnt really lose weight that I noticed, I only did it 8 wks mind.

Ok the point of this post..... was talking to my cousin this week and commented on her friends weight loss. She said this was because she had given up BF 6 months ago. I found this weird and asked if she thought BF made you fat. According to her when BF your body retains fat and makes you hungry resulting in over eating/difficulty in shifting lbs. She said BF women find it very hard to lose weight and the only thing its good for (body wise) is getting your womb down quicker, not losing lbs, btl feeding mums lose their weight fastest and easiest. I was shocked by this and googled and apparently lots of women have found losing weight hard when BF.

What do you think? Does BF keep you fatter? Did you btl feed and lose weight easily?

I just dont get why its promoted to keep you in shape if its all lies. Obviously this wont affect my decision to try BF again, just curious to what others think/found.

I lost my baby weight (although not all the fat) but nothing else. To be fair though I have been eating junk while I've been feeding Jamie - probably partly because I keep thinking I have these extra calories to use! I would guess though that if you didn't really put on much weight while you were pregnant - ie it was your baby, etc - then the getting the womb back into shape quickly would make you lose weight. I would also guess that the reason some bottle feeding mums lose weight quickly is that you could go on a drastic diet if you wanted to and you can't really breastfeeding

Hmm! I don't know tbh. I BF for 8mth but within the first couple of month I lost all my baby weight and more! I was smaller than I was pre preg.

Personally I think it has a lot to do with your genes, some find it easy to lose weight, others not so easy.. If you've alway found it hard to loose weight then I dont think BF is going to make you shed them pounds any quicker.

Not sure about the making you gain weight though. Oliver was BF on demand and was a right guzzler, I wouldn't say I ate anymore than I normally did though cos I've alwys had a hearty appetite

Ok, Ive always been slightly obsessive when it comes to "my fatness".

When I had Ellie I was determined to bf purely because it's meant to shift the weight. But bf didn't work for me so I quit after about 6 days.

But I just did loads of walking (as long as it wasn't raining) and for me this soon shifted the fat. I had a section but it didn't stop me walking when Ellie was a week-old I started doing a couple of miles a day. By the time she was a month old I was back in size 10 jeans and in size 8 by January. I think I was more worried about shifting the fat this time as I was older and this cow bag friend commented that losing babyfat in your 40s was impossible!

In love food and eat loads but for me as long as I get a few walks a week it keeps the fat off.

my personal experience was that within 6 weeks of having elijah and bf i was back to my pre-preg weight (although that was miserable) and have stayed there til i recently started working more.

i ate absolutely anything i wanted to the entire time after elijah was born (ahhhh heartburn free ) and spent many hours sat on my arse with the baby, so was fairly inactive. if i had normally done this i would have easily put on 1-2 stone...

so the way i see it, i think it prevented me putting on weight, and if i had actually paid attention to what i was eating and taken some exercise i would have lost weight fairly easily. i am only losing weight now cos im working and on my feet loads and dont have time to snack haha

(plus if you are exclusively bf at first you are meant to have an extra 500cals a day to keep up with the demand, yeeha!)

Hmmm I suppose looking at photo's of myself when Caitlin was a month old I dont really look any bigger than pre pg. I think I was just comparing myself to my friend who went from a 12-14 pre pg to an 8-10 when BF/walking/eating super duper healthy. I ate crap too, chocolate, cheese sandwiches, pints of milk (all fab choices when your LO has an undiagnosed allergy )

My weight crept back on when Caitlin was a few months old and I was possibly slightly depressed due to her not sleeping well so did my usual of eating take aways & easy foods.

I was just shocked that my cousin seemed to be 'kindly' pointing out that if I BF this time again I wont lose weight. She btl fed both hers. Its not a competition, I know she loves/bonded with her kids as much as I do but in my hormonal head I worried it was a slight dig at me. Paranoid snoopy Was surprised to google and see other BF women couldnt shift weight/didnt get skinny so started to think she must be right. Her friend who stopped BF and lost tons of weight is also doing SW, odd how my cousin thinks stopping BF has more to do with weight loss than that

I definitely found I lost weight BF Seb and my weight was lowest around 6 months, then started to go up again as he dropped feeds and switched to bottles. This time I've just stopped BF and still have some babyweight to lose but definitely feel much less hungry so am going to have to be really careful about how much I eat.

So I'd say it does help, and if it wasn't for going back to work I'd have done it for longer. Though having non-BF boobs means I can finally get back into a lot of my pre-Seb-pregnancy tops.

i do wonder if you bottle feed if you have a bit more time to pay attention to what you are eating? i know that especially when i was up every 1-2 hours i would just eat whenever i got the chance and often that meant snacking during feeding rather than meals which we didnt get chance to cook! probably not though, i think possibly you are sat on your bum more if you are bf (especially if your little one cluster feeds all evening/night) but thats possibly just an excuse from me

I was the same Mari. I grabbed whatever I could between Jamie feeding and was sat for hours in the evening until the early hours of the morning and as hubby can't cooked relied on junk

I also agree Mari, I'm slightly bigger than I was pre pregnancy but I dont get alot of exercise as I rarely leave the bungalow, if I do it's usually in the car. When I am home I struggle to do much physically as either Dexter 'needs' my attention or Libby wants me to draw or play dolls house etc.



I do think bottle feeding seems easier for many reasons, here are some of them:



* anyone can feed baby (this is my biggest reason for it being easier - I have felt alone with both children because of BF)

* the babies seem more content - very often I read they feed every 4 hours and sleep through very early on

* again with the eating, I have very often had to slope of mid meals to give Dexter some more milk or calm him down as he wasnt attached to me for all of 5 mins - this then makes me hungry/peckish later on so I pick at crap

* ^similar to that point - in my experience and those I know personally - BF babies seem alot clingyer (sp) to mummies (understandably)

* when you go out not having to constantly think about where it may be convenient to feed or if they fed enough last time to keep them going for more than an hour



I dont really know what I'm getting at TBH, maybe that I really think BF is overrated. I'm only really doing it because I'm a lazy cow and cant be arsed with sterilising/making bottles up etc. its far easier to whip my boobies out , oh and the fact that both my babies are/were stubbon as hell and wont let me do combined feeding



In answer to your original question, yes I do think breastfeeding CAN help aid weight loss but only if you exersize/eat realtively healthily etc. x

I think its a double edged sword if im honest. It is meant to burn up extra calories up to 500 a day though it depends how much baby guzzles as its 20 cals an ounce IIRC. However, ive also read that to ensure you have the stores you need your body will 'hold on' to 10-12lb so you may lose a bit initially then struggle to lose the last lot. PLus it does make you more hungry or so i found so you either have to be very good at not picking crud to snack on or it cancels itself out. I know when ive done SW and BF ive still only lost the same as ive done off SW even if i had the healthy extras they give you or if i didnt

I only breastfed Alfie for 2 weeks but i lost nearly a stone in that time. I think the reason was I completely lost my appetite when i was feeding. i would eat half a sandwich for dinner, and we woudl grab a take awy for tea but i would just pick at it. all i seemed to want to do was drink loads and loads of water.



tbh i just think everyone is different. ive bottle fed but only just in the past few months bothered trying to lose weight. Im not officially 2 stone lighter than when I had alfie but still along way to go. x

well I bottle fed and I managed to get down to my lowest weight ever of 9stone and 3 lbs. My sis said I looked like a lollypop because my head looked so big in comparison to my body. but thats what happens when you dont have time to eat because your baby screams for 20 hours a day. I literally would walk for 3 hours to get some rest while hannah slept in the pram and would realise at 8pm that I hadnt eaten all day. no wonder I turned into a fat biatch when hannah chilled out a bit

(oh...and another thing! besides the point really, but i don't really - personally! - believe that when you have just had a baby that's a good time to worry about losing loads of weight!!!)

I know its not and I wont as I fully intend to enjoy a heartburn free Christmas of gorging

BUT I dont want to put on as much weight as last time and think i'l try and get to WW in Feb time to shift weight for summer. I know i'l have more energy and feel happier in myself if im a comfy 14 at least instead of an 18 which i'm easily now even minus bump - which btw has got huge the last 2 weeks. Someone thought I was at least 30 weeks now and seriously asked was I sure it wasnt twins

I've great intentions now but knowing me i'l be yapping about being a fatty this time next year still! I think i'm a bit more realisitic about the BF /weight loss thing now. I think last time I thought id just wake up 3 stone lighter 6 weeks in with no effort. Maybe for me BF for 1st 2months was delaying the damage