Milk Blues: How to overcome post-breastfeeding depression

Milk Blues: The difficulty of ending breastfeeding
When baby decides on his own to stop suckling
Step back and rationalize for better analysis
A new stage is about to begin, so how can you be positive?

Motherhood is often presented as a gentle oasis of love, fulfillment and caring. A wonderful, powerful experience between mother and child. However, throughout pregnancy and even after birth, every woman experiences different physical and psychological changes. Each is accompanied by multiple and sometimes ambivalent feelings. Such is the case with the well-known baby blues, but also with the more confidential milk blues.

First published in 2019 by JollyMamathe term reveals a sometimes profound malaise that long predates its discovery: post-breastfeeding depression.

Milk Blues: the difficulty of ending breastfeeding

Breastfeeding baby before weaning and bottle-feeding Elhée

It's often said that the weaning period can be complicated for babies. They find it hard to leave their mother's breast and take a bottle. Feeding becomes disorganized, and it can take a long time to find a new balance.

On the other hand, we still hear far too little about the discomfort felt by some mothers. Forced weaning to go back to work, a drop in lactation, a baby who no longer wants to suckle. .. A page is turned towards a new stage that can be experienced as a real separation. Nostalgia, sadness, a sense of failure, guilt, abandonment... These are all powerful terms, often internalized and too rarely expressed, that make up the complexity of the milk blues.

Physiological causes

Breastfeeding creates a strong physical and emotional bond between mother and child. After spending many months curled up in her belly, baby is now linked to her by the breast, whose lactation capacity is almost entirely stimulated by sucking.

Falling hormones

Breastfeeding releases endorphinsalso known as the "feel-good" hormones. When weaning their levels drop and with it, morale.

It's not uncommon for this transition to coincide with the return from childbirth, another tricky period when female hormones go up and down. In this case, it's the cessation of prolactin secretion, stimulated by suckling, that triggers a return to menstruation that's not always expected.

Many physical changes

To breastfeed, every woman needs to eat in sufficient quantity (and quality) to produce rich, nutritious milk for her baby. The weaning period can also be tricky if the mother's diet is not adapted.

At the same time, the breasts, so round and generous when nourished, disappear and appear empty as they return to their pre-pregnancy size. These physical changes, following on from so many others, can be hard to live with and leave women with an image that is difficult to accept.

A loss of physical closeness with baby

Breastfeeding is synonymous with unique moments spent with your child. Skin-to-skin, caresses, glances... minutes and even hours snuggled up together with nothing around you... Weaning baby means give up some of that intimacy, that exclusivity, and come to terms with it.

Moral causes

The milk blues are made up of a multitude of complex feelings specific to each woman's nature, environment and experience.

A feeling of guilt

Throughout the weeks and months of breastfeeding, putting baby to the breast is often the answer to all his problems. Crying, insomnia, fatigue, the need for reassurance... breastfeeding soothes all worries.

So, when they stop breastfeeding, some women feel helpless and struggle to find new ways to meet their baby's needs without delay. This temporary confusion sometimes leads to a heavy feeling of guilt.

The feeling of abandoning baby

Because they are no longer breastfeeding, mothers who have been breastfeeding sometimes feel a cruel sense of abandonment towards their child, like a dereliction of duty. The injunction to breastfeed - now advocated by all specialists and for all infants - can also induce great pressure, particularly in the case of forced weaning.

When baby decides on his own to stop suckling

One day he's latching on, and the next he flatly refuses to go back. He even cries when it's time to drink your milk. Baby seems to have decided to wean himself, and there's nothing you can do about it. His opposition may be categorical and definitive. It's time to face the facts: the choice of a bottle and a physiological teat to replace breastfeeding has arrived.

A deep sense of abandonment

Gentle weaning is always preferable. Otherwise, the breastfeeding strike, as it's sometimes called, can be very difficult for the mother. The testimonials we've heard speak of pain, emptiness and a real emotional break, but also of dependence on breastfeeding.

The milk blues are a bit of everything. It's the result of a huge upheaval, physical and psychological changes and the sum of many complicated emotions, which lead some mothers to experience the end of breastfeeding as a painful moment.

Step back and rationalize for better analysis

Pregnancy, breastfeeding and, more broadly, becoming a mother, engender different physical and emotional states that are not always easy to identify, experience and digest.

Milk Blues, mom in depression after stopping breastfeeding

Baby blues or milk blues, before even naming them, the best solution is to talk about them.

When a child is born, everything in your life changes and telescopes. Your needs, those of your child, those of your partner, those of your older children... It's not long before the demands of everyday life, and perhaps those of your job, return. You feel your mood changing, deteriorating, without really understanding why.

As soon as you feel the first fuzziness, the first complication, the first feeling of not feeling so good, take a break. Tell yourself that these sensations - however contradictory - are normal. You're not the only one to feel them. On the other hand, you may be the first to mention them.

After baby has spent months in your belly, then months at your breast, a new stage is about to begin, without you really knowing what it will be made of. Trust yourself and trust your little one. Together, you'll find a new balance.

A new stage ahead: how to be positive

Weaning your baby makes you sad and nostalgic. You hadn't planned on it happening so soon, or you just didn't see the time go by, absorbed as you were in your bubble of love and serenity. Fortunately, nothing is final. You'll soon regain your joie de vivre and your desire to communicate it.

Mixed breastfeeding

Breast-feeding is over. To prolong its benefits, and especially if you enjoy doing so, you can express your milk and continue to give it to your child via a new bottle. If your baby is prone to colic, find out how to choose the right bottle.

Take all the time you need

If you can, take all the time you need to fully experience each stage of mixed breastfeeding. If weaning is already underway, treat yourself to the luxury of long feeds, comfortably installed in a sling or skin-to-skin.

Indulge yourself with pretty baby bottles

We've spent decades enduring the fragility and weight of glass baby bottles, followed by the poor quality of plastic ones. A healthy baby bottle was long overdue.

A mother who breastfeeds develops and maintains a deeply affective relationship with her child, which can now be continued beyond breastfeeding thanks to the sensory bottle. Between softness and roundness, this beautiful object has the aesthetics of the nurturing breast.

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Treat yourself to some time to yourself

Because quitting breastfeeding also means adopting a new schedule and taking advantage of some new-found independence, plan some moments of well-being and pleasure for yourself.

At the bottom of a drawer, find the list of things you put on hold during your pregnancy: yoga, jogging, reading, (digital) exhibitions, manicure, massage... and put all these appointments back on the agenda, simply to enjoy and be positive.

Finally, listen to yourself. Be your own first therapist, following the advice distilled from your body and mind. Don't give in to pressure, don't feel guilty listening to those who preach, and - as far as possible - don't do anything you don't feel positive about.

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