Among LLL members, as you might guess, the question of weaning in order
to get pregnant comes up pretty often. Interestingly, and as the long
recent thread on sustained bf, weaning and pregnancy showed, weaning
often corresponds quite closely with a new pregnancy. Sometimes, though,
it is because fertility would have returned anyway, and we don't know in
how many cases this is true with or without attempts to wean, cut back
on feeds, etc.
I have also heard the merits of dropping the night feeding, sometimes
only temporarily, in order to become fertile again, and would just
remind mothers about what we know about how weaning affects children,
and how it generally makes more sense to drop the least favourite
feedings first. I'm not sure that the supposed benefits of dropping the
night feedings -- which raise a whole lot of other mother-baby issues --
outweigh the benefits of a longer space between daytime nursings. Many
toddlers can go hours and hours during the day without needing to nurse,
if they are busy, eating a lot, and so on. (Not mine, but...) Nighttimes
are different.
Would you be willing to participate in a study comparing how well
dropping night feedings worked in regaining fertility? Would you invite
other mothers to do so? Do you think such a study would be entirely
ethical?
That's why we don't know for sure, I guess.
Jo-Anne

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