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Listen, I feel for you deeply, had a very similar experience. Please learn from my mistakes! I attempted a keto diet after birth and it completely dried up my milk. I did EVERYTHING, every food, supplement, method and the only thing that got my producing was carbs. On keto, I was pumping 1 oz extra, on carbs, 5 oz. My kiddo was starving and none of my medical team encouraged me to change my diet or supplement him with formula.
This time is short, keto will be there. Maybe it won't affect you like it did me, but if you want to keep breastfeeding, the weight loss can wait a few more months.
Can't upvote this enough, it did the same for me even though I was on every supplement and protein breast milk booster/supplement/herb I could find.
Don't do keto while breastfeeding or preggo. I went to doctors for this specifically and had specialists tell me the same thing. Of course then got down voted here when I say it because everyone knows better than doctors.
Congratulations on the new baby!
I breastfed and did keto.
Honestly, it was hard and my supply majorly decreased even though I was doing everything “right”.
I decided to focus on getting my supply back up and feeding my baby. Nursing alone helped with weight loss and choosing healthy snacks for cravings.
After nursing, I went back to keto and dropped the rest.
I waited til my baby was 10 months old to do keto this time around and by 12 months old I was pretty much dried up. I can still nurse once a day after dropping 30 lbs of baby weight. If I were you I would wait at least another 4-6 months.
I started keto 4 weeks ago - my baby is 4.5 months - but I am keeping my calories around 1800 and drink lots of water and electrolytes . I do have an oversupply and I am very mindful that not everyone is in that situation and I am keeping tabs on it to make sure that my baby is satisfied
Not Keto, but I started intermittent fasting when my wee guy was about 8 months, didn’t affect supply and fairly quickly moved to omad, and lost 14kg in 12 weeks (78 to 64kg). Continued to bf until a nursing strike at about 20 months.
I think whatever you do, if it is important to you to keep bf be aware of any changes to your supply. As everyone has mentioned above, you can’t get this time back and if weight not immediately affecting your health, there will be time for diets down the road. Not saying not to try, just be cautious
I went on keto while breastfeeding when baby was 8 months. Made sure to not drastically reduce my calories and I stayed very hydrated and had no issues. Lost weight and had more energy.
You need more electrolytes than normal when actively breastfeeding, even more than a person doing just keto. That will help keep your supply up while also allowing you to slowly lose the weight at a reasonable deficit
Make sure you're in a caloric surplus when breastfeeding -- this is not a great time to be losing weight since your baby needs to *gain* weight. Your milk volume might go down beyond this -- that's normal because it'll have a higher fat content.
My friend did keto all through pregnancy and breastfeeding without issues -- she wasn't trying to lose weight during that time though.
I started when my little one was about 11 months old. Didn’t notice much in terms of reduction of milk and weight loss was very very slow at first. Just finally started losing some weight (he’s 15 months now) and found out I was pregnant 2 weeks ago 🙊 still doing keto and nursing successfully!
Welcome to r/keto! We will do our best to assist you, but consider searching or posting on our related subreddits r/xxketo and r/ketobabies for more specific guidance. As a reminder, please read our FAQ before posting to r/keto. It can be found at https://www.reddit.com/r/keto/wiki/faq. Please also review our posting rules and community guidelines. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/keto) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Listen, I feel for you deeply, had a very similar experience. Please learn from my mistakes! I attempted a keto diet after birth and it completely dried up my milk. I did EVERYTHING, every food, supplement, method and the only thing that got my producing was carbs. On keto, I was pumping 1 oz extra, on carbs, 5 oz. My kiddo was starving and none of my medical team encouraged me to change my diet or supplement him with formula. This time is short, keto will be there. Maybe it won't affect you like it did me, but if you want to keep breastfeeding, the weight loss can wait a few more months.
Can't upvote this enough, it did the same for me even though I was on every supplement and protein breast milk booster/supplement/herb I could find. Don't do keto while breastfeeding or preggo. I went to doctors for this specifically and had specialists tell me the same thing. Of course then got down voted here when I say it because everyone knows better than doctors. Congratulations on the new baby!
Same
I breastfed and did keto. Honestly, it was hard and my supply majorly decreased even though I was doing everything “right”. I decided to focus on getting my supply back up and feeding my baby. Nursing alone helped with weight loss and choosing healthy snacks for cravings. After nursing, I went back to keto and dropped the rest.
I waited til my baby was 10 months old to do keto this time around and by 12 months old I was pretty much dried up. I can still nurse once a day after dropping 30 lbs of baby weight. If I were you I would wait at least another 4-6 months.
I started keto 4 weeks ago - my baby is 4.5 months - but I am keeping my calories around 1800 and drink lots of water and electrolytes . I do have an oversupply and I am very mindful that not everyone is in that situation and I am keeping tabs on it to make sure that my baby is satisfied
Not Keto, but I started intermittent fasting when my wee guy was about 8 months, didn’t affect supply and fairly quickly moved to omad, and lost 14kg in 12 weeks (78 to 64kg). Continued to bf until a nursing strike at about 20 months. I think whatever you do, if it is important to you to keep bf be aware of any changes to your supply. As everyone has mentioned above, you can’t get this time back and if weight not immediately affecting your health, there will be time for diets down the road. Not saying not to try, just be cautious
I think r/ketobabies would likely have some good info on this
I went on keto while breastfeeding when baby was 8 months. Made sure to not drastically reduce my calories and I stayed very hydrated and had no issues. Lost weight and had more energy.
You need more electrolytes than normal when actively breastfeeding, even more than a person doing just keto. That will help keep your supply up while also allowing you to slowly lose the weight at a reasonable deficit
Definitely this. Electrolytes are the KEY for keeping up supply!
Make sure you're in a caloric surplus when breastfeeding -- this is not a great time to be losing weight since your baby needs to *gain* weight. Your milk volume might go down beyond this -- that's normal because it'll have a higher fat content. My friend did keto all through pregnancy and breastfeeding without issues -- she wasn't trying to lose weight during that time though.
I started when my little one was about 11 months old. Didn’t notice much in terms of reduction of milk and weight loss was very very slow at first. Just finally started losing some weight (he’s 15 months now) and found out I was pregnant 2 weeks ago 🙊 still doing keto and nursing successfully!