Hi! Baby is almost 1! When my nipples were bleeding and I was crying everyday postpartum I never thought I make it and I'm just about there!! Now...weaning. I'd love to keep the morning and nighttime session and...confession...he still nurses once between 4:30 and 6 but he also nurses about 4 times during the day. How did you ladies wean? Do I replace with snacks/milk? I always thought he'd drop on his own gradually...do I give him more time? I just want to be able to have a little more freedom during the day without pumpin anymore but I have come to love our nursing relationship and am just not sure how to start.
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Ill be watching this post! My LO is 10 months and we're planning to start weaning around a year also. I have no idea how to begin!!! Good luck!
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No advice, as DD self weaned completely around 8 months, but I wanted to say congrats for making it so long!
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We started weaning around that age. I started offering cow's milk with meals, and took a "don't offer, don't refuse" approach.
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@Kfamilie: are you home during the day or working? I am a WOHM and i pumped and BF for 13 months. When I was ready to wean, we gradually switched out the contents of her daytime milk (in sippy cups). So we started with 2 oz of whole milk with 6 oz of BM, then 4 oz/4 oz, then 2 oz BM/6 oz WM, then all WM. I just worked through my freezer stash so I think it was about 2 weeks total.
I was a little worried about the weekends but we just offered the sippy cups and I only had to turn down LO once or twice. We are now over a month into daytime whole milk with morning and evening nursing, plus the occasional late night wakeup, and it has gone really well.
I am happy to answer additional questions you have--I was nervous too!
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I planned to start weaning at one, and here I am a week shy of 16 months still nursing 3 times a day. I'm a SAHM, which I think makes it a little harder to drop middle of the day feedings since we're together all the time. At one, we were still nursing 6 times a day, so we've definitely made progress.
I started doing "don't offer, don't refuse" and offering her milk in a cup at meals right when she turned one, but she definitely wasn't ready. She actually started requesting nursing more because I wasn't following our normal nursing routine. So I went back to following our routine.
We night weaned cold turkey at 15 months, which eliminated 2 feedings. It was really hard for about 10 days because LO would wake up and ask for milk, and then it would take awhile to get her back to sleep. I felt guilty not nursing her when she requested it, too
But now she sleeps through the night, which is better for both of us. That got us down to 4 nursings - morning wake up, before morning nap, before afternoon nap, before bed.She recently dropped her morning nap, so we pretty easily dropped that feeding as well. We've done "don't offer, don't refuse" for this feeding. She will occasionally request milk around the time she used to take her morning nap, but it's becoming less and less frequent.
An added complication for us is that LO refuses any form of milk from any cup - she won't take breast, cow, soy, almond, coconut, or goat milk from a sippy, straw, or open cup. We've tried adding flavoring, warming it, serving it cold. Nada. Just boob milk from the source. I give her lots of other dietary sources of calcium, but until I can get her drinking a calcium dense liquid, I'm not in a hurry to get rid of her last 3 nursing sessions.
Hopefully it will go smoothly for you. Like everything else parenting related, I think it really depends on the individual child. Good luck!
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Yikes! I didn't mean to write a novel. Sorry for the super long post.
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@BabyBoecksMom: thank you! It was a personal goal I really prayed about reaching.
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@owlmom: I appreciate your response-I like thorough explanations
I think we're going to try night weaning next month when my husband has some time off and we can switch off sleeping in if its particularly bad.
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@MamaCate: thank you! I am a sahm so I guess I would start with replacing one feeding during the day with whole milk? I have a small freezer stash to work with also so I can use that to mix with milk like you did. I didn't consider mixing it-hopefully that will help him with the transition.
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I am a wohm but we did this process during my Christmas vacation when my babe turned one. I never mixed milk - we went cold turkey to whole cow's milk, almond milk and rice milk with no mixing at it was fine! I kept nursing in the morning, afternoon and night (when I'd be home from work) and we continued that way until he tapered off. Don't worry unnecessarily! Your baby might really like cow's milk!
PS one thing that helps is to get out I the house a lot during what would be nursing times! Distract, you know?
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We are almost done (maybe totally...it has been a while!) and my LO is almost 2.5 years. As someone noted on another thread, they don't turn into pumpkins at age 1, so if you are happy with how things are going, there is no rule that says you have to wean now. (But you can totally stop pumping!) ;)There are still a lot of benefits to BFing a toddler, plus it's easier than nursing an infant.
We mostly did don't offer, don't refuse, but around 1 year I taught LO not to ask in public. LO did like to nurse fairly often between 1-2 years, but they were short sessions and they gradually tapered off as we approached 2.
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Congratulations for making it a year!!
My LO is turning 1 at the end of the month and I've been worrying about how to wean a couple of our daytime sessions for weeks now (I'll keep our morning session for another few months). It was recommended to me that you can offer any snack, not just milk.
I've played around with his eating schedule a couple of times where instead of nursing after a nap, we have lunch or a snack and then I nurse a couple of hours later. It's hard because my LO doesn't always ask for boob but he guzzles when he gets it! I like the don't offer, don't refuse strategy but I also don't want to be nursing him at random times during the day if he asks for it, you know?
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@Kfamilie: Congratulations on making it to a year!!! Thats a huge accomplishment.
I started around 13 months and cut back on pumping at work. At daycare we just sent her with sippy cups of WCM.
For a while (13-17 months) I let her nurse whenever she wanted when we were together (which is just nights and weekends). Eventually the weekend nursings was only about once a day because I wasn't pumping at work, so my supply wasn't replenishing that quickly.
I then cutout the daytime weekend nursings and would just tell her, no milk is for night night time and she would go with that. In the mornings we started giving her a bottle of milk to wake up to. Now at night, she's happy with a bit of WCM and only occasionally asks to nurse before bed. I doubt I have much milk left but its an ideal situation for us.
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Subscribing! I'd like to cut out a few feedings around one year. Especially if AF still hasn't come back by then.
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@Kfamilie: Sorry, I just saw this..things have been crazy and LO is not sleeping much. If you SAH it is obviously different as the transition from BM in a bottle to WM in a bottle is just a matter of changing the contents. The pps have some good ideas about how to do that. We used to do water in a sippy cup during meals and then switched to WM when we day weaned, following what they do at daycare.
As far as mixing, I heard it was likely to be easier and I had the freezer milk so it worked for us. Another mom at my daycare tried cold turkey and her LO balked and is now refusing cow's milk, so she is still trying to keep up with pumping at 16ish months, so that made me cautious. You could try half/half, or try a cup of milk one day and see what happens.
The other thing is that there are no really irreversible steps, except for totally stopping nursing, so if you try dropping a feeding for a few days and it doesn't work, you can probably add it back in and then try again later when it seems better for both of you...this may depend on your supply of course but I found this to be true even now. When LO nurses more one night, my supply picks up the next day.
Good luck!
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Thanks everyone for the feedback! I'm hopeful about making this transition easy for both of us.
@mamacate:we are not sleeping well either... Going on months but that's a whole other post. Hope our LOs sleep well soon!
But now she sleeps through the night, which is better for both of us. That got us down to 4 nursings - morning wake up, before morning nap, before afternoon nap, before bed.
I think we're going to try night weaning next month when my husband has some time off and we can switch off sleeping in if its particularly bad.
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