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@PixieStix: we weaned gradually. Once she turned a year a stopped pumping and only nursed at night or nap time then cut back to nights only. Then I would only nurse her to sleep but not breastfeed if you woke up in the night. Finally I just stopped breastfeeding her at night. It was tough for her but within about 2 weeks she was over it.

@PixieStix: I distracted E with lots of other things toys/snacks/"special" juice boxes. Sometimes he would fuss at me but I just continued to distract. It was easier. He didn't fuss at all when we dropped our finally session. N got him his cup and said here bubba your juice and that was it.

I haven't totally weaned, but I did cut back majorly because my twins were wanting to nurse around the clock. So right before they turned 2 I sort of instituted a schedule. Scheduling it (morning wake up, before nap, after nap if they ask, and bedtime) helped the kids a lot. If they asked to nurse in between the scheduled times, I would remind them "we nurse at naptime!" And it only took them a couple days to catch on and start talking about nap time is when they get to nurse. I think giving them a concrete time of when they cou do nurse was easier for me than saying no to them all day. Getting out of the house really helped them too, as they rarely ask to nurse when we are busy with something outside. But if we are reading or have a show on, they were used to nursing the whole time. So scheduling a lot of fun activities during the transition time helped a ton. Good luck, I know it was so hard on me emotionally but my kids did better than I expected once I started sticking to our schedule.

My daughter was a total boob monster at that age too. We fully weaned at 3y4mo. I started offering milk, or another beverage first and encourage cuddles. At night i let her nurse, break latch before she fell asleep and rock her to sleep. Eventually she would break latch on her own and I could leave before she was asleep. Once she was night weaned, the rest of the weaning came naturally. Towards the end I let her know she could only have milkies once a day, it was her choice right now, or later. That lead to days of no nursing and so on...

Gradually. Dropped a feeding or two a day starting at 11 months. By 13m he only nursed before bed and overnight. We totally weaned at 13.5 months. One night I just didn't offer before bed and he didn't ask. He continued waking overnight for a few weeks but I just gave a bottle of whole milk.

It was pretty gradual with both my kids. When they were able to drink cow's milk I started cutting back on the nursing sessions. I stopped offering it throughout the day and eventually they were just nursing before naps and bed and MOTN. When they went from 2 to 1 naps, there went another session. Next I cut them off MOTN. LO1 gave up bedtime session when LO2 was born and it was just a few months after that he was mostly just playing and not really nursing at the final nap session so I cut it off. LO2 kept both nap and bedtime until almost 2 but I think my supply was mostly gone and I was pregnant and it was super uncomfortable so I just ended it. When LO2 would ask for it at first I just gave him his cow's milk and he was pretty satisfied with that. He asked for about a week or so before it was the new normal.

I weaned at 20 months and it was about a 2 month process for us. DD1 was a total boob monster! I dropped the non-sleep feedings first for a couple weeks, then swapped naptime and bedtime nursing for sippy cups of warm milk while I rocked her. I do not recommend this- she got just as attached to the milk cups as she had been to nursing and it took me months and months to get her to stop needing milk to fall asleep.

@PixieStix: breaking the latch wasn't easy, honestly, the first few times I waited until she was almost asleep, when her latch was loose already and worked from there. We talked about it a lot too, how big girls fall asleep without milkies, and for a while I even did bed time nurse in the living room, then dad or I took her to bed. There were some melt downs and tears, but I held fast to cuddles only, no milkies after I broke the latch. We did regress a bit on night time feeds, but we instituted a reward system and knocked that back out.

I felt that weaning her, as slowly as I did, gave her a chance to adjust- but me too! It changed the way I patented. Before it was need a nap- boob. Tantrum- boob. Need to calm, comfort, sick, tired- boob. She and I both had to learn how to work through these emotions and events without nursing.

@PixieStix: gum! If she made it through the night, no wake ups, she got a piece of gum. After 3 nights in a row- she got a cake pop at Starbucks. We wanted something easy, non monitary daily to reinforce, but then something she could build towards!

Cold turkey on her 3rd birthday. We told her mommy milk went away when she turned 3, and it worked great. Only asked a few times.

@PixieStix: congratulations! I am reviewing this thread for everyone's excellent tips