Does anyone have any advice about stopping BFing?

[TadlowDogIncident]

DS is 11 months, and I've been back at work for 5 months. I didn't plan to carry on feeding after I went back, but he's a very stubborn bottle refuser. He now takes milk from a cup and we're down to morning and evening BFs: the rest of the time he has formula, and he's eating solids well.

I REALLY want to give up by the time he's 1: I've really hated feeding, especially as I'm working FT as well, and I just want a bit more flexibility and my body back (BFing has never been the most comfortable experience: my nipples are still a bit sore even after all this time). DH can give a milk feed at bedtime at the moment, but it's not easy and I have to be out of the house: if I'm there DS wants the breast.

We don't have any help (no family or anything around), so if I'm not going to be able to be there everything falls to DH, which is going to be tough since at the moment he does nighttime wakings and then goes back to bed for a couple of hours while I do the morning routine before work.

How did other people deal with giving up BF?

[MoonFaceMamaaaaargh]

bump. Well done on getting so far when you've hated it so. I can't help but no doubt someone around here can.

[MissMarjoribanks]

I suspect your DS won't be quite as amenable to giving up as mine was but we stopped at 12mo when DS was down to morning and night feeds.

I gave up the evening feed first. I offered (cows) milk in a trainer cup with a valve instead of the breast. Same routine other than that - bath, sat on sofa in his room, cuddles and story, etc. DS wasn't impressed. Refused it and chucked it across the room. Rather than bfing him, I put him straight to bed (not in a punishing way, in exactly the same way I would after we had finished a bf). 5 minutes fuss then he went off to sleep. The next night, he took the cup.

Once we'd got that going nicely i.e. him drinking all of it I dropped the morning feed. When he woke in the morning, rather than bringing him into bed with us for a bf, I gave him the cup in his cot. Not a peep - he just drank straight from it and when he had finished we got up and had breakfast. We never bfed again.

[TadlowDogIncident]

Thanks for the advice MissMarjoribanks. I suspect you're right that our DS won't be as amenable - he's teething this week and has been asking for BFs when he wouldn't normally expect them (and getting them because I'm a soft touch).

[TadlowDogIncident]

Bump - does anyone else have any tips? I'm beginning to think I'll just have to go away for a few days, get some paid help in and leave DH to it.

[shelscrape]

Tadlow, your situation sounds exactly the same as mine with my DS! Another resolute bottle refuser, he wouldn't take one from DH if I went out. I too got him down to a feed in the morning and a feed at bed time when i went back to work, and made sure his nursery gave him lots of dairy in the day as he would not drink any milk. I stopped when he was 13 months old. I just didn't offer a bf one morning and took him straight to his breakfast, no objection at all from him. he then refused a feed from me that evening and that was it! I offered him a bf the next evening too to make sure, but not at all interested.

I realised that as DS was so stubborn (still is at the age of 6) replacing bf with normal milk would not help. So, he got offered water from a sippy cup at bed time and that seemed to be all he wanted.

[TadlowDogIncident]

That's cheering, shelscrape! Thanks for posting.