One BF a day - can I?

[JessieEssex]

My DD is coming up to 13mo and she currently has one bf first thing, one small one in the afternoon and a bottle of formula at bedtime. The afternoon feed is slowly diminishing and I don't think she's really bothered about it. The morning one, however is still v popular.

Is it possible to sustain milk supply with just one feed a day? I don't know if the afternoon feed is keeping things more 'well stocked' and should therefore be kept... Any advice gladly received, thanks.

[mamsnet]

It certainly worked for DS and I.. We carried on like that for the last three months or so. I realise there might not be that much milk involved (I made sure I was counting his intake outside that feed) but it helped us to wind down the day and wind down the feeding slowly.. And I'm sure he was getting goodness from there too.

In fact it really irks me when people say that they had to give up BF completely because they were going back to work..

[Tortoiseonthehalfshell]

I did, in the last gasps of weaning (around 16 months). I was already only feeding 2-3 times a day at 13 months because I worked fulltime and once she hit a year I stopped expressing. Then we cut out the afternoon feed, then the morning feed, and last to go was the night time feed, all very gradually.

But are you trying to wean? Otherwise, why are you dropping the afternoon?

[JessieEssex]

I'm only thinking about dropping the afternoon feed because she's not particularly interested in it, and has a couple of minute at best. If she still wants it, she can have it! I'm happy to go on as long as she wants, but she only seems to really want the one feed.

[Magnumwhite]

Ds stopped afternoon feed at 10months and tbh wasn't that bothered about it from about 8 months so I wouldn't worry at all!
Stayed on 2 feeds til 13 months and the 1 feed (1st thing in morning) for the last month. Don't think i had a huge amount of milk left at this point but I was really glad i had the option of breastfeeding to get through the post MMR and teething patch that hit us at 13months when nothing else worked!

[RitaMorgan]

I'm just doing 1 feed first thing with my 13 month old now - have swapped mid-morning, afternoon and bedtime feeds to cow's milk in a cup (he didn't drop any feeds on his own). Not sure how long we can sustain things on just one feed but I am really reluctant to drop the early morning one as it gives me an extra half hour in bed!

[Zimm]

I'm pretty sure lots of ppl do this with older babies - should be fine.

[WombOnTheBroom]

DS fed just once a day for about a year. He liked the bedtime feed - it worked really well for us.