Almost 2 yr old - how to stop breastfeeding

[Slavetominidictator]

Dd was ebf till solids at 6 months and is a very enthusiastic breastfeeder still at 23 months. I am really ready to stop now though, having eventually night weaned a month ago, which has worked out really well.
I now feed when she wakes for the day around 6 and at bedtime.
How did you go about stopping these feeds? I want to gradually but strongly suspect if I leave it to her, it'll go on for far longer than I would like. Since stopping night weaning, her two feeds are now v v long - sometimes almost an hour. Any ideas of how to distract her? Many thanks

[Rivercam]

Why don't you use your her birthday as the trigger and explain that 'two year olds don't need mummy's milk', and then stop. She may kick up a fuss, but stay strong.

[BankWadger]

Don't offer it to her, wait for her to ask for it. Also distraction, try to catch her attention on something else at feed time.

I thought I'd have trouble with DD who was just shy of 2 when I stopped bfing her. She was a total boob monster, but once I stopped letting her have boob on tap, she stopped asking. I think I missed having an excuse to sit down for half an hour a couple of times a day mning more than she did!

[SpiderRoaster]

We stopped at 30 months and had the same feeds morning and night.

We dropped night one first. We made a fuss of buying her a new milk cup for milk / juice or water before bed. I was harsh I suppose but I had had enough, so when she asked I said she could have a cuddle and cold milk if she wanted, but mummy milk had gone till the morning. She soon got that and that feed was easy to drop.

The morning was harder for me than her, as we used to feed and have an extra half hour in bed, instead we just got up and aimed for the kitchen for breakfast. I did tell her mummy's milk was going soon (about 2 days before) and almost prepared her that it would be gone.

It was a lot easier than I thought to be honest

[cowbiscuits]

Following this. My ds is quite a bit younger, he's 19 months. I was hoping he's self wean but still waiting.

Like you we just bf first thing in the morning and bedtime. If he wakes at night he'll sometimes go back to sleep without it, I'll only feed him back to sleep in middle of the night as a last resort or if I'm shattered and/or getting up early (which is all the time). But he does sometimes ask for milk at other times, in the day I say no and it's not usually a problem. Usually I can distract him but he sometimes gets really upset whining "mummy mummy mummy miiilk miiiilk miiiilk" Sometimes this turns into a tantrum and if you try to give hima drink in his cup he gets even more upset.

I love our bedtime feed because I'll read or browse on my tablet and he'll go to sleep in my arms he smells all clean from the bath and it's lovely, but the morning one, he wakes at 5ish, we bring him into our bed and he wants to carry on sucking for ages and gets frustrated when the milk slows down. It's the little hands clawing at my boobs that annoys me the most, hate it when he puts his hands down my top.

I'm not really sure when to try to stop or how. If only he could learn some etiquette! But we're TTC and I was hoping he'd self wean when/if i get pregnant. I don't want to keep doing it then. If he doesn't wean then it'll just be extra stress trying to make him stop.

[zoobaby]

DS is 19 mo and it was very easy to drop the morning feed 6 months ago when I went back to work p/t. As mentioned up thread, try going straight out and just plonk your DD in front of her toys while you make her bfast. To compensate at the start, I made sure DS had milky weetabix (it's still his favourite).

BF is currently getting us through teething. We're only up to 13/20 and I can't wait for it to be over so I can attempt to totally wean. To be honest, the idea worries me. But I think we'll possibly try a tactic we've been using when DS is unsettled and I need sleep for work the next day. Lots of cuddles (minus BF) then I'll go to bed and leave him with his dad til he gets exhausted enough for sleep. DP has also been warned of expectations on him and I think he's even more worried than me

[MooseBeTimeForSpring]

Our night feeds were the last to go. We dropped the day feeds by telling DS that booby was only for bedtime now. When he got to 27 months he was still feeding before bed and on waking. I decided I'd had enough and simply told DS that he was a big boy now and didn't need booby anymore. I think he cried for a couple of minutes for the first two nights and then started to sleep through solidly.