Moving on from breastfeeding. Why am I so upset?

[Trapordo]

DC is 2 years 6 months and seems less and less interested. I know the time will come soon when he won't want to feed anymore.

And I feel so sad. I don't do it for 'me', it's for his comfort and nutrition. But when I'm asked about stopping I feel a little stab inside

I think I will cry for days. What's it like to stop? How sad is it?

If you go child-led it's unlikely to end suddenly, my ds still fed first thing onto and off for months and months after I thought we were done! No big end so it was fine. Well done, massive commitment!

It is sad, but then it very quickly became oh thank goodness for me! My dc still snuggle in the same way they did when feeding and they are 7 and 9. Dd remembers feeding which is lovely.

Very sad. I think the hormonal shift has a lot to answer for. I felt awful for about a week, I couldn’t look at her little feeding pillow without crying . After that though quite glad a relieved that she’d self weaned.

It can take ages for them to fully stop - they might ask for a feed every day or so, more when ill or injured, it can last months so it might not be the end yet. If it is, you’ll be fine. It’s a long time ago but I fed mine for years...3yrs, 21months and 3.5yrs. Each time it was definitely end of an era and I had a little pang but I was ready to stop and with first and last kids encouraged them off. The only time I cried was 4 months after youngest stopped when he had a fairly severe case of chicken pox, much worse than his brothers, and I knew breastfeeding would have comforted and hydrated him with his raging temperatures etc He’d had lots of toddler bouts of tonsillitis and breastfeeding had got us through those!!

My DD was around 20m, and for about the previous 2 months I had been trying to feed her to sleep as normal, but she had been messing around, coming off and on, crying, and needing rocking (in our nursing chair at least, saved my back). Relevant - we did sing and sign.

One night, she didn't use the sign for milk. No fuss, I just kissed and cuddled her, rocked her to sleep as normal. The next night she didn't ask again, but she had one or two more bits of milk before never having any more.

I remember feeling quite emotional but at the same time I was quite relieved that she'd ended it happily, in her own time, and that DH could have a fucking go now!

I'm now on DC2 - he's currently 8m so plenty of time left

Hope it goes smoothly OP. Have a night out once you can!

Thank you for such quick replies

It sounds so dramatic but it just feels like a big symbol of what we've achieved will be gone. I had him at 19, 50 miles away from my hometown. We got through everything fairly easily and it was all very blissful. No visitors to help or family to take over in 2.5 years.

It feels like when it stops, that part of our life stops completely. Very bittersweet.

I'm glad he had chicken pox just before Christmas. It eased it all and BF also got fluid into him when he had pneumonia.

I will miss it even though I sometimes feel like throwing him across the room very occasionally... Its strange. Nothing wrong with his latch, just for some reasons I get an occasional fleeting moment of absolutely hating it!

That's normal too. It's a huge achievement. Maybe treat yourself something to something to mark.it, take some photos before it ends etc.