Extended breastfeeding is for the mum

[Slat3]

I’ve heard this quite a few time, I genuinely think people are off their rocker if they think this is fun.
I’ve been trying to stop with my nearly 3 year old, he’s gone 4 days without and then crying before bed which then made me cry and ‘give in’. I know I shouldn’t have but it’s so so hard.
I really want/need to stop, I didn’t want to feed him this long (I wanted to feed fill 1!) and he is just obsessed.
How can I do this ‘gently’? There is no gentle way is there? So fed up with lack of sleep & his behaviour

I stopped at 3.5 and the way I did it was switching. So I said, if you can fall asleep without mama milk tonight you can have UNLIMITED mamamilk when you wake up in the morning. He was happy with the idea of no limit, but he was always very busy on waking and ready to start the day so in reality was keener on getting up than having milk so he just never asked again.

He'd still jump on now given half the chance mind you but he's 6 now so that ship has long sailed!

Good luck

FourTeaFallOut you can chuckle but my 2 1/2yr old was BF because I found it difficult to stop him. Yes he used it for comfort however my lying with him was just as effective.

Thanks for the solidarity & tips.

We feed at bedtime, when he wakes up (something e.g. 5am that will be the morning feed) but some times during my menstrual cycle there’s literally no milk & he drives me insane.

He’s been a terrible eater since day dot of weaning (unlike his brother) so it has been useful, we’ve been in hospital several times & a couple of awful sickness bugs which like a pp said - those times it really helped.

I do take turns with my husband but I’m still really tired all the time, I just wish he would sleep. The neighbours must hate us as he does cry a lot, especially when my husband puts him to bed or gets up to him in the night, which affects their bond as for 3 years it’s been all about me & affects my life because I’m so bloody tired! I work a full time demanding job & he wakes up early every day.

No thanks to the pp who clearly don’t understand - It is definitely not for an easy life! I’m aware him crying shouldn’t make me cry but having not fed him for nearly 4 days obviously affects hormones plus you know, coronavirus, makes me slightly more highly strung..

I’ve tried the big boy & he wants to be a baby. I’ve tried bribing but he isn’t interested in food bribes maybe I can buy him a special toy from the milk fairy like pp advised. We did the dummy fairy with my eldest! I’ve been doing don’t ask, don’t refuse for years but he’s obsessed so it doesn’t work. We can’t just leave him to ‘cry it out’ because it doesn’t work for him (far too stubborn) + he wakes my eldest up.

He will go to nursery school in September so hopefully that will help as it hasn’t helped having me working from home & him being off nursery.

I will just state after all this, my eldest wasn’t breastfed so I’ve done both. To two extremes it’s absolutely 100% not for my benefit (plus I’m fat so hasn’t helped me lose weight either! Ha)

OP, he sounds like mine! And I also did “don’t offer, don’t refuse” and I think he’d still be feeding now at 5 if I hadn’t cut him off. I really wanted him to self-wean but it just wasn’t happening. He was fine if I wasn’t there - but if I was, he was insistent.

But I have to say, it wasn’t too bad once I’d made the decision and stuck to it. It was emotional, and we had a rough few days - mine also wanted to be a baby - but ultimately it was ok and he didn’t seem to be traumatised or anything.

Of course it isn't for your benefit! Absurd to suggest that a mother providing a key source of comfort is not doing it for the benefit of the child.

I remember that stage well, I was dying to stop. Maybe have a think about what could help to replace the comforts that he currently gets from bf with comparable "big boy" equivalents. I remember that we went out to buy a special nighttime water bottle, a teddy to cuddle when in need of comfort etc. DD was very involved in choosing these, but knew that they were to be saved until the time came to stop bf. We talked about stopping a lot before we did so that she got used to the idea, and tried to associate it with getting bigger/being more grown up. It helped that dd had really good language skills so it was easy to explain.

Are you doing because you feel like you should or because you're ready to stop now?

Doing = stopping

I fed my first until 4, so I get it

If you want a gentle way (ie without conflict) I would try shortening the duration of feeds. So avoid, distract, offer replacements - but if he is really insistent that it is milk that he wants, say okay but we count down from ten. Latch him on, count down from ten, that's it. You can shorten this to three - IME once they get to the counting to three stage, they don't need it any more. They are doing it out of habit or because they can. Once we got to three, DS1 self weaned pretty soon after that (as in, he was ill so I actually offered it and he refused.) If you think even a ten second feed would be too brief for him, try letting him feed until the letdown comes (if you even get one any more - I'm not sure I did) or until his sucking slows down and then count down from 5/3 to end. You can then bring the countdown earlier and earlier into the session once he's comfortable with that idea.

OTOH - my big nursling is now 11, and in hindsight, I think I should have been less "gentle". I do not mean that I should have been authoritarian or punitive, because I still don't believe those approaches are helpful, but I feel like avoiding conflict all the time was actually not the best way to go about things. It served my own conflict-avoidant nature very well, but it didn't necessarily work well in terms of promoting a good relationship with my child long term. I have been reading a lot of Janet Lansbury (who calls herself "respectful" rather than "gentle") and I find that her philosophy is totally congruent with the beliefs that led me to gentle parenting, but one thing she's much better on is boundaries/conflict and the idea that it's OK to set boundaries for your own self care. Very interesting read/listen (she has free podcasts and transcripts them as blog posts).

So I think the respectful way would say OK, no, there's no easy way to do this without conflict, but that's OK. It's not a bad thing to make a decision that your kids would disagree with. If you feel that it's time to stop nursing, then decide that, and feel (or at least act) confident about it. Yes, he might be upset about it, of course. It's something that's been very important to him. You must acknowledge and allow him to express that upset. But it's actually more respectful to trust that he will experience these feelings, work through them (with your comfort if he wants it, of course) and ultimately be okay, than to fear that he might not cope with that upset, and hence delay the decision. That isn't really helpful to him (it might be nice for him, but that's not the same) and it's definitely not helpful to you, if you are not happy with how things are right now. If you keep nursing past the point where you're not happy with it any more, that isn't really being respectful to him either, because you will build up resentment and annoyance about feeding, and that isn't a place that is healthy for your relationship.

Really struggled to wean my second- knew she could do it because she would go to sleep with a cuddle from daddy if I wasn't there, but not if she knew I was in the house. Time away with grandparents cracked it, she was busy, all out of routine and didn't notice that it was nana or daddy doing stories and tucking her in while i hid quietly downstairs. Came back home and she started asking again but easily accepted that she was a big girl now because she hadn't needed any all week.

And it's totally not for the mum, can't believe people are even saying that. WHO recommend breast feeding for 2 years and beyond, and small humans are designed to be able to feed for a long time beyond that (baby teeth, teeny noses etc last until 5/6, though culturally that seems too old in the UK). I'm on my 3rd extended breast feeder and would love to have my body and my life back, but I want them to be treated the same as the older DC so will persist until they're a similar age. I'm tired of it now though, having not had a proper break since DC1 arrived, and am all touched out- I'm certainly not doing it for my benefit. (Though I don't doubt I'll have an 'oh' moment when it does finally stop!!)

Even if it is for the mum, what on earth is wrong with that?

When my daughter was 2 we told her and kept repeating she was a big girl now and has her milk in a cup. Which she then told every stranger she met “ I don’t have booby milk any more I have a cup”.

We went on holiday with my parents for a week and she shared a room with my Mum which helped break the cycle.

@Adamandtheaunts I’m still very tired & it affects the whole household when he doesn’t get milk (if he had his way, it would be me 24/7 never his dad & milk throughout the night) so I feel it’s becoming actually something negative now in terms of his behaviour. He is extremely stubborn.

Also v early pregnant so want to stop now anyway

Still not stopped, there really isn’t a lot of milk now so hoping to space it out as much as possible & it will dry up & he will lose interest anyway.

Feels like ages ago (DS is 12 now) but I did don't offer, don't refuse. He stopped aged 4 - he was down to a couple of minutes before bed at that point. He had his feed one evening, told me he didn't need it any more and never asked again. It was really sweet actually.

Just hopefully for a bit of hope - my Ds was similar both sleep wise and breastfeeding. He gradually cut down to one a day, but after 3.5 /4 he just stopped on his own. It was a huge relief, but it was a week or two - I wouldn't have predicted it and was starting to worry.

Good luck OP, it's not much fun feeding whilst pregnant. Going through similar here - thought we'd finally night weaned when dc2 was just turned 2 during lockdown, but he started coming in and I would feed him without even waking...so now I'm having to force myself to wake up and take him back to bed and eventually he will settle with a cuddle. And not being at nursery during lockdown didn't help in the day, he reverted almost to tiny baby stage, but he's back 3 days a week and I'm a bit more emotionally prepared to be firm on the days he's home. I can cope with once a day at bed time for now if he would leave it the rest of the day. Ds1 was between 2.5-3 when we stopped altogether, so I'm still aiming for that this time...