Did anyone breastfeed until 3 and had to make a concerted effort to stop?

[MrsMingech]

If so, please come this way and share your wisdom.
DC has been 3 for a couple of months now and still wants boobs left right and centre.

He hated breastfeeding as a baby so I thought he would be finished by the age of 1 when I had been back at work a couple of months but the opposite happened.

I have to not sit down during the day and use a million distraction techniques.
I've got reward charts and rewards for going to sleep without a boob. I also put plasters on my nipples because "they are sore".

I'm not interested in going cold turkey because it's not that desperate.

I just would like to stop in the kindest way and wondered what others did.

Its as much about comfort as food at that age.

Think along those lines and its easier. Daytime feeds went first. Then eventually bedtime feed.

Honestly its about feeling secure and still knowing mummy can give cuddles etc.

DS stopped by himself just before his 4th birthday.

I did it at 2 1/2 - might have gone longer but I was nursing my mum through end-of-life care with cancer and I was emotionally burnt out and didn't have the reserves to do anything but cold turkey. Just started wearing two bras and two t-shirts to bed (we were co-sleeping at my parents house) and gently resisted - substituted with lots of cuddles back strokes etc. Took a few weeks but it was my body stopping producing the milk and the associated hormones etc I guess she just drifted away from it.

It had been such a big thing at the time I asked her a couple of years later if she remembered breast feeding, or stopping and she had no memory of any of it.

My son will be five in the summer. For the past few weeks he hasn’t really bothered with it. Any previous attempts to stop him resulted in tantrums but he seems to have decided for himself now he doesn’t need it. I’d wanted him to stop for so long and now I’m quite sad thinking this is it and that our last time wasn’t particularly special.

My husband started doing the bed time bottle (fed to sleep) as although I'd cut down daytimes fairly easily by moving onto formula, my son just wouldn't accept no breastfeeding at bed time.

We were lucky in that we were in a pretty good place and my husband was happy to keep distracting him and I was happy to lock myself in the bath (so it wasn't so easy to get out and to him and a good excuse to say mummy's in the bath). It was a tough few weeks but I'm sure he doesn't remember and he's still a total mummy's boy now!

And I cried over stopping breastfeeding with both my children and I'm an absolutely heartless cow who doesn't cry at anything!

It's really hard. I was just hoping my daughter would lose interest naturally at some point around 2/ 2.5 but she didn't! Then covid happened so we carried on for a bit longer, though I did start introducing the idea of stopping when she was 3 into conversations. She mostly fed at naptime, bedtime and morning by this stage, so I stopped the naptime one first and introduced a cup of warm soya milk at bedtime followed by a short feed. I found this one hardest to tolerate anyway, so I would give her a countdown from 10 after a short while for each side and gradually reduced the time she was feeding for until she was happy to just have her cup of milk. The morning feed was trickier, she loved to start the day with a cuddle and mummy milk in bed... so I think we just distracted her as much as possible or tweaked the routine... I jumped out of bed and got on with things while she had a cuddle with daddy instead, for example. It was very gradual, but even then we still had some tears, it's a big thing for them and you. We would go for a few days between feeds towards the end and I can't remember her last feed, but we got there eventually at 3 and 2/3/4 (can't remember!) months and she still (at 4.5) remembers having "yummy mummy milk". I hope things improve for you soon! The Facebook group 'breastfeeding older babies and beyond' it's a great place for advice and support. X

If you’re ok with feeding, then I would carry in, but not if you’re not. My dd stayed with my mum for a night and we talked about stopping & she was ok. My other dd, stopped at 5 & this was led by me being exhausted!

My DD1 self weaned around age 2, but DD2 was completely obsessed with feeding and I had totally had enough once she was a toddler. Aged 18m I night weaned but kept a couple of daytime feeds as she seemed so dependent on the comfort. Age 2y 11m I started telling her the milk would stop on her 3rd birthday and then we had a last feed, said byebye to the booby milk and then everytime she asked I offered an alternative drink/snack/game/cuddle etc. She's nearly 4 now and sometimes still asks if the milk is really all gone but only in a curious/remembering way. It was hard for a couple of months but I had developed a real aversion by then and needed to stop for my sanity!

Yes. I fed DS1 until he self weaned and he was over 4. I probably would have carried on with DS2 but I got pregnant and had terrible aversion so I ended up weaning and honestly, I am so relieved. He is 3.5 now and DS3 is six months. I can totally and fully give him what he asks for (90% of the time in cuddles and attention but I think I would have resented him asking for milk.

It took about three months to wean, I did it slowly. Started when he was 2.5, he was having minimal/occasional daytime feeds, plus nap, bedtime and night feeds. Coming into our bed at night too. I had started to cut down on that three months ish before. So he was staying in his own room all night.

I treated these three as different things, which helped. Daytime feeds were easy to cut out as I could say "No, it's nap time/bedtime soon, you can have it then" plus he wasn't that bothered anyway.

Middle of the night was next to go. I introduced a delay. When I went in to him I'd really take my time over talking to him and letting him know I was there, then picking him up, slowly walking a longer way to the chair, sitting and rocking him a little bit in the feeding position but not quite, taking a while to open my clothing, just stalling at every stage. The key seemed to be to move enough that he was reassured the milk/cuddle he wanted was coming but stall enough that he might actually fall back to sleep before it did. And before too long he stopped asking. If he was more upset and did get to the point of latching on I would stop the feed after a few moments. Then rock/soothe if this upset him and repeat.

Once I was confident in this I (sort of accidentally, but it worked) reduced feeding down to one side. I'd hold him on my left side in the middle of the night but feed him on the right at bedtime. This meant that if I was feeling particularly sensitive at bedtime I'd hold him on the left and rock him. Because he associated this with night time it soothed him although he would be upset about not getting to feed. On other nights I would let him feed on the right but cut off after a short time, although fairly quickly I found it was kindest just to be clear and only offer the "mimi cuddle" on the left side.

I didn't actually find it that emotional. I don't know when our last feed was. It felt like it faded out, which felt right. Acknowledging that the change was hard for him and not being afraid of him being upset by it or allowing that to make me feel guilty was helpful.

The only thing that I wasn't totally happy with is after we changed to cuddling to sleep DH still wasn't happy with this and wanted him to fall asleep alone so he ended up taking over half of bedtimes and enforcing a tuck in and leave approach. I kind of missed the bedtime cuddles and felt it was something important that we shouldn't neglect but I was so tired and DS3 was so clingy at birth that I didn't have the option to carry it on anyway - maybe it was OK. DS2 certainly seems fine with bedtime and doesn't ask to nurse so I think the timing worked fine for him.

I cut my child off on her fourth birthday. Four year olds don't have mummy milk, I said. The distraction of birthday helped, we had a week of "I can't go to sleep without Mummy milk" and then over It took a while longer for her to go to sleep in her own bed though. I kept going so long because she wouldn't drink cow's milk. I had to be firm because otherwise she'd be saying "Mother, didn't you say I shouldn't worry about what other people thing?" and I'd be stuck until she was doing her GCSEs. The other thing is I wanted the greatly reduced breast cancer risk from feeding for 3+ years and I'm only having one. I think three and half was too soon for her, four was right.

Yes, with both of mine! They were 3 and 2 months and 3 and 5 months. I had to go on holiday to get them to stop 😳 It did work though and was nice to have a break!

My DD stopped at 2 3/4. Keep you boobs well hidden and don’t sit in the same chair where you used to feed.

She’s nearly 3.5 today and I had a bath with her today, something we don’t normally do. She kept on trying to “hug” me and I’m sure would have had another try if I’d let her - it was actually quite sweet and made me realise how much BF meant to her 💜

Thanks for the support.

He woke about 8 times last night, which isn't that unusual to be honest, but he didn't scream and cry like he did the night before.

And our day started at 4.30 rather than 3.30 like yesterday.

I've always been told night 3 is the bugger so I'm keeping an open mind about it getting harder before it gets better.

I was still breastfeeding at 3. I was very ready to stop but she wasn't. I had an accident at that time and poured some boiling water over my hand, requiring hospital treatment. I told my daughter I was taking medication that meant my milk would not be okay to drink (I wasn't), and she then accepted this as a stopping point.

Would a story like this help? Would it be possible to fabricate at this stage?

I stopped just before 3, kept telling him "booby" (yes, that's also what it was called here) was broken and it was very tough for a few days. I would hold him while he screamed and cried for ages. He still asks occasionally, over a year later, but its not an issue now, he just accepts they don't work any more.

I stopped nights long before days though as nights are much more difficult to stop I think, but only dealing with one at a time made it easier.

My DP was breastfed until he was 3, I was never ☹️ I get jealous of him, he’s very chilled out even though he has painful deformed ankles that the NHS won’t do anything about... I’ll ask him how him mum stopped the BF when he gets home and report back.