AIBU to ask for advice about stopping extended breast feeding?

[Darlingsleepthief]

DD is nearly 2 and still breast feeds like a newborn . She’s not bothered about food at all, and likes to just graze on breast milk continuously throughout the day!

I don’t particularly mind this, but I’m really struggling with night times. She goes down to sleep in her cot, but after 2 hours she screams and screams until I go to bed and she sleeps all night with me in bed from then until morning.

Again, I also don’t mind co sleeping either, but she’s feeding ALL night. Literally every time she stirs she latches on for a quick guzzle and this continues all night.

Does anyone have any advice about how to night wean and get her to sleep either in her cot or in our bed without needing to breastfeed all night?

Does she have much solid food during the day? That should decrease the amount of feeding at night, likely she will still want to for comfort sometimes though. Her main nutrition now should be from food, not against BFing at all, I think it's great to keep going for as long as both you and little one are happy, but having solid meals is too at that age.

She doesn’t eat that much, she just picks at food to be honest. I don’t think she’s feeding at night through hunger though, it’s comfort for her I just don’t know how to reduce it without upsetting her

I stopped breastfeeding at 16 months so a fair bit younger than 2 but my biggest tip would be to do it gradually. I essentially gave up over the course of 4 months, dropping a feed a month at a time! Also might be worth trying the National breastfeeding helpline for advice.

I stopped feeding at 2y4m. It was a gradual process - started off with the "don't offer, don't refuse" during the day then moved on to actively discouraging day feeds. Nights were the last to go, she was still feeding to sleep! Ended up going cold turkey and just cuddling her to sleep (she was not pleased about it). Now we have a cuddle and a hand hold but I can leave her awake.

Same with my middle son. I went cold turkey after his second birthday. Literally when he woke up for milk, I said ‘there’s no milk left now - would you like some water’

It took four days and he fed every two hours.

Weaned my eldest fully at 2.4, and we part co-slept until 4 and a half.

For night feeds cold turkey was the only thing that worked for us. I took DD to bed with a cup of water, and she sat on my lap for a cuddle and a story, then DH would take over and tuck her in with a song. When she woke up she would toddle across the landing and ask to come in. There were a few tears when she asked for her milk and was told no, but I wore a high neck top that she couldn't pull down and we had a cup of water to hand to her. After a couple of restless nights she moved on. Her cup was a Miracle 360, which she was allowed to cuddle in bed.

You could try a grow clock and teach her that breastfeeding is for daytime only now, and then limit daytime feeds later on when she has adjusted.

When you're ready for that, my youngest (18m) knows that he must eat his meals before he can have his milk, so our routine is:

6am breastfeed
8.30am breakfast
9.30am long breastfeed usually resulting in a 10.15am nap until lunchtime
12.30pm lunch, which I show him as soon as he wakes up
1.15pm quick feed
3.25pm biscuit and a quick feed
5.30pm dinner
7pm bed

He still has a feed around 11pm, and we still co-sleep all night, but we're getting ready to transition to part co-sleeping.

Whatever approach you try, the key is consistency. Two year olds aren't manipulative, but they do understand the concept of cause and effect. So the first time she refuses to sleep without her milk and after four hours you give in, she will learn that if she holds out long enough without sleeping then the milk will come.

I stopped when my youngest was 2. Gradually removed feeds - we would be out a lot during the day so distractions meant no feeding (I rarely fed in public after the age of 1). He would still feed at night though. I kept the bedtime feed and my husband co slept with him for a few nights to night wean. The bedtime feed was last to go, I told him when it was the last one but I cant remember him being that bothered! Bedtime is still lovely with him and he still loves cuddles.
Try wearing a sports bra and high neck top as lack of access stops those half asleep feeds! The longer you can get someone else uo manage the nights the easier you'll find it, but personally I'd tackle the days first.

Oh and also, DD was a very picky eater, a few mouthfuls for each meal and she never asked for food. As soon as we gave up breastfeeding, her portion sizes more than tripled.

I breastfed my 4 children for several years each, and I know it is comfort related at that age (and good for their development emotionally and physically). I found that at age 2, they understand something along the lines of "After bed, next milk is when we get up just before breakfast..." Or something like that to associate it to the morning. With each child I had a few nights where they were a bit upset, but they adjusted quicker than I thought they would. The only problem was that, when co-sleeping, I sometimes popped them onto feed without waking enough to realise and so breaking my own rule!

Decide on your boundaries and then stick to them. I fed at night until about 2 years but then it just irritated me so much I couldn’t do it any more. So I talked about it with DS for a couple of days - milk is for bedtimes but not in the night etc. And then, at wake ups, fed for a couple of minutes but DS had to go to sleep without bfing to sleep, this went on for 3 nights. Then no bfing between bedtime and the morning. About 3 nights with crying and then no more problems. Bliss! And definitely worth taking the plunge if you’ve had enough

Have you got a husband / partner? I think it's a bit easier if you can get them to deal with night wakings for a few days, and give them a cuddle and offer a cup of water - it's easier for them to realise they wont get any milk when mum is not there.

We night weaned one of ours a bit earlier by chance when I had a very bad back and my husband had to get up and pass them to me to feed, he was trying to settle them first as I was in a lot of pain that sitting up was difficult and after a few days of sometimes not getting up and sometimes feeding them, they gave up.

It's a habit and like most habits it's hard to break, you can cut down very gradually (cut down each feed by a minute each time) and it will take weeks or you can stop and deal with a tantrum for a few nights

No advice, I'm just glad to hear I'm not the only one struggling to get solids into my 16mo..... She would be on the boob all day long if I let her (and night..), some days she eats okay but some days she just has a few spoonfuls and the cries for the boob forever, it's driving me mad. I'm waiting for it to pass ha ha..... I have noticed though that sometimes when she wakes at night and cries, she actually settles with a cuddle (we co-sleep cause of space issues) after about two minutes, so I've been trying to encourage that. Sometimes she'll cry for two hours if I don't give her the boob so I give in. Good luck

We had to nightwean kind of quickly just before her 2nd birthday. We started in with “after we clean our teeth, we don’t have anything but water until morning”. Then I just kept my bra closed and reminded her she could nurse in the morning. It went pretty easily actually. We made sure to feed her something she liked and was super filling right before bed.

Night wean first. This can be done gently. I always find day feeds gradually cut down after night weaning.

How long has this been going on for?

I only ask as when my dc has certain developmental leaps or a new tooth she bfs all night too. Nearly 2 here.
Co sleep is a definite.
Alexa plays white noise all through the night.
Occasionally when she wakes a gentle rock is enough.
Sometimes she wakes but falls back to sleep before I get to her (if I'm watching TV in living room)

Give water at night instead. First few nights might be tricky but after that she’ll not bother to wake up if she’s not getting the comfort. If your dh goes in then there’s no argument really.

During the day, distract her with something else when she asks. I’ve given up,gradually and done cold turkey and the results were similarvreally. Neither were as bothered about stopping as I thought they would be.

I’ve just stopped feeding my 2yr2m old and she also fed like a newborn! I did manage to cut out nighttime feeds around 6months ago because I physically couldn’t take it anymore. I literally just said no, took water upstairs with us at bedtime so I could offer that instead but tbh she accepted it a lot faster than I thought she would. We had a lot of years the first couple nights but then it was ok.

I weaned DS2 at around 2.4.
There was no real pattern to the number/length of feeds he had, so I struggled with advice to drop one feed at a time.
We just went cold turkey. I started one morning saying the milk was all gone. Had a really busy day to distract him but kept reiterating that my milk was all gone. By the time bedtime came he was used to it. There were some tears but a cuddle helped.
He didn't start sleeping through immediately but night wakings did ease off over time.
Good luck!

My DD was similar.

I used the Dr J Gordon approach for night time weaning. Here is a short summary:

betterrestmethod.org/sleep-methods-and-consultants/jay-gordon/

I also offered her a choice of solids every two hours during the day. By that stage I was only breast feeding morning and evening anyway, but you need to figure out how quickly or slowly your DD will adapt to changes.

My DD was anemic because she did not eat enough solids that are iron rich and needed supplementation, so you may want to raise this possibility with your GP. Also, is there any physical reason, problems chewing, swallowing, reflux, etc, which explains why she is not eating more solids?

My dh spent a few nights in with ds and that cut the night feeds at just over 2, I then went back to work a couple of months later and it went to just feeds at home and he gradually stopped asking.

I remember 2 being particularly full on. I think they're doing a lot of growing and a lot of developement leaps. Somewhere between 2 and 3 I managed to night wean my daughter when she gained some understanding of 'in the morning'.
At this time of year there are a lot of bugs going around and I'd usually find that my kids would up their feeding, particularly at night if they were coming down with something. I think I'd find out particularly reassuring to be breastfeeding while we don't quite know what's going to happen with this virus.

Actually that’s a good point about corona virus!

I’m happy to feed all day if need be, it’s more the constant night time feeds that I want to cut down, as because we co sleep she won’t settle without me and I don’t have any evening time to myself and am then feeding all night on and off. This is what I’m hoping to reduce

I have recently gone cold turkey with my 15 month old.
He was a prolific feeder, would literally be up on me feeding all day long if we were in the house (although he managed fine without me at nursery) plus night wakings 2-3 times.

With us it had to be all or nothing, I did try to reduce feeds but I think it was too confusing for him.

DH now does bedtimes and night wakings, and we’ve had a rocky couple of weeks with sleep, some awful nights where he has been up for hours, a few times he has slept through, so we are riding it out to see if we can get some consistency.

Ds took the change quite well, during the day I was able to distract him with cows milk, food and books/games and he soon stopped asking.

He was a terrible eater before, barely would touch solids and prefer to breastfeed, but now he’s a fab eater, we are only 2 weeks in and he’s pretty much eating anything I put in front of him.

So it’s early days but seems to be working for us. Good luck op it’s a tough time.

@eminybob how does your oh deal with the night wakings?

Rocks/cuddles/reads/sings whatever works. Don’t get me wrong it isn’t always easy, he’s ended up sleeping on the living room floor with him at times as he’s refused to get back in his cot.
But last night we left him just a little bit longer before going in, and he settled himself after a couple of grumbles.