Breast Feeding 20 month old

[Herworkingmum]

I am absolutely at capacity. I have loved breastfeeding my child but I’m now at the point where I hate it. Multiple times throughout the night is killing me - I cannot remember when I last got a full nights sleep. I want to stop but I don’t know how. When I try to say no, all hell breaks loose - baby has the biggest melt down and will literally attack me for my breasts, pulling at my clothes and all kinds. I know recommended age is 2 years but I just cannot cope anymore.

any advice ?

I remember this well- the fighting, scratching night time toddler boob monster was exactly what made me stop night feeding my daughter at about the same age. 20 months of breastfeeding is superb and you are of course absolutely fine to stop now. It will be a tough couple of nights but so worth it for the sleep you'll be able to have afterwards! You can stop feeding at night but continue to feed once or twice during the day if you want to, but it's also fine just to stop altogether.

I have seen Lucy Webber feeding support and The Breastfeeding Mentor instagram accounts both have pieces about night weaning and stopping altogether.

Well done for 20 months of feeding 😊

Do you have a partner? When I stopped with my second dc I had to get dh to put her to bed and go in at night. There was no reaction to him but if I went in all hell would break out.

I’m afraid your child has to go cold turkey. You have done amazingly well to breastfeed that long, so don’t feel guilty in any way.

Is there another adult around, who can take over for a few nights, to allow things to settle?

It really won’t take long to make the break. Just go for it.

20 months is absolutely amazing, well done ☺️
My daughter sounds exactly like your little one, I won’t lie it took until 4 before she weaned at night time. We gradually cut during the day as she was constantly wanting to feed and that led me into a false security that night time would be ok. It wasn’t, it was a really long process and encountered many more sleepless nights. Instead of going in and allowing her to feed, I went in and offered her comfort instead and snuggled her in. I wore a onesie back to front to stop her ease of access. I thought it would help her sleep more during the night once she’d weaned and it didn’t either. Not to make you feel negative about it, but just to set some expectations. My nephew on the other hand after a couple of nights of not getting any he was completely fine and started sleeping all night.

La leche league offer weaning advice. I hope you find the help you need and get some sleep soon.

After letting them latch on for about 10 seconds go "all gone now", then other side "all gone now". Cues screaming and I want booby. "All gone now, I'm sorry". Lots of cuddles. Then once they're at the point where they can then accept that I just cut out the latching on all together. It's bloody hard.

Well done on 20 months. I did 25 with my youngest. The best way is cold turkey and even better if you can be out the way for a few days. I went to New York for a wedding and didn’t offer him when I came back and he didn’t really ask for it. For a few months if he was tired he would put his hand down my top but that was it.

My daughter is 20 months old and we still have multiple night feedings, however I do cut them short or refuse some of them especially if I am really tired. This does cause crying and tantrums sometimes, but often when I explain "no but we can have a cuddle" or "no more now but you can have more when we wake up, we need to go back to sleep now" she understands and just rolls over to go back to sleep. Last night I picked her up and placed her further away from me in the bed and she went back to sleep.

If you're not ready to go full cold turkey you could try cutting down/refusing some feeds like this. You need to follow through otherwise if your baby realises no doesn't mean no, they will just continue to pester and moan until they get it.

If you want to night wean without major tears I highly recommend letting them latch on with a whisper of just for 10 seconds and count down with 'boobies going to sleep now' and a gentle unlatch.... repeat as needed throughout the night and over a week or two they stop waking for it.
I did this with all 3 of my toddlers x

I disagree you need to go cold turkey (unless you strongly want to). When my dc1 was around that age I used to just tell her "not now" or classic distraction techniques, similar to if she wanted to watch TV or have a chocolate. So "let's read this book first" etc. And dh did bedtime more often for a while.

I personally night weaned her and that made it much easier. I couldn't take night feeding any more so I decided it was either screaming while I refused or screaming while night weaning. It took maybe 3 days before she forgot that boobs existed at night. We carried on bfing until she was nearly 3 during the day, when she self-weaned. Believe it or not, as I sense she was weaning I even started offering at night again (she wasn't interest) because I was sad and a bit nervous that it was coming to an end (and what I'd use in place of the comfort that milk brought). Obviously it was fine in the end.

Sorry you are going through what I did, unfortunately I'm not very strict so I limped on until my son was 4!!! Luckily he went off my milk at about 3.5 and was just using my nipple at night for comfort but not drawing milk

Dd at 19 months slept 6-6 for 3 nights. I thought I was in heaven. On night 4, normal service resumed except I said that seeing as she could sleep for three nights without mums boobs, she could have a drink of water instead. That worked fine for about 3 years before she slept through the night reliably. I just went to bed late and we survived it. But by then, she normally only woke the once per night.

We used the book 'Booby Moon' which talks about saying goodbye, read this for a few weeks while trying to distract/cut down and then did a night saying goodbye. And it was understood by both it was going. We also used the book 'nursies when the sunshines' to just night wean first which again worked well for them to understand that my boobs now slept at night.

I'm not in anyway going to say to carry on if you don't want to, I had major breastfeeding aversions by the end with both of mine, and it was just taking a lot out of me so I get it. However I'd also say don't do it if it's only to get more sleep as both of mine also slept worse after I stopped feeding, they were harder to settle and started getting up at 5am and weren't able to settle again.

I was still happy we weaned but I had these visions of them suddenly sleeping through and my eldest was 4.5 before he started sleeping through (2.5 years after weaning) and my youngest is almost a year since weaning and still waking multiple times a night and asking for milk at least a few times a week.

Hoping the sleep god's smile down on you!

I would offer "milk or story". At first they always chose milk, then a mixture and eventually only story.

Find something they like and give it as a choice.