Breastfeeding my nearly 3 year old

[Jadey31]

Hi all,

My daughter is turning 3 in December and I am still breast feeding her. I feel so proud I am able to still do this (I had no intension of breast feeding her when she was born) but I now feel is time for us to stop.

We have always co slept and she just feeds all night long. I put her to bed between 6 and 7pm and she'll wake up anytime from 11pm to 3am which is when I stay in bed with her til 6:30am when we wake for nursery/work. I usually sleep through this but it's just keeping me awake at night now and my back is killing from being in the same position all night long!

Has anyone been through this and how do you wean?

My daughter loves having my milk and it's breaking my heart I'm about to turn her world upside down.

She still feeds to sleep. If we're at home she'll feed most of the time. She likes to watch a film and feed which is nice but if I'm stopping I've got to stop all together.

I know to some this is weird but I've loved it until now!

She's starting pre school in January and I'll have 2 weeks off over Christmas so wondering if I start the transition then? It would be great to spend the whole night in bed with my husband again!

Bumping this so it gets seen xx

I know there are books you can get to read together try to explain it to her through a story, although I haven't used any.

Some people go fairly cold turkey, and supposedly there's a bad few days and then they get over it. When I weaned DD1, DD2 was tiny and EBF, so I went very gentle – telling DD1 she couldn't nurse anymore whilst constantly nursing DD2 didn't seem likely to go well!

What I did for daytime was just gently try to delay the feed. So she'd ask for milk, I'd say 'yes, but after we do X'. If after we did X, she remembered, then I'd let her feed. If she didn't remember, I wouldn't remind her. This gradually evolved to a few set times when she nursed, and then I dropped those one by one by trying to distract her during those times so she just didn't think of it (but letting her nurse if she asked).

For nighttime, I'd probably start by trying to feed her back to sleep, but then going back to your own bed. If you're very lucky, that may be enough – she may not bother waking for just a quick feed. Otherwise, conventional wisdom is to send Daddy in to settle her, so nursing just isn't on the table. That wasn't an option for us, so I managed with cuddling her into my chest (seated) and rocking, then transferring her back into her bed.

I fed all mine to after 2yo, and two of them to over 3yo.

What I did with all of them was drop feeds during the day except at nap time and bedtime. Unless of course they were ill, or had a good reason.
Then I started offering "feed or a story" for those times. At first they always chose a feed, then story came in sometimes, and eventually story won every time.
Ds was a little harder because he got a lot of ear infections, and feeding was a really good way to comfort and relieve the pain, so that was a bit harder. Once he'd mostly stopped then I started with distractions rather than saying "no". He did about 3-4 months after stopping ask for a feed very persistently when he was ill. I told him I didn't know if there was any milk left, but let him try and he had a little bit of a feed, but announced there wasn't much, and never asked again.

If you are thinking of stopping, I would be a bit wary of doing it all at once over Christmas when she's likely to be a bit overexcited and tired anyway.

Could you start by putting her in her own room, letting her choose the "big girl bedding" and doing some gentle night weaning?

As already suggested you could try introducing a book like Booby Moon by Yvette Reid.

Once you've cut out the night feeds I'd start on the day. Different people use different tactics.

My DC1 was happy with "we'll do that at nap time, would you like a banana a drink instead" type of distraction. DC2 was really very insistent and I gad to reduce the time she fed for instead.

Eventually I got them both down to feeding once before bed and then I just went out at bedtime for a few nights and left them with DH.

Don't feel too sad though, it's a change in your relationship but not a negative one. She'll still love and need you just as much