Reducing breastfeeds

[MrsMong]

DD 10 months is BF and I'm about to reduce her from 3 feeds (7am, 3pm and 7pm) to 2 feeds (7am and 7pm).

She eats plenty dairy - weetabix for breakfast, 2 petit filous a day, and usually a babybel or 2.

She never asks for her afternoon feed and has missed it once when I was going to drop the feed. (I re-introduced in the next day cos she got a sick bug and wasn't eating!).

So, is it ok to do just 2 BF a day? When can I reduce to 1 (and which one am or pm?) and when can I cut out completely? I don't want to introduce formula.

HV said (surprisingly) that it would be ok to give her cows milk as part of her afternoon snack that replaces her 3pm BF. She basically said that dropping the feed was ok, but must be replaced with a snack, and food + cows milk would be a good snack. What do you think?

Thanks!

I think that if cow's milk was as evil as it's currently made out to be, we'd all be dead...

Normally I'd say trust your HV, but today I met one that is so bonkers I've had to rethink.

I do know that lots of my friends packed in BF between 4 and 7 months and have very lovely, bright children to show for it, though.

That's fine to do 2 a day - I've been doing that for 6 weeks. I think they can have cows milk as a drink at this age as long as it's not their main milk source. But hopefully someone with more authority can confirm! If I am right then I think you would need to BF until 12 months when all her feeds can be cows milk so you can avoid formula.

I don't think it really matters which feed you cut down to 1 - wth DS, I left the bedtime feed till last so he could get that extra comfort.

HTH

Thanks everyone - sounds good to me!!! She's still getting over this sick bug, but in another couple of days I'll be dropping to two feeds - freedom during the days!! Yipeee!

I'm happy to keep the 7am and 7pm feeds for a while, but think I might drop one (prob 7am) at around 11 months, which is a month before she starts nursery. That should give her time to get used to it. Hopefully it also means we can do breakfast earlier (ie before nursery!) and she can start having a mid-morning snack.

Sounds like a plan (to me anyway, DD might have other ideas!)

Thanks ladies, and any other views appreciated x

Having said that my guess would be that forumla is better than cow's milk, as huge amounts of work have gone into making it the 'next best thing' for human babies. Whilst millions of years of evolution have gone into making cows' milk perfect for... large, four-stomached, herbivorous, ungulates.

Formula is bound to be better for littler ones, just as a matter of common sense.