How do I stop breastfeeding my 3 year old?

[blushbabybambu]

My daughter was poorly when born. When we got her home, she slept with me as I wanted to compensate for those first weeks separation in Special Baby Care Unit and she had ongoing respiratory issues.

3 years on and my toddler still wants "boobie" all the time and still sleeps with me. I love her to bits, but am exhausted.

Can anyone advise how to stop the booby and get her into her own bedroom at the same time?

i think i would probably do it step by step tbh.

it will be a HUGE change for her to stop co-sleeping, and give up breastfeeding and get into her own room

so i think i'd do it one bit at a time.

so, perhaps I would start with nightweaning. I am rather fond of Jay Gordon who has a "gentle" weaning approach which you can find here

once you have her going through the night happily, then you can decide if you want to wean her completely, or let her continue feeding in the day time.

then i would work on getting her into her room

I went cold turkey with ds3 as the slowly-cutting-down got me nowhere with him. Interestingly he was a premmie born at 32 weeks and also spent some time in NICU and SCBU and he is far more stubborn than my other 3 children!
I told him it was "all gone" one night and he cried but went off to sleep. The next morning he looked for it again, and again I told him it was "all gone" He cried again, and I went in to the shower and cried my eyes out. Only to find, when I emerged 5 minutes later that he was over it and laughing away with his brothers! He never asked for it since and it was much easier than I was expecting it to be!

I stopped feeding DD2 on her 3rd birthday. We had a chat about it and agreed that the morning feed would be her last. She was fine about it and only tried once, about a week later, and she couldn't latch on .

However she is still very cuddly and loves 'booby' - she is always naming them. She has been in her own bed since 6 months but still comes in every morning for a snuggle with booby! My DD1 who I weaned at 8 months does not do this so much.

So maybe....try talking to your DD about stopping bfing...try getting her into her own bed with a promise of booby in the morning as reward and then wean her off the nipple and downgrade to a booby snuggle.

I think the bfing and the cosleeping are seperate issues tho...you can bfeed AND get a full night's sleep (assuming you don't have a younger child bfing too).

If I were you I think I'd work on getting her to sleep in her own room first and once that is settled to decide how you want to approach stopping the bf. I bf mine til about 2.5yrs but I'd had enough by then and gradually discouraged her and distracted her when possible but didn't actually say no as such. We had a break for a few weeks then there was an incident where she was a bit upset and asked to feed, did so briefly and seemed much happier, but hasn't actually asked to again since. But I do generally avoid her seeing them naked as it does seem to remind her a bit! She starts looking a bit hopeful..! What she does now though, when having a cuddle will sometimes stroke my neck in the same way as she used to when feeding which is still rather nice for us both, it keeps that closeness going without the bf.

Dear all

Thanks for your support and comments. Special thanks to "this is yesterday" and the reference to Jay Gordon's website. I had got to stage one of his suggestions but can now follow on to stage 2 and 3. Very grateful