Please help me stop breastfeeding.

[PavlovtheCat]

I have enjoyed being able to feed my baby. I have cherished watching him grow knowing I have done it with my own milk.

He is now just over 9 months old. And he wakes 6-7 times a night and will only settle with boob. When I am around he will only settle with me, and as soon as I walk through the door from work he wants boob.

It is impacting on all aspects of my life, but in particular cannot cope any more with the lack of sleep. I have not slept for more than 3 hours at a time since before I was pregnant and now its getting worse not better. I do not want to cope with it any more.

I am ready to stop now. I do not want to be persuaded to continue. I have already done a thread to seek advice on how to stop and was given some lovely advice from fellow MNers, but no-one seems to want to help me stop.

I have no strength to do cold turkey. As he wakes too many times.

Please help me.

Hi I also have decided to give up and after being bitten to many times i decided to express and when i was out and was out a bit longer then expected i had no milk left and DH gave him formula which he was happy to except so then i had to get over the boobs like rocks for 3 days and abit of pain, but im now painfree and have my son drinking from a bottle like a trooper he even holds it! We still cuddle just not connected to my boobs! i have also discovered he is more willing to take food in the day and juice and SLEEPS LONGER!!!!!! put him down 8pm and he woke up at 8.35 am - WHOOOP!!!!!!
so now i can go hairdressers, get nails done and be baby, baby bag and buggy free!!!!!!!
im sure what ever you do will be whats right for YOU and YOUR ermm cub!
Good luck - hope all goes well for you and yours!

When you sort the nights you have the clarity of mind to structure and sort the days too.

You just have to get through the nightmare first couple of nights, but honestly, I kick myself for not having done it sooner as really it is relatively painless and god that sleep feels nice!

mama that is great news! although, any spare time will be taken up by sleeping and working i should think!
butterpie sorry to hear you are struggling too. Its hard isn't it? He has teeth coming but they have been coming for ages, although he has four big bumps on top gum now, perhaps they will all come through at once. DD had 4 within 4 weeks but he is not seemingly in that much distress with it. And congratulations btw!!!

peas i hope so, i hope this works. I just do not know what to do any more, and the nights are so horrible, last night i was awake all night, it seemed and then to top it off, DD woke at 5:50am

Just wanted to say that I feel your pain Pavlov.

Duncan - can you just confirm that your baby took no milk of any kind - and you just used fluid, and calcium rich foods. I am nearly a couple of months on from Pav, and so agree that there is rubbish information about transitioning from bf. I will need to go to work and can not cope with the lack of sleep anymore.

I am concerned that my baby will never take anything apart from bm and I would like to stop.

Also I keep reading that you should not give cows milk before 1.

pinkfizzle cows milk is fine for cooking with, in cheese etc, and tbh, i would say probably fine for drink also now if your LO is 11 months or so, its not too prescriptive I don't think, if your baby is getting a good varied nutritional diet in all other aspects. I think the guidelines are to stop people using cows milk as a baby's main source of milk at say 6 months old.

I'm reading this with interest as thinking of cutting out night feeds (DS is 11 months and feeds 1/2 times at night). We went through a horrid phase of two hourly wakings - it was probably teething. He struggled with the top teeth for ages before they finally popped. His next ones are coming through and are also giving him problems so I've been giving calpol every now and then (not happy giving it too often though!)

I've read a book called the nursing mother's guide to weaning. It's good although makes you feel guilty if you want to stop! It advises doing it gradually to make sure your baby replaces the nutrients from your milk and get DH to help.

I found that when I made sure DS was getting a good balance of protein and carbs in the day, his night feeds dropped right off. If he doesn't eat well in the day, he'll wake up for extra food (boob!) and won't be resettled by DH. he doesn't have cows milk as is intolerant so I'm not giving up BF just yet.

iggly the thing is, he gets the right amount of carbs/protein, as he loves food. rough food guide for the day

6am bm
7:30am ready brekk (ton of) and some crusts of toast, water

9:30am ish offered milk, takes it sometimes, sometimes doesn't so varies between 1oz-9oz and sleep.

10:30am ish - yoghurt, maybe two. or breadsticks and humous

12:30pm ish scrambled egg/tuna mayo and bread plus some mashed veg of some kind, bit of fruit.

2:00pm - bm and sleep

3:30pm - yoghurt/toast/cheese/fruit or similar, offer of milk, maybe another bf to top him up

5pm ish - pasta/rice/potato with fish/chicken/meat and veggies - pretty much what we eat. He has some mushed up and some finger food, at all meals as he won't eat unless he has something in his mits!

6pm ish - Pudding of some kind, either another yoghurt (depending how much he has already had) or something custardy.

6:30-6:45pm bm and bed between 7pm-7:30pm

At 12.5 months I did "don't offer/don't refuse" and thought it would never work because ds loved bf so much.... But it only took a few days. Could you try that?

oh how do I do that star? I don't rush to him when he wakes, I let him wake and fuss a bit until I know he won't settle or until he is standing at the cot wailing as he knows I am there. sometimes he settles himself back off so I know he can do it.

I just picked him up when I normally would - so try to get him to settle himself as you do, but then I would just cuddle him and shhh him until he was calm but not lift my top or offer bf. If he tried to get to my breast I'd try to gently get him to snuggle instead the first time and if he kept going to my breast I'd let him feed.
But I had to be aware not to offer - Or even suggest bf to him... So had to become aware of the things I did that he thought meant I was about to bf, if that makes sense.
I thought yeah right that will never work. But it did. I gave him other milk before bed and throughout day as well- and water at night. All from non spill sippy cups.
Ds is running all over me at moment. Sorry if rambled and unclear

I have tried that I pick him up and put him in a different position to when breastfeeding him, and I never offer it to him, he grabs at my top, or, if I am not wearing one he will fling himself onto it, with a surprisingly good aim and suction! I try to only let him stay on while he is actually feeding as well, and not let him nuzzle, but sometimes I fall asleep with him suckling

Sounds like he's eating loads. Can you then aim to stretch out the gap between feeds - so refuse to feed every two hours and feed every three instead gradually stretch out to four then six etc?

Did you try it for a few days? Just let him have it if he gets it (ds did this, too) but don't "offer" at all... Also don't refuseit. Dh pointed out some simple things that I was doing to "offer" and I had been totally unaware that I was doing it. Little body language things... It doesn't work for everyone, but I was super sceptic and then after a few days he'd just take the sippy cup. We also gave him oatmilk (oatly with added calcium) for a little while in transition because it's sweeter than cows milk and closer to the taste and texture of breastmilk. He really liked it.

Oh I feel your pain!! I'm currently in a similar dilema. Really wanting to stop bf, but the guilt and finding it hard to really stop. My ds is 14m old, allergic to cow's dairy and I'm 21 wk's pregnant. I'm in agony bf and I'm getting very irritable/angry towards ds We had a similar thing happen to you when he was 9/10m, I was exhausted and he fed all night. We moved him into his own room and it worked WONDERS...soon after he was sleeping 7.30-5.30, had a feed at 5.30, then back to sleep til 7ish. This has gradually lengthened and now he's asleep 7-7 really. So get you dh to get a move on

Ds has also NEVER taken a bottle, and will only drink water from a cup, so also worries me. But I'm thinking if I concentrate on his diet a lot more he should be ok? I'm going to do the no offer no refuse and hope that he's too distracted by older brother to ask

Good luck.

For us, it was really important to offer the cup of oatmilk around the same time and have it in my hand for him to have as he wanted while I cuddled him. It was in a nonspill sip cup so he had to suck to get it out (one with a soft part that they suck on... can't think of name of that part at the moment ). They have them in tesco/sains/waitrose - stage 1 transition or whatever, so it's soft/rubbery and they have to suck to get the milk out, but it's not a bottle (ds hated bottles... as did I!) and easy to transition to a more "normal" sippy cup after that.

It does take a few days. At first I seriously thought it wasn't going to work, but kept at it and it did. I was in tears the 3rd night when he didn't even try for a feed, but happy at the same time iyswim :( :)

tonight. tonight is the night i sleep in another room. it didn't happen last night as we got home too late to sort the bed out (sofa bed not made up) and had to sort DD out for school today. So have tidied up the bedroom and made the bed and DD is very excited so did not sleep too quickly.

DH is now having cold feet.

wish me long sleep

oh dear it has started already...he has woken, DH is with him and he is so so so distressed he has a tooth coming through i am sure of it...not sure if I should just go in...

oh god, this is going to be so hard, it is only 8:50pm!

ok he went from being seriously pissed off to quiet. 5 mins after the silence, probably about 15 mins after he woke up and DH appeared.

I asked him what he did.

'i cuddled him. And i told him you were not coming back in' so he is clearly a very clever 9 month old, understanding his dad !

Lets see how long I have now. I might nip up to bed for an hour now while I can...

Ear Plugs and lots of resolve! You can do it, we did cold turkey for night feeds. It was really really hard, but really really worth it as my (then) 10m DS was feeding 7-9 times a night. I was getting piss all sleep. you need to get through this for your sanity.

Don't go in, trust your DH to handle it. be on stand by with a big glass of wine for him when he comes down.

Remember your LO is safe and knows someone is there comforting them.

Stay on task with this and give it at least 4nights as this seems to be the maximum number of nights from a straw poll of my mates.

Thinking of you!

4 nights? DH is at one, he will not let me stay out of the room for 4 nights. I personally would be a happier person as I am so so desperately tired.

He just won't go for that. He is only doing this one night under sufference. How on earth can I convince him to do this for even one more night?

He is almost now saying we did not agree to this? !

I think, we shall do tonight, and maybe he will realise himself we need to do this for more nights. One night at a time...

Well, hey given the amount of shit nights sleep you have had over the past few months, maybe your DH needs to consider that although what he is doing is intense and unpleasant, he kind of needs to suck it up

although i fear if you are not on the same page, and these kind of things need both of you backing each other up, then it will fall apart.but you have the right attitude, one night at a time.

you might get lucky, and just one night might do it

Hi all -
Light at the end of the long, sleep depraved crying , screaming tunnel!
I thought that giving up would be impossible due to him not NOT wanting to take any bottle not for juice or milk!!!!BM or FM.
but now a week over he is doing well drinking and holding his bottle 4/5oz and is not waking up due to him being full down at 8.30pm and wakes up 8am - whoop!

I went cold turkey and stayed away for 1 full day only trust me when they get hungry they will take the bottle. tough love i call it but if you want to stop the cycle it has to start somewhere, please dont feel guilty we r NOT hurting our children and doing what works for all to be happy, trust me you'll have years of putting your children first!!!!! i have 5 oldest 16 and shes demanding new clothes for college!!!!! yeh right!

you have to wake and say today is the day!!!!!! and start and dont stop help from partners is KEY for this to work!

Good luck all.

I seem to remember the advice is to drop one breast feed a week, replacing it with a bottle feed.

Bottle-feeding is actually a very nice cuddling position, which seemed cuddlier than breast-feeding, so that was one of the sweeteners in this transition!

The other "sweetener" which persuaded my DS to start guzzling huge quantities of growing up milk (and later cow's milk) is that the bottle has so much faster letdown than bf! Try to make sure you have the fastest-flowing teat for older babies, as this really did make a difference to us in getting DS onto the bottle in the first place.

So from cow's milk (several times a bloody night), we managed to eventually cut down by changing from a bottle with teat to a spout.He was bloody unhappy about it, and there was a LOT of screaming (some from me), but eventually he tired himself out and fell asleep. I felt a bit sorry for him, but only a bit, as he could have had the milk if he had wanted it, but he had to have it in the new way.

Eventually, we managed to get him onto drinking milk from an open cup of milk with lunch and supper (and breakfast, if you're not doing cereal/yogurt). (Obviously, this step has to be prepared for in parallel, as drinking from an open cup is a tricky thing to master! I found the amadeus 360degree cups very good for teaching him what to do).

I hope that's a practical and detailed enough narrative to give you some ideas. Do CAT if you want any clarification.

best of luck!