Coming up to baby's first birthday so what to do now!

[milkmummy1]

Hello
Just after a bit of advice really for mums who have weaned babies off BF.
DD will be one next week and I plan to stop BF which I have done exclusively (alongside BLW from 6 months). I have absolutely loved the experience and am so proud of what ive done for her but for lots of reasons I feel now is a good time to move her onto cows milk.
The thing is, she still has quite a lot of feeds in the day here and there, well its not just morning and night like lots of babies at this age are. In fact she now has a habbit of crawling across the room, pulling down my top, then my bra and helping herself to a drink!! (My mother and inlaw think thats disgraceful BTW that i let her do that but i think its hilairious)
Anyway do I gradually cut down feeds and how does she learn that shes not having it anymore?! I dont want to distress her so i guess i just cut it out slowly? i was thinking of starting with offering her a bottle with cows milk but I know at 1 they are supposed to just have a beaker, which I dont think will be as comforting for her.
Any advice appreciated.

Hi milkmummy1, I would gradually cut down as if you are still feeding quite a bit you could suffer from engorgement and possibly blocked ducts if you went cold turkey. It is a good idea to have lots of distraction ideas on hand, like being out and about at normal bf times if you usually bf at home, and interesting snacks if she likes her food. Another tactic is to say we'll have a feed after such and such as quite often they may forget that they want one.
Good luck.

Hi
I cut out the day feeds at around 9months by offering food and water around the time a milk feed (that I wanted to drop) was due, and that seemed to do the trick - so he was having brekkie, lunch and dinner with mid-AM and mid-PM snacks.

Then as he got bigger he was able to cut out the snacks and just have the meals in the day. With the very occasional day time feed eg in case of illness.

Did it gradually over a few weeks and it worked out ok.