A planned approach to stopping BFing?

[MrsMcJnr]

DD is 18m. I want to stop BFing now for many reasons and feel that it is in her and my best interests to stop but I don't know how. She has never had a bottle, dummy or pacifier of any sort. She is not a good sleeper and rarely sleeps through the night and is very volatile. I also have a DS of 2yrs10m but he self-weaned at 8m so I have no experience of this, any ideas?

Are you feeding her to sleep? If yes, is it for every nap, at bedtime, when she wakes in the night? And feeding in the daytime when she is awake too?

If yes then probably you need to work on disassociating boob from sleeping i.e. carry on feeding in the day and get a good bedtime routine going so that she learns to put herself to sleep at bedtime, then work on night time waking, finally nap time.

Then cut down "awake" breastfeeds and replace with drinks from cups.

I found this book very helpful for getting a bedtime routine that didn't include a breastfeed last thing going, but it depends what your philosophy is - this is controlled crying but quite a gentle version where you can go in to comfort them as much as you / they like. A lot of people like the no cry sleep solution if you don't want to do controlled crying.

HTH