10 weeks to wean DS 12mth fully from the breast - how?

[beanlet]

I have to go abroad for 3 weeks in early October, and can't take my son with me. Which means I have about 10 weeks in which I need to wean him fully from the breast. (Quite apart from the effect on him, poor little chap, I'm going to India and I don't particularly want to develop an abscess or mastitis while I'm there thank you very much.)

DS is currently a night-time boob fiend; he's pretty desultory during the day, but he still has full feeds in the morning and evening and is like a starving animal overnight (it's not mummy dummy, it's full on feeding). I've been too exhausted to stand his piteous (loud) wailing when I try to withhold an overnight feed -- but it's crunch time now.

He's on three meals a day and snacks in between; he will drink juice and in the past has been willing to drink formula, but he's not keen on water or cows milk.

Help?! How do I do it?

(I know I should probably post this in weaning, but it seems to be full of carrot sticks and purees and toddlers who won't eat vegetables.)

Maybe night wean first and then tackle the day time?

I started weaning ds off day time breastfeeds at the beginning of June, took about a month for him to drink any cow's milk in a cup at all, and now he has two 2oz cups a day - so it was quite a slow process. He only had 2 feeds during the day though, mid-morning and mid-afternoon.

I have very recently (like 10days ago) completely weaned ds off the boob. He is 11m and refused every formula I have tried him on. He was having a bfeed before bed and then one early morning (5am) and then another around 6.30/7am .

We dropped the bedtime one first. This made most sense because we have dinner quite late so he wasn't really that bothered. DH put him to bed with cows milk in a bottle for 3 nights, the on the 4th night I took him and he wanted the bottle, not me.

Then I noticed that at the second morning feed he wasn't actually feeding so I stopped that and just took him straight down for breakfast.

Within about a week he started getting frustrated when bfing as I think he had then got so used to how much quicker the bottle was so we switched to a bottle at first wake up with no problems at all.

Hth, good luck :)

Should I try feeding him more food during the day? He's still having 5-6 feeds a day (mostly overnight -- 11pm, 2am-ish, 5am-ish, 7am and usually midday and about 4pm) and he doesn't seem to be a big eater (though he does like everything we feed him). He's 50th percentile for weight so there's no problems on that front.

Is he feeding to sleep? This can mean they can't self-settle without boob and was our problem.

Changing routines associated with the feed can make it easier. I gradually stopped Ds falling asleep on the breast and then had DH take over the bedtime routine, so when the bedtime feed went, DS didn't really notice.
If there's something he associates with particular daytime feeds, ie. a chair, being in the house, even you just sittng down, you can change these, one at a time and it should be easier to thereby drop the feeds.

As well as looking at night-time weaning, if I was you I'd try and lose the 7am feed first, reduce it in length to start with, and get more breakfast into him.

Have you tried different cup styles for the water?

No, not feeding to sleep - I've never let him. When he wakes up in the night he stands up in his cot and wails, I feed him, he guzzles furiously, and when he's done he throws himself off with a loud popping sound, arms fully outstretched, and I put him back in his cot.

It's actually rather sweet. But definitely not sleepy!

More breakfast with a cup of warm cows milk sounds like maybe a good idea.

It is a vicious circle isn't it, not big on food because having so much milk, drinking more milk because not eating much food.

Ds eats a lot, but I think that is because he sits at the table with us all and had to sit there as long as his sister is still eating, so he eats more iyswim?

Oh beanlet, that sounds so cute.

Reducing the length of feeds gradually might help. Could you pop him off just before you think he's going to himself? Like, just as he might anyway, so he won't get too annoyed. Then you can shorten the length of feed gradually til he realises it's not worth waking up for?

Increasing amount of food in the day might help. More at snack time if he won't eat more at meals. Do you give him supper before bedtime?

Thanks for all these helpful suggestions everyone - I'm going to try some and see how we go!