My (nearly) 1 yr old Ds has turned into a boob monster, need some advice please

[SleepDeprivedGrumpyBum]

I posted recently about wanting to give up breastfeeding my ds aound about the year mark (I had wanted to give up earlier than that but never successfully got him have any milk from anything other than me) and i was given some great advice along the lines of "don't offer, don't refuse" as a gentle way of weaning ds off the breast.

The problem is he's gone completely in the other direction and is now asking for more feeds than he has done in months. it's starting to affect out relationship as at the moment he wont sit on my knee or give me a cuddle without pulling desperately at my top and getting very upset if i don't let him feed. Distraction works to a degree but not for very long.

Does anyone else have any experience of this? Is it just developmental and he's using it for reassurance? He's just started walking which must be a massive thing for him, but other than that he's not had any upheaval. I've been back at work a few months now and there's never been any problems with him being at his nanny's, in fact he adores it over there.

He eats very well, loves his food so i don't think he's genuinely hungry. Although i suppose walking will increase his appetite so maybe i should try and up his food intake a bit?

As you can probably tell i'm just very unsure about what to do to resolve our BF'ing issue. I definately don't want to be a long term BF'er. No offence meant to anyone reading this that has dont extended BF'ing, it's just really not for me as i've been fed up with BF'ing since about the 6month mark.

My DD did this around the time of her 1st birthday, and I wasn't doing "don't offer, don't refuse." She's now 14 months and can go all day without a BF if kept busy by others, but when she's getting tired or upset or bored and I'm there, she makes it very clear she wants to BF. She's at nursery 1.5 days and has settled in brilliantly, and doesn't get upset or want milk when she's spent a few hours with her Dad or Grandparents without me around. Like your DS, I think they associate us with BF so when we're there they don't understand why they can't have some BM if they're upset / bored / hungry / tired, etc.

On an average day with DD, she'll demand a BF (climbing onto me, prodding boob repeatedly then trying to get in my top if I'm not responding!) about six times, but I try to only BF her four times: first thing in the morning, late morning before her nap, late afternoon and then bedtime. If she asks at other times it is normally because she's getting hungry or bored so I offer a snack and we'll change activity. I've found that now she's walking she is hungrier in the mornings than before so I try to offer her a snack before she'd normally ask for a BF and that usually stops her from asking.

I've tried to get DD to have cows milk during the day but so far she's not been keen. She is fascinated by me drinking cups of tea though so I've recently tried to offer her milk in a beaker and we've had a little more success with that, although I think it is probably the novelty value more than anything else. Have you tried to give your DS cows milk?

I'm also getting fed up with BF. Actually, it is more accurate to say that I'm fed up with, seemingly, being the only one who can settle DD to sleep at night (don't feed to sleep but has BF before bed) and being the one that has to get up with her at 6am every morning. Not to mention the top-pulling and whining if I dare to try to meet a friend for a quick coffee - I am not comfortable feeding my very wriggly, very nosy 14 month old in public. I'm contemplating getting DH to take a few days off work so he can help to wean her off the daytime feeds at least (I'd be happy to continue one feed a day.) I think if he was around, initially I'd go out for a day and let him offer cows milk and snacks instead. I could then stay with DH and DD but make a sharp exit when it seems like she's about to ask for a BF so he can offer cows milk, a cuddle and a snack instead. When she's taking cows milk reliably then I can stay with her at milk time and give her a cuddle while she has cows milk. The main problem with this is getting DH to take time off though!

Sorry, very long post and no advice for you. Just wanted you to know that you're not on your own!

Thanks for the response, I feel like we're both in exactly the same boat (especially re the night thing, DS's sleep is genuinely awful, longest he's ever slept is 5 hours and he's not done that since january)

The interesting thing with DS is when he's at his nanny's and she's occassionally had to do bedtime he will have some formula or cows milk from her in one of those bottles that splits in two so he can hold it himself IYKWIM, but as soon as he's at home he wont entertain the idea, even if DP does bedtime because i'm still at work (i work untill 11pm 2 nights a week) he wont have milk from dp, mainly becuase i think he knows i'll be home at some point and will feed him - i have to as my boobs feel like they'll explode after a 9 hour shift.

I've tried using a doidy cup for milk and not using it for anything else, because one of the things i've noticed is ds will happily guzzle water from his sippy cup but when i tried milk he wasn't best pleased and i think it's because it wasn't what he was expecting.

I'm also not happy feeding in public anymore as like yourself i have a very nosy ds, who is also very big for his age (highest percentile for everything on those growth chart thingys the HVs use) I know it shouldn't bother me, but because ds looks bigger, ergo older than he is i'm put off feeding him in public as i think people will imagine i'm still feeding a 2 year old

sorry for the long reply, but its nice to know i'm not alone