bf 17 month old, is there an end in sight? what should I expect?

[greenlegs]

Apologies, this must have been done before but interested in hearing about toddlers stopping breast feeding.

DS1 is 17 months old and happily breastfeeds on demand still. He goes fine without it for large parts of the day, but if I'm around likes to latch on quite regularly. We co sleep and feeds a lot at night. He's recently started nursery and wasn't interested really in having a bottle of expressed milk so we stopped trying. He only does short days anyway 3 days a week. He likes food and eats plenty of solids.

I'm aware that family and friends are expecting me to stop soon, but I don't feel inclined to force him to stop, especially while he's just getting used to me not being around at nursery and he seems to find it so comforting.

I'm expecting that it will come to a natural end eventually, but not sure when that's likely to be or how it will happen. Interested to hear others' experiences.

Also, what happened to your body when you stopped breastfeeding after a long time? Should I expect big changes?

Dc4 stopped feeding at 18 months. He had a stomach bug and after being vomited on, I stopped offering for a day, then he wasn't interested when I did offer. No obvious changes except raging PMT as periods finally started again.
I had tried to stop around 13-14 months - or at least night wean- but he was having none of it.

thanks porkchop, my periods started at 14 months for some reason, I think he was going through a phase of sleeping at night.

was there much weight gain or loss, or emotional turmoil?

anyone else care to share experiences of self weaning toddlers? maybe I'm looking in the wrong place but I haven't found much

Hi greenlegs - I'm interested in this too as I'm still feeding DD at 18 months and have pretty much decided that I'm going to let her self-wean. I love our bf-ing relationship, the only thing that's a problem is that no one else can ever put her to bed as she still feeds to sleep. I guess I'm hoping that at some point she will be happy with a story and a cuddle but that point seems very far away at the moment!!

My periods came back at 13 months but this didn't change anything bf-wise.

Like your DS, my DD is happy to go without bf when I'm at work. It's just night-time that she seems to really rely on it.

Never imagined I'd be bf-ing a walking, talking little person!

How Weaning Happens by LLL is supposed to be really good - lots and lots of case studies, including child-led weaning. (I've not read it myself yet.)

There are threads on the archive here - if you flick through and look for titles on 'extended feeding' you may find them.

IIRC it's common to feel depression / hormonal when you stop feeding, but I don't know if feeding for a long time makes any difference to this. In theory, child-led weaning would usually mean you stop more gradually so the effects would be more gradual, I'd imagine.

One anthropologist reckons that 'true' self-weaning is likely to happen between 2.5 and 7 years, with many children weaning at around 3 or 4.

My own opinion is to ignore everyone else and keep going as long as you're happy with it. I feed my 22 m.o. who feeds quite a lot, but any attempt to stop him would be far more traumatic (for all of us!) than carrying on.

Mothering Your Nursing Toddler is also well worth a read IMO - she discusses different weaning techniques, as well as the joys & challenges of nursing toddlers at ages 1, 2, 3 and 4+.

Hi

I bfed my DS until he was about 23 months. At different points I thought about weaning (from 6 months when I assumed everyone did!) and it never seemed the right time so I just kept going but in the end I did want to stop but just couldn't imagine not feeding him to sleep or being able to comfort him. I also liked that I was able to bf him through big changes like me going back to work, him starting nursery etc. He never took a bottle. I read a couple of books along the way - think LLL one was one of those and they helped to make me feel more "normal".

Anyway, he had been particularly restless at night and we were both having disturbed sleep in spite of (or maybe because of) co-sleeping and feeding so one night, when he was in the bath, I explained that he wasn't going to have milk from me anymore and we both waved goodbye to "tea night night" (don't ask!). He was very unsettled that night but I just reassured him and we got through it. He never asked again, never bothered and doesn't even appear to remember that period of his life which is sooooooo strange since it seemed like such a big deal and a big part of his early life. I went very slim with bfeeding and I have slowly regained weight back to my normal weight (DS is nearly 4 now). I had one very painful period then that settled down. I didn't miss it because I felt ready and felt quite relieved not to be so essential to bedtimes (even though I still don't like to miss a bedtime it is nice to have the option!).

So I know that is a very personal story and probably not much use to you but I just wanted to say that it happens when you are ready to move on. I think if you are emotionally ready then, even if they put up more of a fight than my DS, you can cope and find a way. But while you are happy - enjoy!

I also highly recommend "Mothering your Nursing Toddler". It gives you loads of info about why term nursing is so beneficial and can answer loads of questions for you.

Also, your local LLL toddler group is great for support.

I also like "Breastfeeding Older Children" -another super book.

There's a term BFin thread on here, too :) Do jump in :)

There's loads and loads of term Bfers. It's just that you see people feeding older children less often than infants (and let's face it, you don't see people feeding infants often enough :( )

LLL helpline is fab BTW too.

17 months is tiny to those of us who BF walking, talking, reading and knowing their tables better than I ever will junior school children
I know several people who feed to about 5, DD2 was just a law unto herself and I've poster at length about her before.
Just go with the flow one day next week, next month next year it will feel right to stop.
As for the long term effects, my boobs are the same miserable B cup they've always been, perhaps a little bigger and slightly saggier, but I think that's being the wrong side of 40 not DDs work. I saggier all over

Thanks for the stories and info - I've been busy on amazon and will look for this long term feeding thread. Hats off to you long termers. I've met very few. I know only one 3 year old boy who still breastfeeds. And a girl who had an agreement with her mum that they'd stop when she had her second birthday. I do really hope to let DS decide when he's done, have to say I envisage that being before he starts school!

I'm on the wrong side of 40 too which means I'm too old to really care much about what people think. Handy when DS fancies a feed on a london bus!

Partly you don't see extended BF in public because people, wrongly, are , but I mainly didn't feed DD2 in public much after she was 18 months old because she got too tall. You get to needing an empty seat next to you for the legs and the sofa or lying in bed just becomes so much easier.

I think it's probably more common than you realise. e.g. I sometimes feel a bit that I'm the only person in our (large) church who bf's their child in the service - not even mums of tiny babies do that. My DS is 22 m.o. and looks about age 3.

But then I did a quick calculation and worked out that at least 4 out of the 10 children aged 1-2 are bf, quite possibly more. You just don't see the others.

I hardly ever feed my DS in public now (though he's only 15 months) as he only has 2-3 feeds a day and they tend to be when he's winding down for sleep in his room. The only time I tend to do it now is if I'm in a cafe, sick of chasing after him and want to sit down for 10 minutes and drink my tea! I agree that it probably is more common than you think. Among my circle of (middle class) mums, perhaps 2/3 BF to around 9 months and maybe 1/3 carried on/are carrying on till two or thereabouts.

This morning DS woke up at 6.20 and he and I just dozed in bed and he fed till about 7.10am! Bliss.