Ending breastfeeding

[Jodieb]

My daughter is nearly 11 months old and i'd like to stop breastfeeding in the next month or so. I was hoping to do it very gradually and a couple of months back thought i was well on the way to this, switching her two main feeds of the day to a bottle. But although she's been fine with this and now gets only a little bit of milk from me (I don't have much left anyway), she's really attached to breastfeeding for comfort, specially at bedtime and early morning and becomes inconsolably distressed if i try to refuse her. I'm still hoping that she'll decide one day she's had enough but I'm beginning to doubt this and wonder if I will have to get tough. I feel this would be really hard for both of us so would love to hear any tips for a trauma free ending!

I would also welcome help on giving up breast feeding - from the mum's point of view. My 8 month old son is happy with bottles but when I did try to stop a couple of weeks ago my breasts were agony so I started again! He just has breast milk once or twice a day but how do I manage to reduce my supply comfortably? Thanks in advance.

When I stopped breastfeeding I just kept the night-time feed going for a while longer. When my breasts got painful I expressed just enough off to stop them hurting and they eventually stopped producing so much. Daft as it sounds I was really upset when I stopped that final feed even though ds couldn't care less as long as he got his milk from whatever source! At that night-time feed I gave him a bottle with some in and then topped him up with breast milk so gradually he took less and less breast milk and I stopped producing so much.

I stopped feeding my dd at 12 months and I too had made it a very slow process. I basically went with what my daughter wanted and she dropped down to two feeds a day, one in the early hours of the morning and one at night. However it wasn't the bedtime feed that was the last to go and she got into the routine of settling herself with an anywayup cup of water (never used bottles) at night from around 10 months. Eventually she started sleeping for longer in the mornings and just decided she wanted her breakfast straight away rather than a feed. I stopped for a couple of days and then started again before final realising she was happy without it. I was really upset that it was all over but I was happy with the knowledge she had chosen to do this herself. Jodieb, I would say that if you can, then hang on until she decides to do it herself, unless you really want to finish. I must admit that I began thinking that I wanted to stop around a year anyway, but having the decision made for me was enough for me to think how I would encourage no. 2(if there is one) to carry on for longer as I miss it so much...

On a slightly different tack, I am beginning to panic over trying to get my 9 week old daughter to take a bottle. I gave her a bottle of expressed milk at 3 weeks and she took it without a problem. We tried again at 6 weeks and since then have tried on a daily basis without success. She just rolls it around in her mouth and clearly doesn't know what to do with it. We have tried feeding her from a cup which also has had limited success. In any case, I am keen to get her on to bottles as when I go back to work I'm not sure our Nanny will necessarily always have the time to cup feed her given the demands of our toddler. Any suggestions would be gratefully appreciated.

Bells, you could try the Playtex system which saved our bacon. The teats do look very like a woman's nipple/areola in profile, which I regret led to some lewd comments from other mothers. They were the only ones our son would take. They are great to use with a breast pump as they use a disposable bag system which is slightly wider than the Avent supplies.
You can get them in independent pharmacies and somewhere (at home I think) I have the details of the importer's website. Let me know if you are interested and I will try and find it.

Thanks a lot Marina - that sounds just the ticket. If your have the details somehwhere handy that would be great - otherwise don't worry as I will be only too happy to investigate mysellf.

Bells2, I had the same problem 3 weeks ago when DD had to start nursery... she had taken the occasional bottle and the 2 days before nursery started, we tested her and she refused....
DH suggested that I express 1 oz the next morning and he would give her the bottle - she would be angry. She refused for 3 minutes and then happily took it. The next bottlefeed was again a bit difficult for the first 2 minutes but since then we are home free. SHe has 2 bottles a day of expressed milk.
I use continental bottles so I can't recommend them because they are probably not available in the UK.

Bells2, also try NUK, similarly shaped like a 'real' nipple. You can order them online from pharmacy2u - I would recommend you get the latex nipple as it's really soft and maleable like a human nipple.

Message withdrawn

I agree totally Bloss and could kick myself for letting the situation develop. Our son was so good at guzzling bottles from 3 weeks that when our daughter happily took it at 3 weeks, I got complacent. My health visitor explicitly told me not to express for 3 months!. Anyway thanks for the suggestions everyone and I shall try and get some of these alternative teats today .

Bells, not sure I made my point clearly (just re-read my post)... what about your husband giving a bottle FIRST thing in the morning... she'll be very hungry and won't resist long.

It is often pointless for mother to be 'training' her baby to take a bottle - the baby resists, and you have a fight on your hands. Then the baby remembers the bad experience....and you have to leave it for a while so she forgets. Also, trying the bottle when the baby is hungry can be counter-productive, too. Humans do not learn new skills very well when hungry!! Instead, someone other than the mum can try, when the baby is not hungry, but awake and alert and happy...yes, in the bouncy chair, so it's a totally different experience to the breast.

There is no point in being rigid about these things either - saying 'don't express till 3 months' is as bad as saying 'you must express from day 2' in my book. The facts are these - that expressing isn't all that easy for everyone, and if you don't have to do it in the early days and weeks, then you might find trying to find time to do it is a real chore. It can be safely left until you and your baby feel it's convenient. Then when it comes to offering the bottle, have someone else offer it with care and patience....people have different experiences, and it is wrong to say that just because some people have a job getting the baby to take it later on, everyone should be told to do it in the first week. I speak to many mothers at all stages, and many of them have no problems offering the bottle as late as three, four or five months...or if they have problems, they ovecome them. After that, you might as well try a cup, and that's certainly the case at 6 months, especially if the baby is being breastfed as well, unless you especially want the baby to have a bottle

All that is nice Tiktok but my girlfriend went back to work and her son refused bottle and cup from everyone, they ended up giving him milk from a spoon.... at 5 months old (so he took very little milk but luckily was still breastfed mornings and evenings) and that wasn't the easiest and the best of experience.
I think we are sharing our experience and knowledge (so are you) with Bells. It is up to her based on her needs to decide how she wants to resolve / tackle this issue.

Starting them on bottles early isn't a fail-safe plan. I gave a bottle of EBM to ds every other evening from 2 weeks of age on - expressly because friends of mine had had problems with their breastfed babes taking bottles. He was fine till he was 10 weeks old then he just refused the bottle.
He was breastfeeding every 2 hours day and night at the time and I was desperate for a break and some sleep. After trying different teats/bottles/cups and other people offering the bottle he still refused, so every afternoon, when he was relaxed and not starving I offered him the bottle and he rolled it around in his mouth as if he had forgotten how to suck and then if I didn't remove it after a couple of minutes he tried full volume crying.
Magically, at 16 weeks (after 6 weeks of refusal), he got the hint and after a small protest he drank. He's never been happy to see a bottle (unlike the enthusiasm with which he greets a boob), but he will take them now.
All I can suggest is to persevere!

I take your point Tiktok about not being too rigid but apart from it being a chore, I don't really see what harm expressing does in the early weeks. Also take on borad dm2's comments but don't you think that on balance if a baby has had a bottle early and regularly that chances are they be more likely to continue to take it?. Pupuce, thanks for your advice - we will give the morning thing a go tomorrow.

Isn't the not expressing in the early weeks thing more relevant to first time breastfeeders? (I mean the mum, not the baby of course!) I found the milk supply got more reliable with each succeeding baby.

No harm at all, bells2 - didn't suggest there was any! Mothers can express whenever they like, it's up to them! My only point is that sometimes mothers are put under pressure to express for a bottle because of other people's experiences (when the baby refuses a bottle later on)...and we see here that other people's experiences vary so much you cannot predict what an indivdual baby will do! They can find expressing a chore, and unproductive, and not easy....and they don't have to do it unless they want to. I'm all for flexibility : )

Bells2 - sorry - not trying to be aggressive, just thought that you might like to stop 'kicking yourself' because even if you had given her a bottle every day she might still have suddenly refused it.
I do think that a baby who is offered a bottle every day from early on is more likely to take it than one who hasn't, I was just trying to say that it doesn't always work.
Good luck with it - hope she takes it soon. D.

Bells, the main mail-order importer of Playtex did have a website but it appears to have gone "phut". I have some unopened packs of teats plus spare bottles and inserts, let me know if you'd like them.

Marina, if Bells doesn't want them, I'd love to buy the inserts from you.

To add something to the conversation: my first had many bottles of formula the first few weeks while I was trying to establish breastfeeding. He had a problem with sucking hard enough at first as his throat had been sucked out and was quite sore. (He ended up being breastfed for 2 years, so we did get the hang of it after a while.) The second is taking a bottle about once a week. I had planned for it to be formula, but he started refusing that, so now it's expressed breastmilk. I haven't got any advice. With my first I thought I didn't know the right thing to do, with this one I know I don't know the right thing to do and am beginning to doubt that there even is one.

Sure JJ, form an orderly queue.
Does this mean they are even harder to get hold of in the UK than they were a year ago, though? I might have to resort to Elaine-style hoarding tactics (Seinfeld and the contraceptive sponge incident) and get really nasty about parting with my last packs...by the time no 2 makes an appearance I expect I'll be able to clone my breasts and leave a spare set at home with the baby.

LOL Marina - breast cloning - what an idea!

Crumbs Tiktok and Dm2 - hope I didn't give the impression I thought your posts were agressive!!. Just that having had a number of friends who never expressed until they were due to imminently return to work and then faced babies that were absolutely adamant in their refusal of a bottle, I have never been able to see the downside of expressing early and regularly. I find it odd that most HV's seem to be so against expressing even for subsequent babies. Certainly agree that it isn't foolproof though.

Marina I would love the bits but ONLY if you don't need them (what about for No 2?). Perhaps we could discuss a part exchange on 2 sets of unopened pregnancy tests I have.....

So you're not planning on using the unopened pregnancy tests then Bells??