when did your BF toddler self-wean?

[blackcurrants]

DS is 18 months and feeds first thing in the morning and at his bedtime. When he started walking at 13 months he significantly lost interest for a month or two, while his feet never stopped moving, but recently he has seemed keener than ever. It is so easy to feed him that I'm not in a rush to.stop, but qt the same time would like to imagine this gently winding down, oh, this year maybe? his growing enthusiasm is kind of making my heart sink! I want to try for #2 this summer and do not relish the idea of BFing while pregnant. I was sooo sore when pg!

I love this thread!! :o

Just catching up with this thread, how lovely! .

People keep asking me now when I'm planning to stop BFing - I always thought I would reconsider at 18 months and aim to stop by about 2 years. It is just so useful though! DS feeds 2-3 times a day and DH can put him to bed fine if I'm not there (though he won't sleep through the night if this is the case). I am planning to TTC again later in the year and am not too keen on BFing while PG, but we'll see. I would also quite like to have a weekend away with DH without DS before getting PG with no. 2, but I don't think this is a good enough reason to wean really.

I'm lucky in that my family probably would have thought it was weird to BF a toddler, but my uncle and his partner have a 5 year old who was BF to almost 3yo, so my family have all learnt about extended BF from that!

You guys might be able to advise about his naps. At the moment he will nap in the car seat or pushchair, and at nursery they manage to get him to sleep. Trouble is I can't get him to nap at home except by feeding him to sleep. That wouldn't be a problem if it wasn't for the fact that it has become very hard to transfer him to his cot without him waking up - and if he does wake then since he's had five minutes' sleep that's it, he won't go back down, that's his nap for the day (and he gets very grumpy later on). Today he was up at 6am, had a busy morning, I gave him lunch at 11.50 and put him in his cot at 12.10, shattered. He was still awake at 1.10 so at that point I fed him to sleep, got him into the cot where we had to wake him at 3.30. He won't/doesn't need to feed to sleep at night. I just don't get it and don't know what we can do.

I appreciate this is probably one for the sleep boards, but thought people who have BF toddlers might be able to help

I'm not sure I can help you, Woodlands, though it's very nice to see you here! We have a single mattress on the floor in DS's room, near to the cot and against the wall (co-sleeping guidelines all safely followed) and he naps on that after nursing to sleep when I am in the house, in his cot after a bit of shshing from DH if I'm not there.
He won't sleep for more than 20 minutes in his pushchair or carseat though, alas for us. One nap a day, lying down, for up to 2 hours - in the middle of the day. It makes a day out blommin' impossible! :)

Just wanted to add - my DD self weaned at 21 months, but I was 20 weeks pregnant with twins so had mixed emotions about it. Relief and heartbreak.

She did do this thing though where at 15 months it looked like she wasn't very interested, just having a suck here and there, then suddenly at 18 months it was like I was nursing a 6 month old again. She wanted it ALL THE TIME. After about a month it settled back to morning and evening and then just morning and then nothing. And I did offer it to her (lots ) so wasn't withholding, but she would just look at me like I was bonkers.

I can't remember who was asking, but we managed to separate the night feed/bed association by a very gradual gentle process. One day we'd read a story after a feed, even if she was falling asleep, two days later we'd change into her pjs and read a story after the feed, bit later we'd do teeth, pjs and book and then eventually I'd feed her before she went up to bed and DH would take over and that was that. From that point onwards she never woke at night or had issues going down.

Some people have said she may want to start back again when she sees the new babies having a go, then we'll have to figure out how to feed 3 children!!!!

That's interesting rednellie. Sounds like I should expect the feeding to ramp up again soon! I believe your supply drops off at about that stage in pregnancy which could be why your DD stopped feeding. Good luck with the twins!

That sounds really tough blackcurrants. We have just got a new pushchair (baby city mini jogger) and DS naps in it soooo much better than he did in the old maclaren stroller we had, when it was a massive struggle to get him to sleep and he would only sleep for 30 mins tops. The last two Saturdays we have gone for a walk, DS has fallen asleep in the pushchair and we've gone to the pub and sat and read the papers with a pint while he naps. Bliss!

Sorry, that wasn't meant to sound as smug as it came out - I meant that it depended on the pushchair in our case and he sleeps far better in the new one!

rednellie That is good to hear that crazy feeding didn't last forever. Think he has been like this for about 2 weeks atleast.

Woodlands Don't worry about sounding smug, you have to enjoy these things! Ds and I don't get up til about 9am . Nights are awful but its a big improvement on awful night and getting up at 6am. We also have mattress on the floor but I usually have to sling him for a nap. I have tried putting him on the sofa (cushions on floor just in case) but he wakes more easily that way and then I can't get him back to sleep, so its easier to keep him in the sling. Seems much easier to transfer him at night than for naps - different type of sleep I guess.

not smug at all! We wonder sometimes if we had a plusher chair, if he'd have slept for longer ... you certainly have to revel in those moments (an uninterrupted pub lunch. what bliss!) while you can. :)

Try closer to two years. Mine was insatiable at 18 mos. By two she was old enough for us to agree that we would read lots of stories instead of bedtime milk, because mummy could not make milk any more ( I was about to start IVF). I dreaded months of tantrums but she just got on with life in its new phase.

well that's reassuring, kite - I don't especially want to stop at the moment, but I worry that the longer I feed him the harder it will be to wean him (sounds daft, I know) because I hate the idea of trying to wean him during the terrible twos, or whatever.

He has a cold right now, isn't eating much and is generally feeling under the weather. I think that could be contributing to wanting to feed a bit more, and it's nice to be able to feed him something when he's barely eating any solids... poor boy!

some things suggested to me - and again i wd wait till about two - was timing weaning with some other BIG change, even if it is a three day holiday, or just setting a date with your child, which is how we got out little girl into her own bed a year later, and stick to it. So that life moves to a new place or phase and it is not just that you are taking your boobs away, which probably just seems mean when you are a baby.
It is also nice to keep BF while there are still teeth to come through or vaccinations to be endured, or just not being up to the general onslaught of fluey bugs...which is why two years seemed right to me.

It does get exhausting feeding a toddler though. You can semi-wean to bedtime feeds only, which is helpful.

Agreed kite. I would love, in a way, to allow DD to self wean, but I suspect that 2 is my limit. DD would, I think, keep going until "33" (still makes me giggle helly) if she could. Last night when I came home from work, she kissed my nipple!!!!!

Oh, news though..... she slept from midnight until 5am last night!!!!!!! This is the longest she HAS EVER SLEPT!!

I asked my mum a while ago about your point blackcurrants - she bfed all four of us until 19 months (me), 20 months, 20 months and 2 years - literally on my brother's birthday! She says stopping at 2 was the easiest becasue my brother was so much more able to understand that nothing scary was happening, he just wasn't a baby any more so didn't get milk and got cuddles at night from dad instead. I, the youngest to wean, was the most traumatic apparently... I was a teenager at the time my brother was weaned and remember my mum making a big deal of him being a big boy not a baby now he was 2 etc etc. To the point where he was quite excited about being so grown up now!

That is oddly reassuring, Legally - thank you and thank your mum!
I sometimes think that because we don't have the culture memory of breastfeeding (my mum FF, for example, as the nurses told her that was best so she could recover after my brother's difficult birth ) and that polarizes information about breastfeeding. People who BF for extended/natural term are in a minority so are left feeling 'weird' and therefore becoming defensive (because attacked!) or at least having a very set dogmatic idea of how/when to wean. I sort of want to know when's a good time to encourage a keen nurser away from breastfeeding without (1) suddenly saying "NO BOOB FOR YOU! HAH!" or (2) nursing for the next two years, which I think he would, or at least judging by his present enthusiasm!

So yeah, thanks - it is encouraging to think in a few months he will understand that nyonya stops on his 2nd birthday, or whatever date we set.

Yeah, I agree with legally - my Mum breastfed me till I was 3 and she said it was very easy to come to an amicable agreement then. I have very (very) vague memories of it, but I think I wanted a cuddle as much as anything. It really is a wonderful way of comforting LO's and its free.

You are right blackcurrants about the lack of a cultural memory for bf, I am sure that's why so many mums have issues with it now. My Mum was so encouraging and so matter of fact about it, it just seemed straightforward. When I volunteered at a bf clinic the number one reason people started doubting themselves was due to comments from mums and MIL's.

BTW, I was thinking I'd be keen to ween at 2, but then when DD weaned herself earlier I actually felt quite sad, I think that's because she was only having one feed a day by that point and could go a day or two without so it had stopped being a massive commitment, ifkwim, so you never know, you might get to two and both of you might want to go on for a bit longer...

I should say I got rid of the middle of the night feeds at about eighteen months because they were doing my head in - I actually had a nightmare than an alien was trying to rip my chest off - and woke to find my DD on top of me feeding. I did actually do this by saying no milk till morning and then we will have a lovely cuddle...etc. perhaps I was just lucky that DD agreed to this, but I spent more time awake enforcing it over the next few weeks than if I had let it go on longer.
I found getting advice on managed weaning tricky because of the pressure to let little ones self-wean. I did not have time for that but I had so little support from my local BF group when it came to weaning, even though I fed until the WHO age! It put me off going back to them for advice this time around (now have four week old DD)

Heh, since I started this thread needing a bit of reassurance that the upswing in interest in BFing would PLEASE peter out eventually, DS has considerably reduced how much he is bothered in feeding. One or two minutes at bedtime, one drowsy feed on waking (while I pretend to be asleep and hope to get a few more minutes, zzzz) - and he's done for the day! He's also a lot let clingy. Seems like there really is an eighteen months 'phase' and he's onto something new.
Gosh, it never stops changing, does it?! :)