best time to stop breastfeeding

[paperscissorsstonelizzardspock]

my dd is nearly 14 months and has between 3-4 feeds per day and one is in the middle of the night, i do not want to feed until she wants to stop as am returning to work when she's 2 and would like to have stopped by then. i fed ds after i returned to work and although it was only once a day i found it draining. i have read threads about dcs demaning more milk between 18 months and 2 years and although would like to feed longer i do not want to cause dd more unhappiness by waiting too long to stop. any advise gratefully recieved

The best time is really when the child decides to stop of their own accord. If you're stopping before then, there really isn't a "best time" as such, it all depends on you and your child. I'm in the process of stopping bfing DS who is a year old. It's been a bit of a struggle because he's missing the comfort of it, but I have to for personal reasons.

I don't know really - we haven't got there yet (he's 16 months). I'd rather stop by the time he's 2 I think but I don't want to stop yet. Mainly because he's still got 5 more teeth to come through and I would really miss being able to comfort him with boob when they're painful. However I don't think he'd mind too much if we stopped now and I'm a bit worried that might change as he gets older. Tricky isn't it?

I don't believe there is a 'best time'. We stopped at 15 months, one night she was having her night feed but didn't feed very long, and the next night I just stopped. We were down to two feeds a day so there was no risk of mastitis. She also weaned very easily and was having cows milk during the day instead of breastmilk. We had no problems stopping at that point because it was right for us.

However, one proviso, since we gave up she has had a couple of colds and I have felt bad that I couldn't breastfeed her and give her some comfort/antibodies, so do be prepared for that.