How to give up breastfeeding a 10 week old?

[ChocolateBiscuitCake]

DS3 is 10 weeks old. I am ready to give up breastfeeding over the next couple of weeks. DS3 is the only baby I have successfully breastfed (all of them had tongue tie and this baby was the only one diagnosed and had the snip!) so I am really pleased to have got this far. I have two other children (3.5 years and 22 months) who need my time and I can't give it to them as am permanantly glued to the sofa. I am too frightened to go out with all three kids as DS2 is a live-wire/kamakaze and I need to regain some normality and predicability so that our family life can resume.

I have a pump etc and DS3 happily takes a bottle.

Please could you kindly advise how to give up?

Many thanks.

I think the general rule of thumb is to replace one breast feed per week.

Hopefully others can come along to confirm or give some more advice.

I have just finished BF my DD. I stopped very gradually by dropping one feed a week. Once I got down to one feed a day, I would express off at night. I was actually advised by my bf support group that expressing at night is not the best time to do it because your hormones are more active of an evening/night, so you can run the risk of over stimulating?
I started to reduce the amount I expressed off by 1oz every couple of days, & it slowly stopped till I was able to feed in the am only without having to express at night. When I was ready to stop completely, I just expressed & took small amounts off to relieve any hardness in my boobs when it happened and left it at that. Within 2-3 weeks it stopped completely.

Thanks Crikey - good to know the time scale (and actually, I rather love my time with DS first thing in the morning). Any suggestions as to which time of day is the best to start with? Am thinking mid-morning? Also, should I be pumping the feed that I replace, or leave it, unless it feels engorged?

Cross posts - thanks so much love - that sounds great.

I gave up at about 4 weeks by dropping one feed/pump per day, starting with the middle of the night ones. I also reduced duration of remaining feeds/pumps at the same time so just enough to take pressure off not to feel completely 'empty'. Whilst feeding / pumping did some fairly vigorous massage to get rid of any 'lumps' IYSWIM as wasn't going to be emptying boobs. I then spent a few days just pumping once a day in the morning (briefly) then stopped altogether. I drank a lot of sage tea and got through a whole savoy cabbage! Avoid showers / baths for a few days as hot water stimulates more milk production. Cold gel packs / flannels and ibuprofen help with inflammation. Keep a close check on ducts etc and beware of mastitis.

I forgot to add, that I froze the milk I was expressing off so I had a store built up, so once I had finished BF, I was still able to give my milk in a bottle for a little longer.

I know this thread is about giving up but would you consider maybe doing it for another couple of weeks? It's just that after Week 10, I found that it started to all get a lot easier and I wasn't glued to DD all the time after this.