Getting a bit desperate now about stopping b/f ds1 as ds or dd2 is due in 11 weeks (!!!!!!)

[arabella2]

Hi
Ds1 is 25 months old. The only reason he still breastfeeds is because it is the only way he goes to sleep (other than in the car seat). This means he has a feed before going to sleep at night, one before his daytime nap and sometimes a feed in the night if he wakes up or more if he wakes up more. There have been nights where I just put the cover back on him and he goes back to sleep, and there have also been nights (3 so far) where he has gone to sleep drinking warm rice milk from his bottle rather than having anything from me.
However in general he is very attached to drinking milk from me to get to sleep. Dh suggested I tell him that Mummy milk was for little babies and little boys had milk from a bottle but that really backfired as he became more insistent on still having milk from me after that.
One friend suggests going cold turkey and leaving the room and coming back every few minutes to put him back in bed, but since we have never done anything remotely like that with him, I think that at 25 months it would really be too much for him and I don't want to do it. I know that probably in another six months he would gradually have given up by himself as I can see signs (except when he is ill he breastfeeds a lot), but we don't have that kind of time unfortunately.
I haven't tried dh sleeping with him rather than me which we will but even this morning when I was out at his naptime, he just waited for me to come back.
Another mad thought I have had is to put him to sleep in the carseat for a couple of weeks (and then transfer him to his bed) so that my milk dries up????
Another question I have, if I do actually get to the baby's birth and ds is still feeding, does my milk revert to what it should be for a new baby, ie. colostrum and then very rich milk, or does it stay as it is now? If the latter then that is another good reason for stopping.
Thank you and sorry about the very long posting.

It will change so that it is right for your new baby - it is perfectly possible to tandem feed 2 children of different ages, so don't let it worry you too much if you are having trouble stopping. (says she who struggles to feed 1! I know my theory though!!!!). The only thing is to make sure if in the evening you are feeding one after the other that the baby gets the first go!

I knew someone would give youa supportive, factual post so I waited to add that we got DS1 to drop (bottle) feeds in night with 'You are a big boy now' line of reasoning.
There is the same age gap as yours will be between my sons so they are ready for this kind of logic, IME.

HTH

My daughter was 26 months old when dd2 was born and she was still b/f, also needing it to go to sleep. After dd2 was born she first increased the number of feeds, wanting to latch on when dd2 was drinking - just to make sure, I think, that she was still allowed. But shortly after that she stopped completely - all by herself! One evening she said to me that she wanted her Daddy rather than me to read her a bedtime story, and from then on that's how we kept it. She had dropped daytime naps months before. My only contribution to dd1 weaning herself was that I tried to distract her whenever I could, offering alternatives, but if she protested too much I let her drink anyway. At this stage I think you're probably better off NOT making your son stop, as he'll remember it when your baby is born and it will then only make the jealousy worse, I think. Tandem feeding can actually help in overcoming sibling jealousy (or that's what I've read, anyway). Maybe your ds will be like my dd1 - I wish you the best of luck, anyway.

No real advise, but ds was still bf till about 2 months before dd was born but. He gradually gave it up on own accord and never regained interest when dd was born. (Also did try to distract him but not very effective when he wanted to sleep.)

Hi arabella2, there's no reason why you couldn't let your son continue feeding 'milk wise'. As someone already said, the milk adjusts to the new babys needs rather than anything else. You might find that as the milk adjusts to what the new baby needs, you could well find that your son naturally goes off of it anyway, due to the change in milk (it isn't uncommon for this to happen). It's really down to what you are comfortable with.
There is a book called 'Adventures in Tandem Nursing: Breastfeeding During Pregnancy and Beyond' by Hilary Flower, and it's available from La Leche League (International) Books. I haven't read it myself, but it sounds interesting .

hiya arabella, I agree with the others- there is no need to wean your ds if you don't really want to. I tandem fed my eldest two(19 months age gap)and even though my dd1 was still feeding frequently I never had a problem with supply. And it was great to have a competent breastfeeder help with the engorgement on day 3! There was never a problem with jealousy when they were little, I'm sure it helped my dd1 to feel that she was getting the same treatment as dd2.
Both my girls weaned themselves - dd2 first at 15 months, and dd1 at 3.5 years (by then I was pretty fed up with her still wanting it, particularly as her little sister was weaned).

Thanks for responses so far. I do feel a little more relaxed. Yesterday for the 4th time ds went to sleep without milk from me. Again though he woke up once in the night and demanded milk from me, and he has just had some more (from me) for his nap.
I think it might well be that the change in the milk will put him off and I am happy to take things slowly, especially as we do seem to be making some kind of progress (I can't tell you how happy I am when he goes to sleep with his bottle of rice milk, the only problem then is that I sing to him which is lovely, but he doesn't like dh's singing so it looks like I'll be on his bedtime duty forever ).
The only thing I am really worried about with tandem feeding is being completely and utterly KNACKERED. Imagine this, baby2 waking up every two hours at night, I am sleeping in baby's room. Ds1 wakes up, I have to hike to his room.... It just sounds too exhausting and a recipe for PND and fighting with everybody...