Advice on how to stop bf 18 month old

[popsnsqeeze]

Hi all,

I'm looking for advice on how to stop breast feeding my 18 month old dd.
I've managed to stop feeding her during the night, and I'd be happy feeding her 3 times a day - when she wakes up, before her nap and before bedtime. I succeeded in cutting her down but it only lasted for a few days and now she demands the boob ALL the time. If I refuse she throws a tantrum. I've just been letting her tantrum for the last few days, or tried to distract her but it just doesn't always work. Any quiet few minutes soon has her demanding a boob.

I think I am ready to stop, but not sure the best way to go about doing it and I'm looking for any advice or experiences that can help.
Also, I am a SAHM so I am readily accessible to her at all times!

Thanks!

Do you offer her an alternative drink when she asks for boob?

This is what I've done/I'm doing with my 16m old DS. At first he had a bit of boob then bottle each time. And then I just offered bottle after a while (all in the last fortnight). We haven't bf for a week now (sssnnnffff/relief!).

Cup if she hates bottles?

We do tickle tantrums-when my DD has a tantrum she gets tickles and it soon ends in giggles.

I offer her drinks all the time, doesn't help!
Any advice with stopping? Cold turkey versus slow withdrawal?

I'm on day 5 of no boob with 16mo DS and we did cold turkey. He had a morning and night feed but would also jump on and help himself if I was around (eg on weekends and days off from work during the week). It has gone surprisingly smoothly and I think we needed to go cold turkey otherwise he would have gotten confused. Think he had to be ready though. We offer a cup of water/ milk when he looks to the boob and that has only been a handful of times dice last wed night.

We were on 2 feeds a day at 14 months, and have just stopped completely at 15 months. It went SO much better than I was expecting it to, primarily because I think DS was ready. He's always been a bottle refuser, but once he managed to lift and drink cows milk from a sippy cup, he was mad for it! I dropped the morning feed first... simply got DH to get DS up, and then they had breakfast together (whilst I had a shower on my own! Bliss! ). We dropped the evening feed when I got held up on a delayed train on way back from a work meeting. I was expecting massive tantrums but he went straight to sleep after a good slug of cows milk . In fact, I think I was more upset than DS! From that point, we went cold turkey - like little one, I was worried about him being confused. Good luck!