Fed up (Feeding 25 month old)

[ZimboMum]

Sorry. Just want a moan.

I'm still feeding 25 month old DS at bedtime, when if he wakes at night when he comes into our bed and sometimes when he wakes up in the morning. If he wakes late enough at night he doesn't always want to feed first thing in the morning so I am trying to drop that feed completely. If I am not in bed when he wakes up he's usually okay, but if I am there then I either have to give in (which I desperately try not to do) or wrestle my way out the bed.

This morning he really really really wanted to feed but I stuck to my guns and left him howling in bed while I went to get a cup of milk from the fridge. My moan is with DH who, whilst being very supportive of me feeding when DS was younger, is NOT being supportive now that I want to try to wind feeding up. He just wants an easy life and being woken by a toddler shouting and crying 'mummy nummies' at 7 in the morning is not his idea of an easy life. He said to me 'Why do you do this every morning, you just make him more upset'. Well. it's not every morning by a long shot, maybe 2 or 3 out of 7, and if you DH tried distraction maybe we'd get there.

So i'm grumpy and having a moan. I'd quite like my body back and to be able to go out in the evening/night without worrying that noone else can put DS to bed or back to sleep in the night.

Any tips on how to gently wind up breast feeding when you've got a determined feed-to-sleeper gratefully received.

You need to drop feeds in phases. I stopped night feeds first (DH would resettle. It was horrible - ds would scream for me :( I used to give in but rarely. Took about 2 weeks)). Then all day feeds using snacks or toys to distract with promises of feeding "later" (he's usually forget but if persistent I would feed then take him off after 1-2 mins).

Ds then dropped the morning feed by himself. Bedtime went last - we introduced a beaker of milk and DH would do bedtime about 50% of the time. Then I started putting ds into his bed without a feed and sometimes he would be ok other times not. So I'd feed I'd he got upset but it gradually got less and less then that was it.

The big difference was that ds didn't come into our bed at night - we always settled him in his bed and slept next to him on a foam bed.

Thanks for your response, lots to think about there. Not looking forward to grasping this particular bull by the horns but need to at some point!

Yes I was dreading it (I stopped around 26/27 months as had a newborn..!!!) but once I'd made the decision it became a bit easier. There were blips but we got there.