12mo booby monster - need to get DD off daytime bf but how?!

[hellohellohihi]

I'm trying to transition DD onto cowsmilk during the day with a view to stopping breastfeeding totally in the coming weeks.

She likes cm on breakfast but is fussy with the sippy unless it's got banana whizzed up in it. Have tried it with yoghurt, cinnamon, vanilla and even cocoa powder but banana is her fave... Id planned to gradually cut down on the banana over time but it seems to be making her constipated so now not sure what to do. I was giving her 10oz with a small banana and she was wolfing that down AND STILL wanting to bf!! (This is on top of 3x meals, 2x snacks and morning + bedtime Bf)

I can't up the banana milk coz its blocking her up and she won't take it any other way!

Back to work next week so need to get her off the boob during the day at least!!

I'm not sure if this will be helpful as my experience maybe slightly different to yours -

I went back to work just before ds was 1 and I was sure he couldn't manage to do without his daytime milk feeds so expressed at work for a few months and left the childminder with a cup of ebm for him. The expressing was doing my head in (only one horrible office to do it in at work) so i cut down then stopped and he just didn't have any during the day and no cows milk either. He was fine - but had as many bfs as he asked for when at home.

We don't give him cm as suspect (though don't know for sure) that he may be slightly intolerant.

When I'm not about, he is fine, so it maybe that once you are back at work, your dd will just have whatever she is offered, it certainly sounds like she is eating well , so I think (though I'm no expert) that she will most likely be fine

also, if she doesn't like cm and you want to give up bf, she can get the nutrition other ways - yoghurt, custard, rice pudding etc also plenty of calcium in other things such as tahini (sesame seed paste), molasses, egg, broccoli etc

all the best

Does she get dairy in other forms, eg yoghurt and cheese? My DS1 never drank cow's milk except on cereal, but gets lots of other dairy and fluids so I never pushed it, even when we dropped all his daytime feeds (he still fed morning and bedtime after a year). I don't think a toddler needs cow's milk if they're getting the nutrients they need from other foods.

It really doesn't matter if she won't drink milk! At 1 yo it's not by any means essential - she's getting most of her nutrition from solids now, and as Leviathan said, there's plenty of calcium available in other sources.

So don't worry that you'll be depriving her of essential nutrition by giving up bf-ing. I would go with 'don't offer, don't refuse', supported by making sure that at times when she would normally have a feed, you're doing something else fun/ interesting/ out of the house etc. You can always use delaying tactics as well, if she does ask - "Yes, ok, when we've finished this story." If she doesn't ask again, you know she's not really that fussed.

Hi and thanks!

The thing is she just seems to really love the boob and doesn't want to give it up... And I'm getting to the point where I'd like to stop, I think... I still enjoy it sometimes but other times she pretty much mauls me!! Wriggles, grabs, twists and pinches my skin, tanks my hair and earrings.... It's not always the cozy cuddle it used to be!! And I'm the only one who can put her to bed still.

So I suppose I naively thought that cm would be a good substitute for the overall experience of bf-ing, not just for nutrition if that makes sense.. So in essence, I don't mind that she won't have much of any milk in the daytime but what about weanibg her off bf at bedtime?? I'd hoped a sippy of warm milk would do it for her, so what would I do instead of that??

Yanks, not tanks!

And yes she loves cheese, yogurts and milk on cereal etc.

She'll have all that and some days 10oz of banana milk and STILL seem desperate for a big bf in the middle of the day!!

I dropped bf when my dd was about 15 months. She did seem to love it but it was amazingly easy to stop. Just dropped a feed every four or five days, and did something else, changed the routine about a bit. She didn't mind at all. Got dh to put her to bed instead of feeding to sleep.

She simply didn't want cow's milk, and as others have said, she just has it with cereal, she has plenty of yoghurt and cheese, so we've never worried about it.

I missed bf more than she did! Good luck.

Ok thanks that's reassuring.

I'm going to try sticking to 1x bf during the day and keep offering sippy cups with milk and water. Then in the next few weeks will get DH to do bedtime - I think she'll want something then though - another sippy of banana milk?????? She doesn't take a dummy so think she needs that sucking at the end of the day to chill out!

You might be pleasantly surprised on the bedtime front - DS1 was a feed-to-sleep toddler but we started having daddy bedtimes once a week or so when I'd go to band practice straight from work, long before we dropped that feed. Turned out he was quite happy with just a story and a cuddle if I wasn't there with my conveniently attached milk.

It's true, it's surprising what they can do without if it's daddy rather than mummy. DH said it was the first time he really felt like a parent when the DCs were happy to be put down by him rather than me-with-boob.

Have you tried other types of milk like goats, almond, soya? It's slightly sweeter than cows.

My dd (17 month) still bf but also isn't a big fan of cows milk. I've tried her on almond milk, and she likes it.

Agree with pp that leaving her during the day with nothing, she'll drink what is left for her. Dd will go 12 hours without my milk and just ups her food intake instead.

Ok so today's the second day in a row that dd hasn't had a daytime bf at all! I've just been distracting her and giving her loads of food so we may have cracked it. She seems to be more bothered about solids too, which I guess is bound to happen if she's getting less b-milk....

She does get impatient at bedtime though and guzzles and sucks with everso much relief! I hope she's just getting used to it..

2 days at nursery coming up so hopefully that'll reinforce no bf during the day too....