Wow - did she just drop her bedtime feed or was it a one off?!

[blushingmare]

DD (just turned 1) has always been ebf and quite a milk monster. She's down to just a feed at bedtime and when she wakes up and as many as she needs to settle overnight. Tonight when we snuggled up for bedtime feed she bit me. I went "ouch!" and she burst into tears! I tried offering both sides, but she just started crying again. So then offered her 100mls of cows milk in her cup and she drank it all and is now asleep!

So was that her dropping that feed? It's fine if it is, but took me by surprise as she only dropped the others with some big distractions for a couple of days.

What do I do tomorrow? Should I offer boob again as normal or try to get her to have her cup again?

I always thought this feed would be the last to go. Maybe it was just a one off!

What you do tomorrow is totally upto you, if you want to carry on, offer it again, if not offer her the cup again. Know that is quite a simplistic view though and you will probably have all sorts of emotions going on.

You're right of course JJJ! I don't mind stopping at this point and would far rather it was lead by her and not me having to encourage her off the boob and having her upset at all. But it's just taken me rather by surprise that it's happened so suddenly. She's still not at all bothered by having it. I managed to encourage her to have a bit over night when she woke, just for my own comfort really, but really had to persuade her. And this morning she was completely happy until I offered her boob and then she burst into tears again!

I know she has more teeth coming so wondered if it was uncomfortable, but previously she's found bf really comforting when teething. And she's otherwise completely happy until we bring boobs into the equation!

How are you getting on now blushing?

Thanks for asking JJJ, and thanks for your advice on my other thread too!

Well, I think what we had over the weekend was a nursing strike rather than self-weaning. She's now happy to bf again and is feeding as normal overnight and when she wakes up. Interestingly however, she isn't really desperate for her bedtime bf as she used to be - I mean, she will have it if offered, but she's not really requesting it. So I've been just sitting with her looking at some books and she takes some sips of cows milk from her cup as we read a few stories. She's pretty variable on how much she drinks - i.e.. yesterday less than 50 mls, but this evening nearly 200mls! But she seems ok with not bf-ing, so maybe it's time to cut out that feed.

My main problem is that she's not a great sleeper - she takes a long time to settle down in the evening and we have variable nights. We're going through a bit of a bad sleep time this week and every evening when she takes a long time to settle or has a night when she wakes up loads, it makes me really uncertain about cutting out a feed and makes me think maybe it's because I didn't bf her that her that she's not sleeping. I'm pretty sure it isn't that as her sleep is just not great no matter what I do, but it's just that it makes me uncertain iyswim.

I'm not really sure what i want to do about stopping bf altogether. Really I want to stop when she wants to - I want it to be just a natural decline, which is what we've had so far with her dropping feeds - it's all happened without fuss or tears and that is how I'd like to finish with bf altogether. But at the same time, I have always had in my mind that I'd feed until 1 and not sure how I feel about feeding much longer than that. I mean, I don't resent it at all or anything like that, but I just don't know how I feel about feeding her once she's bigger and walking etc. That said, I guess really I'd only be feeding her overnight and in the morning, so maybe it wouldn't feel as strange as I think it might. It certainly feels fine now of course!

I guess we just carry on as we are for now and see what happens!