How to I get my 18mo to stop bf?

[DuckWaddle]

I somehow am still bf my 18mo dd but want to give it up!! My dd never took a bottle and has never liked cows milk. I'm finding bf wearing now but my dd seems keener than ever on bf! Has anyone got any suggestions of how to stop? I'm not sure how to go about it in the least traumatic way.

Maybe try night weaning first using something like Jay Gordon's method - you might find even that is enough and you can handle the day feeds once you're no longer being woken up at night. DS1 sort of dropped day feeds by himself but I get the impression distraction is the key - "oh look, let's get up and have our breakfast and do something really exciting!" "oh look, we're going to go out to the park!" etc.

Following as I still bf my 18 mo to sleep

Take things one feed at a time and change your routine so that the toddler doesn't expect milk.

eg get up and get dressed as soon as you wake up to avoid the morning bf .
Also avoid"making a lap" or sitting down .

You can do it. My boob monster ds went from on demand bf at 2 yo. to weaned at 2.3 by removing one feed per week .

Hi Cies, how many times per day was your DS feeding at 2? My 16mo DS is a total boob monster and I'm finding it hard going...!

Im going to watch with interest. Dc3 who is, aherm...2 years and 4 months. He adores bf - bf to sleep, when he wakes up at 6am as he will divd on me and will try and bf if I sit down during the day.

His favourate position in life is to be sitting on the sofa with me bf whist watching fireman sam....

Ive had enough now. Hes huge and can basically undo my buttons/lift tops/yank them out of my bra to feed

He'll be devastated if he cant bf any more. He sobs with despair if I turn him down the once.

How on earth am I going to stop?????

I'm in the same situ. My dd(19m) loves boob. It causes arguments between her dad and I as he thinks she is going to be a "freak" and "no one else does it".
She will have cows milk at night, followed by 5 min snuggle, she has it in the morning and is grumpy till she's had her milk, she also want a snuggle and milk after nursery AND when we have food issues she sometimes needs a bit of milk before eating.
Although I am reluctant to stop, I kind of wanted her to self wean, she just seems to want more and more these days not less
Help!!!

He would feed a LOT! At least on waking , a couple of times in the morning , feed to nap. and often all through the nap if I couldn't unlatch him successfully , a few times during the afternoon and feed to sleep .

I had nightweaned him at about 18 mo using the Dr Jay Gordon method.

By 2 I was READY to wean, mostly because of ttc . So I didn't feel bad even when he whin ed .

I think I explained to him that from that day on there was only milk at x,y,z. times . And every week those times reduced .

I've found a link that may be useful...

www.lalecheleague.org/faq/weantoddler.html see if that works!

This is the Jay Gordon method detailed above:

If you decide that you would like to encourage weaning, here are some suggestions to try.

1. If the child is sleeping with you, you might consider moving him into his own bed or into bed with an older sibling. However, if the child resists the move, he might actually increase breastfeeding in order to preserve his feeling of closeness with you.
2. Breastfeed the child when he asks, and don't offer when he doesn't. This simple technique may help accelerate the weaning process when used with other methods.
3. Change daily routines. Instead of heading home after picking him up from daycare, head to the grocery store or elsewhere instead. Try to avoid the "nursing chair" or other usual "nursing station" in your home as much as possible at the times when he usually would ask to nurse. Stand up as much as possible!
4. If possible, get help from other family and household members. If he usually nurses upon waking, try getting up before him and have the child's father or someone else do all the morning routine.
5. Anticipate nursings and offer substitutions and distractions. Try offering a snack or drink at that time. Take him to his favorite place at the usual nursing time. Other distractions: reading, bike rides, visits from friends, a new toy, walking/singing to the child.
6. Shorten the length of nursings or see if he accepts a postponed nursing. If he doesn't understand the concept of waiting or of time, this may not be helpful.

Generally, these strategies work best for daytime nursing. The nap and bedtime nursings are often the last to go. Again, other family members could help by taking over sleep-time routines, if possible. Some mothers decide to allow breastfeeding to continue at these times, even when daytime weaning is complete. If weaning is going too quickly for the child, he'll usually let you know by his behavior. Increased tantrums, regressive behaviors, anxiety, increase in nightwaking, new fear of separation, and clinginess are all possible signs that weaning is going too quickly for your child. Your child may be old enough for you to simply explain to him that you feel it is time to wean. Many children his age or older can understand the concept of stopping nursing. Some mothers let the child pick a date, or choose one themselves, and call that the "weaning day" after which he will no longer nurse. Some mothers will then give the child a "weaning party" with supportive family and understanding friends to help celebrate the milestone. Perhaps the child will receive a special "weaning present." Some mothers allow the child to choose a coveted toy and buy it after weaning, or buy it before weaning and wrap it up on to be put on a shelf for when the weaning day or weaning party comes. Obviously, these techniques will not work if the child is extremely resistant to weaning, but many mothers have used them with success. Remember that he will have a continued, perhaps even deepened, need for closeness with you. You can anticipate the child's need for closeness and spend as much of her day as possible having "special time" with the child.

Just wanted to expand on my post and hopefully get the discussion going a bit more. I'm reluctant to post on the facebook groups I'm in as I've seen a few people get no decent advice but a lot of 'but the WHO recommends feeding till 2' etc.
I feed DS till he falls asleep at bedtime. He has 1 nap a day in the afternoon, I am only there for this 4 out of 7 days a week and he accepts being cuddled/sang to to go to sleep for this. At bedtime he starts to ask for 'boob' around 6.30, sometimes earlier - I find that as soon as he asks for it, if I then try to delay or bath him he gets really upset. Some nights he might only take 10 minutes to go off to sleep, last night it was over an hour. I have tried saying 'boobies have gone to sleep' or 'no more milk' but he gets really upset. When he does fall asleep, I put him in his cot and he generally wakes up close to our bedtime and spends the rest of the night in our bed. He was nightweaned at Christmas and is fine with not being fed. I just don't know how to tackle the issue of this one remaining feed, I know he can fall asleep without it becaue he does during the day.

Do you have a partner who could do bedtime instead, even one evening a week to start with? Just to get him used to the idea of "bedtime without boobs"?

Thanks all- looks like I'm not alone! All those stories sound familiar!
Ill look up jay Gordon and that link- thank you!

Duck- does it cause arguments I your house? My partner is on at me almost daily to stop, I don't think he realises it's a bit different than just flicking a switch.

Funnily it's the opposite as he's happy for me to continue bf. the thing is it means he can get straight back to sleep after night wakings whilst I sit there for a hour feeding! In fact we've just argued with me saying I don't want to feed her (second hour session in the night!!).problem is I think he's going to have to take a lot of the brunt when I do stop.

Leedy- he's often late back from work but I think I'm going to try and change the morning routine so she doesn't see me and therefore think 'milk' . I think I may have to wait for some days when my husband is in holiday to try eve feeds.
Thanks all so much for your suggestions

Have just reread your OP and noticed that your dd doesn't like cow's milk. Neither did my ds , and we asked him if he would like a late evening snack instead of a bf . And he came up with... a carrot

You don't stop, it's a non problem. You just move to morning and evening and distract in between.

Dresses are great. DD had a low opinion of dresses because she knew they meant mum was serious about no milk until bed.

I'm going to start trying at the end of this week. I have a night out at the weekend so won't be around at bedtime anyway. Will check back in to let you know how it goes.

Good luck! We've been trying distraction and just generally reducing the time that she feeds for. It's hard!!

Hey. Just a quick reply as got to run but just to say I tried at 16 months - nightmare - currently weaning: just one 'relapse' feed in 4 days - but my dd is now 20 months and I found we were able to discuss it as she now understands 'broken', 'all gone', 'sad', 'cry' and 'sore'. So I basically said it had all gone, mummy was sore eat half teaspoon of dried sage twice a day to help dry up before you really go for it that we were both sad. She has still found it hard but has been surprisingly good and really careful as I had one very sore boob (ibruprofen and Sudofed have helped) - the one she preferred - the other had pretty much dried up already. So if it's hard maybe try a little later. Her language understanding has suddenly spurted: it seems like she understands everything now even though she's not saying lots more. It's def helped. Just an idea

Have been weaning since last Thursday and it's going well. DH has been taking DS to bed, rocking him to sleep and putting him down. He has been a lot quicker than usual to go to sleep! I think he was keeping himself awake so he could feed for longer. His sleep has been more unsettled than usual - he is waking up after 2 hours and waking regularly though the night although he will go back to sleep quickly. I can't tell if this is related to weaning or because he has started with a runny nose. It has been a lot less traumatic then we expected to be honest, I expect another week or so and DS will start to forget about it.

I have been trying to cut down, missing the morning feed and going to have breakfast straight away, and distracting her to miss the 6pm feed. Though missing both of them went out the window last night as little miss has an almighty tantrum and then was up half the night so ended up sleeping with me

Did the same again today, only one feed in the evening, am hoping I dry up to give up that way