How to stop breast feeding. Cold turkey or gradual?

[Izzy82]

What are your experiences of giving up breastfeeding? If you went cold turkey, how painful was it? How long did it take? Did you get mastitis? if you did it gradually, how long did it take?
I've only been Feeding DS breastmilk for 6 weeks but can't cope any longer. I am exclusively expressing and express over a litre a day- I'm scared that with such an abundance of milk, that mastitis will soon set in.

I have only reduced gradually. You can probably drop a feed every 3 days. I went a bit slower than that though, but I wasn't in a rush.

If you're producing a litre a day, then cold turkey is a bad idea: high risk of mastitis and likely to be damned painful too. Call one of the bf support lines, like the NCT or La Leche League, for advice about how best to cut down safely.

Exclusive expressing is tough, so kudos for managing the last few weeks. Just in case you haven't already thought about it, you might be able to mix feed rather than stop completely - once you're feeling under less pressure, it might seem more appealing. Either way, good luck

I'm currently going cold turkey. I'm not finding it that bad but have been feeding for 5 months and supply had felt like it was waning a bit anyway before I stopped. That said, my daughter was doing fine on it. I am back at work 2 days a week so wanted to mix feed for a little while at least to make it less of a shock to my system and my baby's but am finding this too tricky - my issue is my baby was a bottle refuser and still massively prefers boob so I'm almost having to make her forget the boob by only giving bottles. Would love to do both but she cant seem to happily switch between the two - bottle feeds become very fraught when I was alternating feeds as she was still thinking that the breast is an option so would try to hold out for it. Bit sad about it really and feel very mean forcing her to stop bf but don't feel I have a choice.

So, if you do have to go cold turkey then maybe just gradually try to pump less frequently and only express a smaller amount each time... With time hopefully your supply will drop? I'm no expert tbh and have totally learned on the job, so to speak, with breast feeding (and everything else to do with motherhood for that matter!). But I'm guessing ideally you will just reduce gradually.

Sorry to hijack but other than mastitis is there any other risks associated with the cold turkey approach as far as anyone knows? Especially for the baby? I feel so guilty just stopping feeding her the way she clearly loves and gets comfort from and am worried about adverse affects for her.

Good luck OP. Sounds like you are doing a grand job.