What to stop breastfeeding 11 month old. But baby doesn't want to.

[Pimmsoclocknow]

Having ebf for almost a year I want to stop feeding and am starting to drop feeds and swap for milk. He has three feeds a day normally. Morning, afternoon and evening. Eats three solid meals and snacks and sleeps well at nap time and through the night.

So started over a week ago with the afternoon feed. And he plan was to drop However, he doesn't like and won't drink more than a couple of sips of formula or cows milk.

And since stopping the feed his night sleep has got really bad. He's more grumpy and grabbing at my boobs all day long.

I both want and need to stop nursing but feel like I will never be able to stop. I know lots of people carry on feeding for a lot longer, but I just don't want to.

Any tips?

You don't have to justify wanting to stop Pimms

Some babies, including mine won't touch cows milk until after bfing has stopped completely.

Try him with a drink and a snack, something like cheese straws, halved grapes and a drink of water.

No need for formula or bottles at 12 months and once you've stopped bfing completely he should have a minimum of 300ml of full fat cows milk per day until he's 2.

I tried to stop my DS from BF but ur just didn't work. Eventually I just went cold turkey - DS and DP went to stay at my mums for 5 days whilst my milk dried up. When DS came back, he had completely forgotten about the breast!

Stepdoor, did he start drinking milk from a bottle or cup during those 5 days away from you?

I wouldn't bother with the cows milk at first. Give extra snacks of yoghurt and cheese for the calcium. Hopefully he will take to milk after a bit. Perhaps try offering small amounts of cows milk at a different time of day, like with a_meal so he isn't associating cows milk with no boobies?

I stopped at about a year with my 2, my choice, and suspect i'll be the same with 4mo DS. You have done a brilliant job and need to justify yourself to nobody

I wouldn't worry at all about the pm feed - a snack and water would be a fine replacement for now. You can always introduce milk later if you want. So just drop that feed the way you have others. Try sitting down and having a drink and snack at the same time so this becomes the new thing you do together.

With morning feed, do you have somebody who can get the baby up and go straight down for breakfast without seeing you. DH used to take DS straight down and I would shower and dress and not come down until he was happily eating his porridge. This feed dropped no bother.

About 2 weeks after that I tackled the night feed. Again I enlisted DHs help. I switched feed to earlier in bedtime routine and then handed DS over to DH for final stories and lights out. A bit if shush-patting, but he had a full tummy so he was basically fine. Tool around a week for him to take to this new routine and then I started cutting the feed from as long as he wanted to 10 mins, then 5, then 2. Then took a deep breath and didn't offer! It worked just fine.

My DS never really took to milk as a drink. He'd stopped drinking it entirely by about 15mo and has never had milk since. I just gave him milky puddings, cheese and cream in dinner etc. DD still loves milk and still has 2 cups a day at age 4.

I started this same process with DD by the way but she then just stopped before I wound down the feed timings. I never had a goodbye feed with her as I didn't plan it to be her last! Always one to do things her own way, this one!

You don't need to switch the afternoon milk for a different type of milk. Cheese and water is fine.

As suggested above, for morning feed just get up and go straight to breakfast. I'd leave the bedtime feed until last.

Lots of people wean by a technique known as "don't offer, don't refuse". This might work well for you, but at 11 months I wouldn't worry about directly replacing those feeds with formula until you stop entirely, and then see. DD won't drink more than a few sips of milk. I'm hoping when we drop the final two feeds she'll start to drink it.