Self weaning or just teething?

[PetitFilou1]

Dd is 13 months and seems to have self weaned - no boob yesterday at all and for two days before that she would only take the morning feed (she has only had an am and pm feed for a while) She is teething like mad and in a lot of pain (needs double whammy of ibuprofen and calpol at night). If she's self weaned I'm actually quite happy because I have loved feeding her but am also glad she's made the decision rather than me pushing her to stop. However, I'm wondering how long it will take for my milk to dry up in case she decides she does still want it after all - I was wondering whether sucking hurt for her? What do you think?

Sucking may hurt for her, it's pretty un-heard-of in most cultures for babies to self-wean so young. However, if you're happy for her to stop, some mums find that this sort of 'nursing strike' is a good time to do it. You may find you need to express every now and then to stay comfortable, otherwise you may risk getting blocked ducts and mastitis - as long as you only express enough to be comfortable, you won't maintain a milk supply, so don't worry about expressing hindering your milk drying up. Milk takes different lenghts of time to dry up for different women.

If you're not happy about weaning yet, though, sometimes it just takes a bit of patience and imagination on mum's part e.g. feeding in different positions, different places or different times to usual etc.