Need to stop breast feeding.

[LucyB1]

My dd Is six months and I want to stop breast feeding. Trouble is she won't take a bottle. Is fed to sleep most of the time and wakes at least 3 times a night!!! Don't know where to start! Help.

I was in a similar situation a couple of months ago. I worked myself so much trying to get ds (now 8 months) to take a bottle I had to stop as it was making me quite cross. However...
I found that my ds dropped his night feed (was between 1 and 3am) pretty much when he started on solids. Daytime feeds have also reduced quite dramatically in these last two months, at 8 months he'll have 3 mins on the boob first thing, another 3 mins at 2.30 and another before bed (maybe slightly longer). With such short feeds I realised that breastfeeding wasn't such a hardship and I could carry on for a bit longer (apologies if you really can't for whatever reason).

I was also giving him water and sometimes a bit of formula in a sippy cup. Lo and behold after accepting that he'd never take a bottle, he just took one. Not as much as he is 'supposed' to take in one sitting but he doesn't scream in the face of it now.

This might not be at all helpful to you, I don't know your circumstances but in short I found that patience (me) and getting used to food coming in different containers (him) seemed to solve the problem.

Hope at least some of that helps

Yeah my day time feeds are very short since starting solids but she still wakes 4/5 times at night. I really need to be able to go out in the evening for more than 2 hours. It's driving me insane. No one tells you these issues when they promote breast feeding!!

Could you start by just reducing feeds?

Try her with an open cup maybe?

You may need to try some (gentle) sleep training rather than change feeding methods. Sounds like she could be waking through habit rather than for food. Am currently trying to get my DS to go a bit longer in the night for the same reason.

I'd suggest attempting to put her down awake so she can learn to self settle at her normal bed time. I managed this by having a chair next to the cot, stroking his head, holding hands etc. Now he normally goes down without this now, I just put him on bed, sing a lullaby and leave him to it.

Best of luck, I really feel your pain on the sleep depravation front!

I agree with Reluctant Camper and wonder that the night wakings may be out of habit. I had the same thing when ds was 5 months, I'm afraid I was less gentle that Camper and did leave him to cry (after 10 mins he had gone to sleep, finding his thumb in the process) and the problem was remedied by night 3 (not all stories of CIO are hideous). But I get that people hate the thought of babies crying - we tried and found success without many tears

My dc hated bottles.

What worked for me was that every feed in the day and at bedtime i offered the bottle first and wouldn't let dc have the breast until they had at least 1 floz for the first few days then 2 floz etc etc.

My dc always fed to sleep but will sleep in pram/car so i started going for walks or planned to go out at nap time so i didn't have to feed to sleep. It worked for me. It took 6 weeks to fully change to ff and now will be rocked to sleep and sleeps better at night.

I was in the same boat - I started giving formula in a soft spout sippy cup in the day and saving breast feeds for vening and first thing in the morning.
At about 7.5 months when he was eating 3 meals (traditional weaning here so I knew he was eating decent amounts). I started to not feed between his last feed at 7 and 5am. We would just cuddle back to sleep with a dummy. This worked very well and he was sleeping 9-11 hour stretches within about 3 weeks. so much better.
Good luck OP.

Thank you for your help. I'm now trying with bottle soppy cup and doidy cup. She will trunk about 2oz from either of them which is progress. I feel that perseverance is the key here.