Swapping from BF to cows milk at 1yr. Any tips?

[PuppyMummy]

Ds is 9 months and BF. he was a bottle refuser but has 6oz of expressed milk from a bottle at nursery. Other than that he is BF as I can't express more than that. He uses a sippy cup for water but doesn't drink much.
Id like to stop BF when he is 1 and can hav cows milk.

Any tips on a successful transition? are we better using a bottle or cup?
He also Feeds to sleep which worries me. is it worth trying to stop this before I stop BF or just make it a natural change.
I dont think he will be very impressed.
He still wakes at least twice and is fed if that is relevant?

DD 1 self weaned and it wasn't in the least bit stressful.....but that was at 18momths so was well onto cows milk in the day and food. DS 2 didn't self wean completely and now aged 10, still remembers being breastfed.....to the point about remembering how sad he is I stopped feeding him!!

I think, unless you absolutely don't want to carry on BF, you could wait a bit longer and still BF at night and morning perhaps.....the hardest feeds for them to give up really.

If not, I would perhaps change his bedtime routine....with DS I swapped a BF with a story and gave him his cup with a spout of formula instead of breastmilk and eventually he got used to it. He still woke in the night for the next five years (I fed him for 2 yrs) and I just think he wasn't programmed to sleep through .

I wouldn't go with a bottle unless you really have to. If he can use a sippy type cup, then great. He will see cows milk as a very different, separate drink from breastmilk then which will hopefully make the transition a bit easier.

To begin with, try dropping the least favourite feeds first and only drop a max of one feed per week if possible to prevent engorgement.

Good luck.

I didn't introduce cow's milk as a drink until DS self weaned at around 16 months. He then had milk in a sippy cup in the morning, and he doesn't have an evening cup of milk before bed. He doesn't seem to mind this.

This was all separate to stopping feeding to sleep which happened at around 11 to 12 months of its own accord. I would do an evening feed, and then do the bedtime routine. This was also when he started sleeping through reliably.

I wouldn't introduce any more bottles at 1yr old as bottles are supposed to be dropped then anyway. A sippy cup would be fine, especially as he's used to using one already.

thanks for the replies.

I have thought of only dropping the day feeds and continuing with night and morning but im going away for 2 nights not long after he is 1 so im not sure what he would do in that situation...

Two nights is not that long. He would most likely settle without a feed and resume when you come back.

Have you got a DH/DP ? let him do the bedtime routine so that you DS doesn't rely on you.

We just switched to a sippy cup 'cold turkey' - I think it is quite difficult to do some breast feeds and some 'cup feeds' - but plenty of people do manage this.

Joining this thread as we're about to try similar with ds, 16 months, who is very attached to bf. He also bf to sleep.

ragwort I do hav a dp and he usually does all of the routine except feeding and putting into cot!
when he wakes in the night dp often rocks him back to sleep if I fed in the last 2 hours.

My gut feeling is that cold turkey would work best for him but I already feel bad about how cross/sad he will be when he wakes up and gets offered a cup!!