Weaning off the breast

[shish]

My 5 month old is still refusing the bottle. We have started solids, on the advice of hv as is so hungry and the nights are getting horrendous.

I know there's nothing wrong with b/f for a year, or even more, and I admire anyone who can do it, but I don't wnat to b/f for as long as that.. So how will I ever wean him off if he won't drink from bottle or beaker?? I'm getting quite stressed already. I'm sure I will have to b/f till at least 7/8 months, but then how will I wean him off?? Especially the night feeds?

Tiktok, maybe you can help?? Or even Mears.. Or anyone who knows or has any advice

I can't offer any miracle cures, I had major problems with my 1st DD at 5 months trying to get her on a bottle, in the end the only one she'd take were
NUK. This time (2nd DD is 10 weeks old) and we've been trying to get her on 1 bottle a day since sge was 3 weeks - we're still struggling.

Tonight DH is trying the latex teat instead of the silicone - wish us luck!

I've had a saimilar experience, samo. HV came to see me on Wed and I agreed to give up trying bottle and persevere with beaker. This started going downhill. On Thurs I saw the MAMA bottle, which so many have recommended, so I thought, why not?

That evening my dh just picked it up after I sterilised , holding him on his hip, and put it in his mouth and he started sucking straight away. It seemed cruel to have him sucking an empty bottle, so I put some water in it and he drank 1oz.

The next morning I gave him milk in that bottle and he straight away drand 2.5oz - no fuss. So i've been trying around the same time every day, but only a few sucks or max 1/2-3/4oz. Do you think it's worth persevering?? This morning he's not interested much at all..

I don't undertsand how the b/feeds will ever reduce. I just intruduced breakfast today, so he has 3 meals. He generally feeds every 2 hours and in the night!! It's really all getting me down so much. Maybe I wouldn't be so keen to get him on the bottle if he didn't feed in the night and so frequently..

Shish - I remember suggesting a soother (dummy) before but you weren't keen.

What is you magically stopped breastfeeding and he took bottles but demanded feeds as often? You could find yourself in the situation of constantly giving bottles which could lead to a very fat baby!

The upside to the problem you have it that you have the facility to breastfeed on demand whenever he needs it. You also though, can not breastfeed him every time he seems to be demanding it. It may be that he likes to suck.

Since you have got him to suck something he likes, I would persevere with it but not force it. You might find that he is more likely to drink from other teats if you can get him to accept a dummy.

You will be able to wean him from the breast - honestly. Once he is six months and established on solids you can start to drop breast feeds. If he doesn't drink much, make sure he has 'watery' foods like jelly or icecream. He will eventually take drinks from other things when he is ready.

Like Tiktok says, I think it is unlikely he is nutritionally requiring fed as often at night - he obviously likes it.

Is he in the same room as you? Might be worth trying him in another room or at least at the other side of the bed so that he doesn't sense you so easily.

Today, instead of feeding him 2 hourly, try taking him out for a walk without a 2 hourly feed and see what happens. Although he may cry it is likely that he will fall asleep.

Is it likely that you have got into the habit of feeding him every time he cries? I think you need to get confidence not to breastfeed him everytime but distract him to lengthen the times between feeds. For your own sanity I would try a dummy.

All this feeding will come to an end - really.

Mears, I'm more than happy to give him the dummy, but he won't have any of it. We've tried this before in the hope that he would then take the bottle.

We tried to keep him in a different room last week as an experiment to would see what would happen, but it was the same. Dh brought him to me screaming for a feed.

I've been trying to lengthen his feed times, but no luck. Managed to get him hourly to 2 hourly.. but that's it

Would the best thing then not to go with the flow just now? My sister had this problem with her first baby so when she had her second (third and fourth) she decided not to waste energy trying to get her babies to drink something else or to sleep through the night. She just accepted that this was the way they were and she did whatever she had to, to get back to sleep quicker at night. She actually did not breastfeed beyond a year. I don't think weaning to a bottle will change you baby's personality. He will change over the coming months. A 5 month old baby needs more milk than a 9 month. Older babies can be distracted while at the moment he cannot.

I would advise that you do not think further than the age he is just now. Give him a couple more months and you will see a change. At that age he will be far more established on solids. Breast feeds will be able to be dropped.

Think of the positives - he adores being attached to you - it gives him security. As he grows older his dependence will shift. You will see lots of threads on here from mums complaining about their babies being too distracted to feed for any decent length of time.

Try and chill more and fret less. He will stop breastfeeding. It sometimes is hard to remember that at 5 months he is still a little baby. Get your DH to take him out to let you rest during tha day. Utilise other peolple to help you. If I was nearby I would take him myself

That's very sweet of you. I am honestly trying to go with the flow, bu t at times I just get really anxiouus. At night I'm too tired to fight with him so I just feed him, so I can go back to sleep.

I never really thought it would be a problem. I thought I'd b/f for 6 months and then wean onto bottle along with solids, but he never even took the bottle after the age of 2 weeks. Ironic as I was so stressed I wouldn't be able to b/f.

I don't really want to b/f up to a year. I know it sounds selfish, and maybe as time goes along I may able to accept that I might have to. I'm quite happy to b/f for another 2-3 months, but then I'm hoping he'll be established with some other form of drinking, such as the beaker or bottle.

Thank you for your advice and support

We had this issue with my now 8 month old. Up until about 3 months she happily took a bottle for her last feed at night but from then on she point blank refused. I tried every single type of bottle possible(the adiri boob shaped one, the tommee tippee back to nature ones, the NUK ones and avent - must have spent a fortune in a couple of weeks on it all!), but being the stubborn little madam she is she wasn't having any of it. She then at 5 months started waking in the night again, I think that pretty much everyone on our poistnatal thread had exactly the same issue with our babies all starting to wake in the night again at 5 months. I have various RL friends who's babies at 5 months also started waking again. I just think they go through a development and growth stage and therefore start it again.

My DD still point blank refuses to take a bottle but we have this cup which she will drink squash from during the day and when I'm not here for her last feed at night my DH can generally get her to have a couple of ounces from it and even on only 2 ounces she goes through the night although does wake earlier i.e. 5.40am instead of 6.45am. I thnk she liked it cause when she first started with it she only had to chew it to get some juice out but then as time went on she got better and better at it. She still has feeds from me in general but as her 3rd tooth is now coming through (and it was enough her biting with 2 bottom teeth) I'm going to try to wean her off as soon as it's through properly. My HV just said that when I do decide to stop I just have to be persistent and do it gradually both for my comfort as much as for DD's sake.

I remember the stress of it all very clearly and can so identify with you on it all (I was only going to bf for 6 - 8 weeks originally, then 3 months, then 6 months and am still going now). All I can say is that in a few weeks you'll have forgotten about all of this and there will be a new concern instead.

Really hope you get more sleep soon!

Chellebelle - That sounds encouraging.. Will you help me?? How did you start giving this cup and when/ what age? I've been trying after meals. Did you use with or without the valve?

When you stop b/feeding will you give milk feeds in this cup? You've given me hop that I may able able to stop by the time ds is about 8 months old.

Mears - I decided to try the dummy again yesterday and I don't know if it's fluke, but he took it. I gave it to him when he cried in the night and he managed to go 6.5 hours. Is that what I should be doing?? Will this encourage him to go longer between feeds? I hope he continues to take it. Dummies aren't ideal cos then I would have to wean him off it later, but I have to do something.

The cup doesn't have a valve that you take out - just a hole in the top which lets out the air but is still non spill - clever eh . I think we tended to give it her in between meals - although I think official advice is that you should give it after food. We quite often use it as a distraction when she's upset - again bad advice - but for us it worked when we had tried taking to another room or playing with toys and they hadn't worked.

I think she was 5 and a half months ish when she started having it and probably 6 months when she was properly sucking. We will give her milk in it when we completely stop bfing and will just have to be persistent I think. I don't see the point in going back to bottles and trying to get her to take one (which she point blank refuses anyway) especially when a lot of people struggle to get their kids off bottles - I figure if I'm struggling to get her off the boob I don't want to risk having to struggle to get her off anything else

Hope that answers your questions, feel free to ask anything else that comes to mind .

Most of all - don't worry, it's a phase and not one that will last too long (hopefully). Do what's best for you and your DS. Good luck with the sleep!

Thank you so much chellebelle. I'm sure I will think of more questions. I may have to try that cup as my ds seems to chew on his beaker aswell. He had at one stage managed to suck a bit form the avent magic cup, but since then he's just been chewing it. He's coming up for 5 and a half months so it could be a good time to start.

Please let me know how you get on weaning off the breast.. Do you find you're still feeding on demand or have you set the times, so to speak?

Hi Shish - that sounds fine with the dummy. It proves he can go longer between feeds. Try it during the day as well. BTW, when it comes to using cups for drinks, after 6 months you can try just an ordinary cup and let the baby drink directly from it. There is a school of thought that babies should not be taught to drink out of cups with valves in them anyway as it encourages poor development of the jaw. They can actually learn to drink from an ordinary cup.

The only "set" feeds we have are the one when she first wakes up in the morning and one before she goes to bed (other than a Tuesday when I'm at college) Although the times of these are not exactly fixed i.e. I don't wake her for a feed and we don't put her down at exactly the same time each night it's always just somewhere around 7.30ish. She sometimes has a bfeed mid morning and sometimes one mid afternoon, sometimes it's one or the other and sometimes it's both. It's these ones that I need to start introducing the cup to I think.

Will let you know how it all goes.

How's the night times going now?

Thanks so much Mears. I hope things continue to improve..

Chellebelle - I'll defintaley keep in touch. Will you do the same? The dummy has helped over the last couple of nights, so I'm hoping it will continue to get better

I've had a breakthrough which I thought I'd share --

After over a month of refusing a bottle, my lovely 24 week old son today took three of his feeds, with no complaining at all, from this bottle.

I can't stress what a miracle this is -- he's just been point blank refusing up until today. The difference with this bottle and the others seems to be that he is actually taking much of the teat in his mouth and latching on, whereas all others he was just sucking at.

He may well wake up tomorrow (ha! tonight, more like) and decide that he'll never take one again, but, fingers, toes, everything crossed.....

Tried it - He hated it!!!

BTW Shish, have you tried heating the teat with boiled water first?

Yeah, I did. I think he's just so clever and he knows what he wants!!

Chellebelle.. How's it going?? Have you started to reduce the b/feeds?

I'm thinking of trying that cup. Did you order it form the internet or can you buy it in the shops?

I am just weaning my dd off the bf at 5 and a half months. She had stopped taking bottles for a while but we have persuaded her back on to them and changed the formula and now she is happily taking all bottles. I am down to one feed a day really. But I dont know how to stop completely. I have been expressing when I am just really full. But do I just need to bear the discomfort for a couple of days and it will stop. I think DD is at the point where she might not miss it if I give up completely. Any advice on stopping without so much discomfort, especially as I am at work and I am so desparate to express?

Watford - I went cold turkey on breastfeeding, gave up completely literally overnight.

I started by expressing a large amount 3/4 times a day - morning, evening, before bed, and for the first night at about 3am after a night feed. After two days I went down to expressing twice a day, morning and evening, and went down to only expressing about 100ml from each breast. Although they were still hard and a little uncomfortable, my body got the message pretty quickly that it needed to produce less milk.

Two days after going down to 100ml, I only needed to express once a day, in the morning, and two days after that stopped expressing totally.

If you cut down your expressing more gradually there would be less discomfort, but you'll keep your milk supply going for longer. I decided to put up with a little discomfort so that I could chuck out the breast pads that much quicker and be done with it! In all, it only took a week.

Hope this helps.