how do i stop breast feeding???

[jollyfolly]

my 18m ds bf throughout the day and night loves every minute of it and is getting more and more demanding. i am now exhausted from the night feeds and starting to get fed up with the day feeds. my ideal would be to feed 2/3 times a day but having tried over the last month to cut down and failed miserably.... in fact he is now feeding more than ever... i think my only option is to stop altogether...... is there some magical easy stress free way to do this? am hoping to combine this with the transition of co sleeping to sleeping in his own bed..... will it all be to much for him?
why am i feeling so guilty about it?
oh and finally. at the moment he has very little other than breast milk to drink,will it be a struggle to get him to drink normal milk/juice? i rely on bf when he is ill to get fluids in, anyone any experience???

If you can avoid dropping bf altogether, it's best to keep up a bit. I can understand feeling drained though!

I see two problems here - one is, you don't want to feed all day. Another is, you don't want to feed all night.

For stopping feeding all day, I have a fix! It's what I've done with my boys. Past a certain age, I only really feed them in bedrooms. So they can't demand feeds all the time - if they really want fed, they drag me to a bedroom. So if DS2 is poorly, he can have extra feeds, it's fine, but generally, we're always doing things, so it doesn't come up.

If you offer other drinks, they will drink them eventually. I wouldn't really bother with juice, there's no point to it - just give water and milk, and see if he likes it.

I'm not sure what to say about night feeds, I'm afraid I was mean and cut them out long before 18 months. You could go with CC, but that's a difficult choice for many ...

i tried cc at 11 months it worked for about 6 weeks then he was poorly and needed extra feeds and we were back to square one.... cc is not something i could cope with more than once! feeding in the bedroom is a good idea though might give that a go!

bump???

There are a bunch of other sleep methods out there that are meant to work - I've heard people talk about some sort of sleep training without tears book?

HI I think NQC might mean the no cry sleep solution by I think Elizabeth Pantley? a friend of mine is now co sleeping without night feeding her 14 mo and she did refer to this book after I leant it to her but in the main I think she just said no when he wanted to feed until he got the message!

I have stopped bf my ds 15 mo in the last 2 weeks, I am afraid I give him a bottle of milk before bed though! I had been mentally weaning him since about 12 months though and was down to 2/3 feeds a day with the last feed supplemented by a bottle of milk to get him used to the idea. I then stopped bf completely due to a deep bite on my boob and being pregnant. I had previously dropped a feed at a time by distracting him or offering a biscuit a story a cup of water or whatever and only feeding him if he really wanted it. We had cut out the night feeds at about 13 mo by dp going to ds at night and resettling him, needless to say ds couldnt be bothered waking up for daddy cuddles after a couple of days!

I think the general advice would be to drop feeds slowly to prevent problems for you and upset for your ds. maybe drop the night feeds first as they are the most exhausting for you and dropping them may help your ds to loose interest in the day feeds and also do the bulk of reducing your milk? I think the idea of only bf in one location is a good one for stopping the demand feeding.

Good luck x

Oh I think no cry does deal a lot with cosleeping so probably worth a read, obv I wasnt cosleeping which made things easier but ds was bf 1-4 times a night.

cheers pookey... will have a look for the book now.