Breastfeeding past 6 months

[EmzDisco]

I'm currently EBF my 9 week old DD. I've been invited for a weekend away when she will be 9 months and am wondering how much she is likely to still be feeding then? Would she still get majority of calories from me? Or not?

I really love breastfeeding and would be sad to disrupt it, but have no clue what's likely once weaning starts!

As a side note currently trying to teach her to take a bottle of expressed milk but she's not quite got the hang of it yet.

At that age it's quite individual. My DD was feeding a lot at that age, a friends DD down to 2-3 feeds a day.

Pretty impossible to answer, to be honest! She might have mainly self-weaned from the breast by then (although the majority of her calories should atill come from milk until 12 months), then again she might be feeding 3-5 times a day - at about 8 months, my son was doing quite well with baby-led weaning but still fed from me approx 4-5 times a day, and sometimes overnight. Or you might have decided to wean her by then, for whatever reason - it's really difficult to know! I went away for a night at that stage and expressed a couple of times and he had both bm and formula in bottles whilst I was away:

By that point I had swapped the mid morning and mid afternoon feeds to formula. DD didn't eat amazingly well at that age so still had some bf during the day but some babies really take to food and wouldn't have needed anything else. It should be easier to express then than it is now and also if you skip a feed or two it's unlikely to be a problem.

I think it'll depend a lot on whether she'll take a bottle. I couldn't have left my eldest overnight at that age because she wouldn't take any milk from a cup or a bottle, and she was still feeding 6+ times a day. My youngest I'm planning to go away overnight when she's 9 months- difference is she'll happily take formula from a bottle, hopefully she'll be ok overnight with night feeds for one night as at the moment I just feed her back to sleep if she wakes up- may have to do something about that in advance though!

Definitely by 10 months when she's started nursery my dad was only have a morning and evening but she took to food well and preferred eating.

Dd not dad

Generally speaking the last feed to go is the bedtime one, so it may be less an issue of milk and more one of sleep associations and being able to settle.

Fwiw both of mine were enthusiastic eaters but still having first thing, mid-morning, (sometimes) mid-afternoon and bedtime feeds at that age.

Thank you all, good to know. I'd be away for 3 days/2 nights which seems too long to be away from her, but I think that's me being a bit PFB about it too!

And yes if she can't get further than just licking bottles then it's a no go anyway.

At that 9-10 months my DS would take milk in what ever form it was offered - breast, bottle, soppy cup etc... But his favourite was still breast!! I continued to feed him til he was 2

I was away 3 days 2 nights when DS was 9-10 months old. He was a firm bottle refuser and did not drink any kind of milk from any other source than boob. But he was eating enough food by then, had dropped BF to evening and night only and luckily also agreed to drink water, so he was just fine.