When did you stop breastfeeding?

[artisanroast]

Just a little out of interest thread...

My baby is 10 weeks and hoping to make it to 7-8 months. She was early hence a bit longer. Also, Daddy is Mr Allergy so the research I have been doing says to minimise my daughter's risk of developing his (and the rest of his family's) multiple allergies.

So, when did you stop breastfeeding and why?

xx

18mo for DD1. I was down to just wake up and bedtime feed and just stopped because she was no longer interested. I stopped offering at wake up and gave her a cup of milk and she was happily running away with the cup. I could see the change in her when she wanted to get off to play instead of having milk.

DD2 is 14mo and I'm planning to feed till around 15-18mo again.

And I went back to work full time with both. DD1 at 7mo. Didn't affect my milk supply for the evening feeds, and I have no need to pump either. It's a rather painless transition.

15 months, self weaned --but my
God, was I ready for it!-- after a couple of nursing strikes where is prepared myself for it coming to an end only for it to continue! I got to a year and decided to go for the "don't offer, don't refuse" tactic, which was actually a rather nice way for it to wind down.

strikethrough fail

That's what I would recommend too "don't offer, don't refuse". It's a very nice way to wind down definitely.

9m for DC1 and I regret stopping so soon.
3.5yrs for DC2, I stopped it and he still asks at least once a week a year later!

And obviously after 1 year, you don't have to faff with formula. DD1 was obviously given formula at nursery since I went back to work at 7mo. But DD2 hasn't been given any. I started giving her a cup at 6mo, and she learned it by 10mo. That's the freeflow tommee tippee flip top cup that every nursery uses btw. I gave her cold blue top milk from the fridge about 2 weeks before I went back to work at snack time. (She was 2 weeks before 1 yo then, as I went back at exactly a year). She just have fridge milk at nursery. Neither nursery I used will make formula. You have to either pre-made the bottles or give premade cartons. So it's much easier to get them to drink normal full fat milk.

Stopped with DD at about 3 years 3 months, but had been preparing her for it (suggesting otherwise, raising the possibility of sleepovers with friends when fully weaned etc) since she was about 2 and a half.

Didn't really plan on feeding so long but it just happened, in the end she was excited to be a 'big girl' and cut out the boob feeds which she only had at bedtime by then anyway. I think it helped that DC2 is on the way, she seemed to just accept it that the baby would be having boob and she seemed to develop the big girl/baby perspective for herself and actually wanted to stop. The next morning she was very proudly telling our family that she hadn't had boob milk at bedtime and hasn't asked for it at all since.

Don't know how long I'll feed this one - will be hoping to go for a year at least as was plan with DD but will definitely be introducing at least one bottle of expressed milk while relatively young so DD and I can still share some exclusive time occasionally.

I think it's down to what's right for you - 3 years was bloody difficult at points but ultimately I'm glad we did that long. Don't know that I'll go so long with this one though (although as I said, I didn't bank on doing it in the first place). It's down to whatever works for you and your family - as long as it's comfortable and fits in around your lifestyle I don't see any reason to stop unless you or your child wants to.

I fed my first daughter for 14 months but it was very hard, I expressed all feeds and she had allergies so I was on an exclusion diet.

This time I'm feeding my 5 month old, it's been so straight forward she's not had a bottle, there's been no need.

Although we all have colds and last night was the first night where I just wished feeding wasn't solely down to me, I felt so unwell but so was the baby and she just wanted to feed all night. So right now I feel like we will be lucky to get to 6 months!

I know we will go to 12 months minimum though, I can't imagine going to formula and all the work it entails when breastfeeding should start to get easier.

Dd1 10 months
Dd2 15 months
Dd3 27 months

I disagree that if you get to 6/7 months you've done the hard bit and might as well carry on long term. For me that was easy, it was what maternity leave was designed for - never being more than one feed away from my baby.

After I returned to work and he was weaned onto proper food I needed to cut the tie, be able to drink, take decongestants, have a night or two away from him!

I couldn't go on being completely tied to him - that would have been too hard!

2 years with DS1, 2.5 years with DS2. Why? It just felt like time. I was done. (They weren't! Ds1

DS - stopped at about 16 months because he self-weaned. I was planning on continuing to at least 2 yrs, but the self-weaning scuppered that.

... Ds1 got over it quite quickly though. DS2 was still mentioning it occasionally when he was almost 5! My point is, I fed them for as long as we were both happy for it to be happening, and I think the time to stop is when one of you us ready. Doesn't matter when that is. We're all different and what works for us is what works.

But you can do all those things (except possibly the decongestants which I don't take anyway because they make me vomit) while breastfeeding a toddler or older child. Once milk is just a part of their diet rather than their only food, it is a lot more flexible, although that applies more and more as they get older. Going away for long stretches of time is probably still tough until after they turn one and they can just have fridge milk when you aren't around.

DC 1, 2 and 3 all self weaned at 15 months.

DC 4 self weaned at 11 months.

DC5 forcibly weaned at 4 years as I had to have chemo.

We're still going strong at 15 months. We are just cutting down the one day feed so she is only feeding morning and night. She has allergies so I'm on an exclusion diet.

I'd planned to breastfeed for at least a year with my first baby, but only got to 6 weeks. I found feeding terribly painful from the get-go and developed mastitis really early on, which didn't really go away despite antibiotics and doing all the 'right things'. Ended up with an horrendous abscess and was hospitalised. It was really grim and I couldn't bear to breastfeed after that. I felt really sad about it for a long time.

I'm still not sure what the problem was. I saw a BF counsellor, someone from La Leche, took all the advice I could from people on MN, midwives, health visitors etc. My mum spent hours sitting with me trying to help me. She breastfed us for a year with no problems and I had just assumed I would be fine, too.

I tried again with DC2, though. Had a blissful 2 weeks of effortless feeding with her, really different to the last time, but then suddenly the abscess came back and was even worse than before Again, ended up in hospital with a sort of awful flu - delirious, high temperature, needed IV antibiotics etc. Stopped after that.

My breasts are completely knackered from it! . The one that had the abscess is twice the size of the other one and twice as saggy, and I still get pain in it 7 years on from my youngest being born.

I honestly had no idea it would all be so hard!

No more babies for me, but if I did have another I'd still give it a go again, even if I only managed that first few weeks.

I stopped at 3.1yo with DD because I was pregnant and my milk dried up.

DS is 15mo and still feeding.

Set myself a target of at least 6 months, but my daughter had an undiagnosed tongue tie and at one point the pain was so bad I didn't think we'd make it to the end of the week.

Gave her a bottle of formula only to find out she was allergic to dairy, so got her tongue tie snipped and very happily fed her till she was 15 months.

My DD is 1 in a week and we're still BFing. I am not going back to work so don't 'have' to stop iykwim and after a painful first 6 weeks of undiagnosed TT I have found it wonderful, so don't mind how long she carries on for. She's just down to early morning and bedtime feed.

Those who talk of 'don't offer, don't refuse' is that just daytime feeds? Basically we bed share after she wakes in the night (usually anywhere from 2am to 6am) and if it's around 5 onwards I just let her drink herself back to sleep, then we normally get a few more hours to 7 or 8 sometimes. At bedtime I BF to sleep slaps wrist!! and I'm wondering how the 'don't offer, don't refuse' mantra kicks in, after all at bedtime after story I just get her in a cradle hold and feed her, I'm wondering how this will stop. Will she just not want it one day? I don't intend to decide when she stops so unless she gets to 4 or something I think I'll just go with the flow...

23 months. Just got into our routine, my son never took bottles, and carried on as no reason to stop. Only did 2 feeds a day at 13 months when I went back to work, and 1 feed pre bed from about 18 months. Stopped because just got to a point where I don't want to do it anymore, and my son seemed ready to wean with a gentle nudge.

Feeding to sleep eventually stopped working for us, which was hard for a few weeks, but after that the bedtime feed was one of the only ways of actually getting DD to lie still long enough to be able to go to sleep. I only used don't offer don't refuse at night when I knew she could regularly go to sleep all by herself as I'm lazy I found BF to sleep a useful 'tool'.

I think they just forget eventually. It was a gradual process for us, from every day, to most days, to some days and then I think her last two feeds were about 10 days apart.

DC1 12 months
DC2 11 months
DC3 8 months

Each time I did it until I felt ready to stop

27 months and went back to work FT after 11 months
She just didn't want to stop, I never intended to!
Plus I was lazy preparing milk when going out.