Stopping breastfeeding, please help!

[DiscoSpider]

For a number of reasons I am stopping breastfeeding my 10 month old. He has still been a frequent feeder up until now (managed a whole day on bottles today) so it appears gradually cutting down and slowing to stop isn't going to work as it did with my older child.

My boobs are incredibly sore and engorged, I have tried to hand express a little but it hasn't really helped. I am TERRIFIED of getting mastitis. Probably to an irrational extent, but please can anyone help?

Hopeful bump

You're sore and engorged because you've gone from feeding him frequently to giving him bottles for an entire day! Please cut down gradually. Its recommended to drop one feed at a time (and by this I mean one feed per week or something - not one per day until you're down to zero). Going cold turkey like this will probably lead to a breast infection very quickly. You have to give your body time to adjust and after 10 months of frequent feeds that's not going to happen quickly.

Yy to advice above! You're also risking a huge hormonal crash if you stop so quickly--depression, irritability etc. Which happened to me when I dropped loads of feeds too quickly.

Hot shower with boob massage - massage out lumps

Cabbage leaves

As above, think you have cut down too fast!

Another option would be to pump and bottle feed him with your BM. So rather than putting him to the breast x times a day you would pump instead, but if you've been feeding him eg five times a day, you will need to initially pump four times a day, FF for the other feed, then after a week or so drop it down to three times a day, etc, until you've stopped altogether.

But yes to clear this engorgement you need to get that milk out now! Either BF your DS or pump the milk out. If you don't then yes, you will get mastitis!

Thanks everyone. It's a mental health thing, having to give up, so a little bit at a time approach may not work. He also feeds very unreliablu so it's not as simple as it should be, just swapping the afternoon feed for example, he sometimes feeds every half hour.

He's been anti bottle again today though. No sore boobs but I'm a state.