15 month old is BF mad, there's no escape!

[Londoner]

Well, never had BF advice with my others and weaned them at @ 10 months fine no probs. Now this time round there's loads of encouragement to feed to 12 months so I went with that, but then what? I now have a 15 month old who much prefers BF to anything else. I'm an experienced mother and liked to think I knew all the tricks of the trade but tbh feel I have been shut out in the cold as far as information goes because now I've reached, and passed, the 'magic' 12 month marker there seems to be no further help or advice out there. Hv's that I've talked to seem to skirt over the subject and know little about it. Suppose I am asking for advice along the lines of, has anyone else exp this and do you think she'll turn the corner (ie take an interest in solids and other drinks) anytime soon? Even Kellymom is so vague talking about ratio of food to bf in percentages. It's really hard as I don't have any role models in the bf field and the La Leche League group in my area no longer exists. Any advice or previous experiences would be appreciated, thanks.

I BFed my dd until she was 2 but she always loved her food too.. so i cant really help when it comes to the ration of solids/Bmilk.

Have you tried making faces with her meals? broccoli/cheezy potatoe/sweet potatoe for hair etc?? Or make homemade pizza with her and cut the base into animals shapes and help her decorate them?

Here are some suport line numbers for further advice too. Sure theres plenty more ideas out there.

LLL: 0845 120 2918
BFN: 0870 900 8787
NCT: 0870 444 8708
ABM: 0870 401 7711

It's a shame you don't have LLL in your area any more, I am finding my local group great for support now that ds is past the 12mo stage. Are there any baby cafes or other bf support groups you could go to? A really good book to try and get hold of is "Mothering your Nursing Toddler".

FWIW, I think it's quite normal for your child to go through a 'boob-mad' phase at this age; I think my ds is just coming out of it (although he does still feed a lot) at nearly 2yo. I think with food and drink, you just need to keep offering, leaving little bowls of fruit/healthy snacks round so she can help herself. Eventually she will get the hang of it! My ds was really slow to take to solids, but he does have quite an appetite now. And recently, he has even started asking for the odd drink of milk in a cup

So there is hope, I think it's just a case of sticking with it (if you are happy to do that of course). You are doing a great thing

Thanks for your ideas determination. Think I might be happy to continue up to 2 if it was just say 1 or 2 feeds a day. Those numbers could be helpful, I'll make some calls tomorrow, have not heard of BFN or ABM before. Thanks.

When my dd was aobut 18m (and still bfing 4-5 times a day) she suddenly started feeding much more frequently and I felt that she was actually missing out on the world around her, sort of turning more inward. She was a very confident, happy and outgoing child, but seemed suddenly to be choosing boob instead of play.

This didn't feel right, so I decided to try dropping the daytime feeds and seeing what happened. I scheduled a busy (but not over-tiring) week, and simply didn't offer boob during the day. If dd requested, then I distracted her. There were no problems, though if dropping feeds had distressed dd I would have stopped the attempt.

The following week I could already see a difference in her. Dd was back to her previous outgoing self, and didn't seem to miss the bfing at all. I don't think she asked for a daytime feed after the first couple of weeks, and barely asked at all after the first week. She was quite happy to drink something else instead.

I contimued bfing her for pre-breakfast, evening and bedtime feeds. She dropped these feeds when she chose to, one at a time, between 21 and 23m.

Hope my experience helps give you a perspective on this.

Oh, x-posts Tatties, thanks for that. It's really helpful to hear your experience and to hear you say you went through similar. That's great you've managed to find such support through a local group, I can't seem to find anything round here unfortunately. Will try those numbers that determination posted and see if I can come up with something.
And thank you for the encouragement too, I know it's good for her but do struggle with wider public opinion.

x-posts PrettyCandles, thank you. Yes, that is really helpful, thank you so much. D'you know, think I will try the same. Inspirational! Arg gotta go, she's woken up!

Right, am off out for the day......... we'll see how it goes.