Nursing strike at 14 months

[GrannieMainland]

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone has experience of this?

My 14mo has been breastfeeding morning and night, but stopped suddenly 3 days ago following a bad night of teething. Ever since she's just cried or laughs and bites me when I offer a feed.

I'm expressing a bit but I don't get on well with pumping and my breasts never feel empty afterwards, so they're always a bit sore and lumpy.

I've spoken to an adviser on the NCT helpline who said lots of access, skin to skin, stay calm etc but that's not very helpful when I work full time and there's not many opportunities for skin to skin snuggles with a wriggly toddler!

Has this happened to anyone else at this age and how long did it last?

Maybe she is ready to stop?

It sounds like she’s done with breastfeeding. A lot of babies I know ‘decided’ this at 12-18 months, despite everything you hear about natural weaning ages etc. I wouldn’t force her if she doesn’t want it.

Well I did wonder that but seems odd to go from feeding happily to refusing completely in the space of a few hours, especially when she was also in a lot of pain at the time. I definitely want to keep offering for a while and see if she starts again, I'm being careful not to put pressure on.

one of my older 2 did this but went back to bf after a few days. I think they might have been a bit older (was first molars I think). If you want to keep bf then just keep them available when you can; your DC might stop but they might not.

At 14 months I'd take it as very easy weaning tbh.

My eldest did this at nine months. She always had both sides at bedtime, one night had one side and refused the second and never went on again. We tried all the usual tips to no avail. She didn't take a bottle and would only take milk in a cup so we had a stressful few months trying to get as much dairy as possible in her food until she finally started drinking cows milk in a cup just after her birthday.

Weaning can take ages and be very stressful so tbh once you wrap your head around it you might be thanking your lucky stars

@JenniferBarkley I'm sorry, that must have been very stressful with a baby younger then one.

Interesting to hear people's experiences of their toddlers weaning themselves at this age - everything I read suggests it's impossible before 18 months so reassuring to know it does happen.

She's four now so I can laugh about it - and I had a friend with a DC the same age. When she was feeding while pregnant with her next (I was also pregnant again) and absolutely exhausted and worn out by the whole thing I was positively delighted.

Sorry, should've said she was only taking water in a cup, not milk. Milk would've been just fine!