How to stop breastfeeding 1 year old?

[SunnySide1992]

Hey everyone! Looking for advice and tips. My DD just turned 1 and I would like to stop breastfeeding soon so how do I even start?

When she's with me she feeds to sleep (even nap time) and also co sleeps and feeds through the night. Some days she's good with her solids and other days just isn't bothered!

She will drink water from a 360 cup but no where near the amount of milk she would have from me.

Also if I work a whole day I come home on my lunch to make sure she has a top up of milk! Should I stop doing that?

Thanks in advance! 😁

Following as I’m in the same position!

Well I went cold turkey one day and the engorgement and hormonal comedown were brutal so I recommend trying to cut down a bit more gradually 😊.

I started replacing my DD's feeds with milk. Started with the one in the morning so I would warm some whole milk up and she would have that. And then one before bed. She stopped feeding overnight by herself.
Then her feeds in the day just dropped off within a week. It was really painless for us and I don't have a secret to it unfortunately, I think I just got really lucky.
She was a complete boob monster aswell so I was really surprised how quickly she adapted to not having it

I cut down gradually from about 10 months for my return to work at just over a year. I did contact/feed to sleep naps and started by cutting out one boob from each of those feeds. No night feeds from 7 weeks bar month7-8 where we hit a regression but ST sorted all that for us.

I then moved on to eliminating other feeds and just offering snacks/water and eventually cows milk at the time the feeds would be. Worked out totally fine and we do morning/bedtime but she's 14months and is getting less interested in the bedtime feed, just asks for the morning one. I was concerned about volume too but they are much more efficient at a year than when newborn and I think we have to trust they know when they are thirsty and hungry. As a PP said I suffered the hormonal side even doing it gradually, luckily not engorgement but it worth doing very gradually.

I did a gradual approach with stopping feeding to sleep and stopping feeding back to sleep during the night first. Did this gradually by reducing length of feed etc. Once that was sorted I stopped the random request feeds during the day and got her into a routine of only after a sleep. Then I gave her a final last feed at one bedtime and told her whilst feeding that mummy's milk will be finished soon. Then when she finished I told her you've drank all of mummy's milk! It's all gone! Then whenever she requested it over the next few days I reminded her it's all gone and offered her a snack or a drink instead. It was pretty much painless on her side... For me it was more emotional!

Agree that going cold Turkey would be brutal, for both of you.

I'd tackle the night times first. Once you've got a block of sleep at night without feeding, you'll have more strength to tackle the day feeds.

We eventually dropped the day feeds until I was just doing the bedtime one and then I went out for a few days at bedtime and DH just did the bedtime routine with Cow's milk in a cup

One thing I did do in the day was to only feed in one chair, and then just never sit down or go near the chair if I could

Hi OP,

in same situation as you, cosleeping, feeding to sleep, contact napping with my 13 month old. How did you get on?