Advice for weaning BF 10mo off boob

[MandaLynn]

Currently BF my 10mo on demand, though typically it's pretty regular at 4-5 feeds a day + 1 night feed.

Honestly I'm just done now. She's got a few teeth and is starting to bite me. I just want my body back a bit.

Problem is that she won't take a bottle. She just started nursery and maybe takes 1oz of pumped milk the whole time. She'll use a straw or 360 cup for water, but seems to refuse it for expressed milk and formula.

Is there anything else I can do? Or do I just accept it until she turns 1 and we can start dropping milk totally?

Hopeful bump

I've not weaned a baby at that age so can't really help. You will probably will need to drop the feeds over a few weeks though, mainly to reduce your risk of mastitis.

The good news is though that introducing a bottle is absolutely pointless as you only have to stop using it at 12 months, she'll be fine with a cup.

Also, if she was entirely FF between 10 and 12 months they only need 13.5 floz (400 ml). Between 12 and 24 months it's 10 floz or 300 ml of full fat cow's milk. So you don't have to get the huge amounts of formula into her that you would with a younger baby. If she drinks one or two ounces from a cup I'd count that as a win.

Have you thought about calling one of the BFing Helplines too? They can help you to come up with a plan to stop

Following as I’m in a similar position with my almost 9mo DD. Hoping to have her taking formula at least one feed a day but she’s not having any of it.

My DC started nursery part time about that age and would take a bottle at home, but wasn't that interested at nursery (we sent a bottle in every day but it barely got drunk, so we stopped bothering). It was actually fine - DC just got morning, evening and nighttime feeds and had the solid food at nursery.

I tried giving her a bit of formula yesterday in a cup and she got proper mad at me. She's having none of it.

I'm doing a phased return to work, so she's only at nursery 2 days a week until October. So I'm not really worried if she just doesn't take milk there. But it does mean she's wanting extra on the days she's home with me, which I think is making me "over it" even more.

Could you get DH to help out? Mine is an early riser so used to take them downstairs and give breakfast instead of the first feed.

My DS was the same so we didn’t push it with milk at nursery. After a couple of weeks, he started to reduce his milk intake on my days off so you might find your LO does similar. I am still BFing 2x a day at 18m so came to the thread to see if there was any advice on stopping as I am also very done!

What times are you feeding @Seasidesusy?

First thing in the morning and bedtime at the moment. Very occasionally during the day after lunch but only if he asks which he doesn’t often. I went with the don’t offer, don’t refuse method which has worked well but I don’t know what the next step is!

Ok so if you want to drop the first feed first take them down for breakfast and offer a cup of milk with breakfast. She might protest but be strong

We stopped the bedtime one by me going out and DH doing bedtime with a cup of milk instead. Took a few nights but that was out last feed and she actually accepted it quite well.

How old was she when she started accepting it?

@SiouxsieSiouxStiletto DH and my MIL have tried too. She just doesn't want anything from a cup/bottle other than water 🤷🏼‍♀️

My older boy never really did either, thinking about it. He took cows milk from a 360 cup for about a month and then we stopped fighting it. He ate loads of yogurt/cheese though, so knew he was getting his calcium there.

DS natural weaned himself, where I never got to the point I was over it like I'm feeling now

Don't stress about it then. Like I said earlier, if she was completely FF she'd only need 400 ml per day at this point so really you don't actually need to replace a feed with milk at this point, just try and offer a snack and drink instead?

Also, both of mine weren't very good at drinking any milk until we'd stopped BFing altogether. Once they realised there was no more, they took to milk and still drink so much of the stuff as teens.