Think this might be the end of breastfeeding?

[GreyWednesday]

And I’m so sad!

DD is 17 months. She’s on what I think is her third nursing strike and hasn’t wanted to feed since the early hours of Saturday morning. I’m trying to express but I’m not getting huge amounts and to be honest I don’t have the time to sit around for ages expressing. If this is her deciding to self wean then that’s one thing (although I know she’s young) but I’m worried she’s going to suddenly want to feed again but by that point my milk will have dried up.

Anyone had a late nursing strike and got breastfeeding back? I keep thinking that the Saturday morning feed will have been the last ever time and I didn’t realise 😞

Yes, I breastfed all four of mine till toddlerhood and they all had occasional nursing strikes.

You may find that when your child needs the comfort of a few sucks when they're unwell, or they've fallen over, they'll come back to it.

Personally I wouldn't express at this stage, except to keep myself comfortable.

Oh, and you'd be surprised how long the milk remains, even when the child sucks very infrequently.

My youngest absolutely loved breastfeeding. I only ever breastfed her so she'd never had any bottles, we never had any issues.... then bam, out of nowhere she turned 1 and just never wanted to breastfeed ever again! That was it. I was so shocked as had planned to feed until 18 months and it was so out of the blue but it can and does happen.

Do you still feed to/during sleep at all?

My DD would probably win the world championship record for extended breastfeeding - she went for years. And then a few more years! Had the occasional nursing strike in early toddlerhood but I just stuck a boob in her mouth when she stirred during the night and she was back at it again almost immediately. I'm glad I didn't go for potentially sudden and early (ish) weaning and did the sleep trick, as I knew it wasn't true self-weaning and that she would desperately miss it if she did give up. And with her turning out to be autistic, it would have made the next few years harder as BF was the only consistent parenting 'tool' that got us through meltdowns, terrible sleep, illness, injury etc.

She did eventually self-wean, so gradually that I didn't really notice and don't remember the last feed but that's OK as it was so gradual.

During those brief nursing strikes, though, she was not interested in feeding while awake!

Thank you all for your replies!

Yes, I quite often used to feed to sleep for naps and in the night. She’s still not sleeping through, so was feeding between 1 and 4 times in the night as well as during the day. During her previous nursing strikes she would still feed in the night if she was sleepy- not with this one though! Yesterday when I got home from work she saw me unclip my nursing bra and she scowled and moved in the opposite direction 😬

Interesting to read about the expressing, thank you. I’m still going at the moment as she’s very enthusiastically drinking the expressed milk from a bottle or cup, so at least she’s getting some breast milk. I doubt I’ll be able to keep it up for much longer though!

@bakewellbride Yes, apparently I did the same thing to my mum at about 13 months!