Stopping breastfeeding at 4 months

[JosieB68]

Wondering if anyone has stopped breastfeeding around 4 months, I know they say don’t give anything up on your worst day but my 4 month EBF baby is pretty much refusing to latch and feed during the day. She is making up for it at night and up 3-4 times to nurse and taking a good feed. I bought some bottles and formula and she will take this during the day no problem. Wondering how to stop breastfeeding without causing blocked ducts/ mastitis and has anyone ever bottle fed during the day but continued to breastfeed during the night wake ups or would my supply drop too much? I’m proud to have fed her myself this far but it’s been far from easy with poor latch, have had to use nipple shields, had x2 bouts of mastitis.

What do you want to do?
It sounds like you’re giving her bottles of formula in the daytime and then being puzzled as to why she’s not breastfeeding.
Are you using paced feeding for the bottles? If your DD is finding it easier to get milk from bottles she will not want to work at breastfeeding.
I had similar issues, triple feeding, poor weight gain, mastitis but then it all clicked and became easy, so in a way it would be a shame for you to have done all that hard slog to overcome issues only to miss out on the easy bit. I travelled a lot from when DC was about 5 months and it was so easy not having to bring baby milk through airports. And just general day to day it got easier. It has been such a help as an instant calm down tool.

I would recommend trying a local breastfeeding support group. You may also find someone there who breastfeeds only at night and can share how they do it, or you might get sufficient help with latching that you decide to keep going another while.
Good luck.

It’s great she’s taking the formula after being ebf. So many mothers struggle to introduce a bottle. I’d just carry on with what you are doing and drop a breastfeed gradually. Well done, you’ve done so well in ensuring your baby is fed and loved.

I did 4 months with my eldest, and the last two of those were mix feeding. No shame, I hated it too and it wore me down, my baby was the happiest ever after we switched as she was full for once.
just swap a feed for a bottle one by one (stick to the same time each day) and give it a few days before you drop another, leave night feeds until the end. My supply slowed right down then stopped, no issues.
and side note, I’m currently BF baby number 2 and it’s so much easier this time round, so if you have more kids don’t let it put you off trying again (if you wanted to of course)