I think I'm ready to stop, but feeling a bit emotional about it...

[MaeWest]

DS is 19 months old. He's been feeding firs thing in the morning and at bedtime with the odd extra feed thrown in for good measure (day and night).

This week DH has been putting him to bed with a cup of milk, so really it's just the morning feed, but I'm assuming this will peter out fairly soon?

I've been feeling pretty weepy this week. I've been thinking about stopping for a while, but now the reality is hitting, it's a different matter .

Interested in what hearing what other people's experiences were when they stopped feeding their older baby...

dd1 stopped herself on my birthday. She just wouldn't latch on. I wept buckets then accepted that was it.

It's my birthday in a couple of weeks and I will be astonished if dd3 repeats the trick - she is still very much into b/feeding. Good job too - the plan is for her to be our last and I know I will find the end of feeding to be a very big milestone

I thought about it about 2-3m before actually stopping and got VERY sad about it! (was not prepared to feel like that at all)

Got some ideas from here about it and decided to just carry on... as it happens dd2 stopped herself about 2m ago (she's 18m now) and I felt a bit sad but nowhere near as bad as I had earlier

Glad I waited for her to decide (we were only on 1 feed a day by that point, she just lost interest)

Good luck

notnowbernard (one of DS's favourite books btw), part of me feels I should carry on until he stops himself, and maybe this will happen with his one feed a day... (tho I was feeding him at 3am this morning )

I feel like I have been gently encouraging him to wean for the past few months, trying to stop night feeds, offering snack/other drink during the day. He does seem to be less bothered, and certainly is perfectly happy at bedtime, so perhaps he is getting ready to stop.

NorthernLurker - that must be a v different feeling with your last baby. We're trying (ugh - hate that phrase) for another baby at the moment, which I think is making me think about things far too much...

Mae - Not Now Bernard a favourite of dd1's, hence the name

I do recommend waiting for him to decide, if you feel you can.

It definitely helped me emotionally (also don't know whether dd2 is going to be our last yet, so was struggling with the thought of NEVER bf again!)

Up until the point of stopping, dd2 would toddle in each morning and help herself to a feed. Gradually, over a couple of weeks, she kind of lost interest and would feed for maybe a max of 1min? Eventually she just stopped looking, and if I offered was not bothered. One morning she didn't look, and that was that , really

I felt a bit sad, but not the tearful() wreck i was a couple of months earlier!