How am I supposed to stop breastfeeding?!

[FruitPoppet]

My 14m old is boob mad and has a strong feed to sleep association. She has always been a wakeful and restless sleeper and we've fallen into a pattern of ease. She wakes for milk overnight and must ask 15-20 times a day for boob..I'm exhausted.

I've been trying to distract whenever she asks in the day and keep it to 4 feeds a day, but she often gets very upset and we're minimum doing 8. She has boob about 5 times overnight.

I've been trying to rock her back to sleep if she wakes before I go to bed (often does) but this often resorts in screaming and crying from her (I let this happen for max an hour, as I'm talking sobbing/waiking/snot/choking, not just a bit sad) Her dad has also tried rocking her back to sleep with very little success. We e also moved away from feeding to sleep in the day, although she still cant sleep independently and naps in the car or pushchair.

I just don't know how I'm supposed to stop when cutting down is this hard.

Also to add she eats and drinks water very well.

Any advice on cutting down and stopping from those who have boob mad babies very welcome.

It is really tough OP! My only advice really is if you can, give it time. My daughter had basically weaned herself off the boob by the time she hit 18 months, between 17-18 months she started to just decrease a lot by herself but at 14 months we were in the same position as you. None of the tricks I read about worked for us it was just a case of time.

One of the things we tried was dad cosleeping. It worked quite well and he dropped night feeds, he was a similar age too. I remember how stressful it can be! My daughter was so easy, I just stopped offering and she stopped asking! My son not so much he loves the boob, I’ll try to think of what else we did but it was a while ago now!

I offered food instead of boob in the day unless they were ill. It worked quite well for my first but my second did still get daytime feeds after 13 months but it was limited and she wasn’t as bothered about being fed if we were out. You might find offering an ice lolly (I made them for my first but second got bought ones) or some jelly or fruit works as an alternative food.
With night weaning the morning feed is the easier to drop, then the bedtime feed and finally the waking in the middle of the night feeds

Its not easy

Emma Pickett is a lactation consultant that specialises in the end of breastfeeding. She’s wonderful and has free resources/ a podcast. Do look her up!

Thanks for the speedy responses. I wrote that as she fell asleep after waking and I rocked her to sleep. Felt like a win, only for her to jolt awake and scream and scream scream for boob for an hour, before I gave in to her whimpers and sobs as she carried the feeding pillow to the bedroom 🥺

In general she s HARD work at the moment. She is testing lots of physical boundaries with pinching, scratching and biting, and generally being a whingy little terror. I think I'm just touched out and so fed up of getting to her to stop using me like a climbing frame with my nipple in her mouth, stop pinching me and stop biting me (intentionally, always with a smile from her!) while feeding.

She's always been a booby baby and fed every two hours day and night until she was 8 months old. She seemed to cut down around a year but the last month she is obsessed. I can't ever take my jumper off without her asking for boob. And honestly I don't enjoy breastfeeding as much as I thought I should. It's been honestly so hard being so in demand all the time.jnn

I can't see how it's ever going to end. My brother was a similar baby an didn't self wean until close to 4! I just don't want to traumatise her and take away her regulation as I know in the grand scheme of things she is still so little and it's all biologically normal for her to need me /boob. But our days together are so not enjoyable for me because she just demands boob ALL DAY. As a side not, she spends a day a week with her dad and one day a week with mum while I work, and doesn't ask for boob or me ever!

Hi, I could have written your post. My DD is 17 months and is (was) boob mad. She had a really strong feed to sleep association and I would feed her to sleep each night. I tried not feeding her to sleep and she would scream and scream.

One night (when DD was around 14/15 months) me and DH went for a rare dinner out and we had a babysitter. I said to the babysitter to try her best to get DD to sleep but if not, not to worry we would be back early. To our surprise, DD went to sleep right on time, no bottle and no obviously no boob! From that day on, I didn’t feed her to sleep and just replicated what the babysitter did to put DD to sleep. It took about 3 days and now DD just lies down and goes to sleep. I found that if I can distract her whilst she’s lying down (she loves books so I would just read lots of these in a very slow voice), she would eventually drop off.

I’m going to say this with a gentle meaning and of course she is a baby and doesn’t know. You are being used as a human pacifier/dummy. It’s also clearly a habit for her.
If you are ok with that then it’s perfectly fine. It’s also ok to decide that your milk bar is shutting up shop and stand firm.
She will not be traumatized etc.
It’s also not good for her teeth to have even human milk at night inbetween teeth cleanings.
It should give you hope that she can spend time with others and not ask for a breastfeed. It’s an association with you and one that can be changed.
Apol if you just wanted to let off some steam.