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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Unusual strategies to STOP breastfeeding

41 replies

tb73 · 06/02/2009 22:25

A friend who has been trying to wean her 18 month from the breast told me she has finally succeeded - by painting her nipples with varnish used to stop you from biting your nails (a natural varnish that doesn't contain anything harmful)!!! She said he hasn't tried to breastfeed for 2 days now.

My sister said that a friend of hers used a mild mustard with similar results.

What strategies have you used or heard of other's using? I'm picking the best one!

OP posts:

TheBurnsifiedEffect · 07/02/2009 13:51

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believer07 · 07/02/2009 15:27

chuppa chups lollypops- i would not recommend it now, now I know better, but it worked at the time.

TheBurnsifiedEffect · 07/02/2009 15:32

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Gorionine · 07/02/2009 17:26

tastes better anyway!

Nontoxic · 07/02/2009 18:18

Thank you for sticking up for me Dustbuster - fwiw, I breastfed for six years in total,and DS was showing no signs of stopping (well why would he?!)
I also had developed incredibly sore nipples which I now think may have been thrush (think I still have it actually). I could have carried on feeding him and watching him chuck up each feed, which obviously I had done for him and his siblings on several previous occasions, but decided it was reasonable, on balance, to end the whole breastfeeding thing.
I did feel bad about it, but he accepted it and I felt much better about going out, as he had still been asking to feed in the day, which, rightly or wrongly, I was self- conscious about.

iwantitnow · 07/02/2009 19:21

Nontoxic - you did a fantastic job. A 2 year old is not going to be seriously impacted if it doesn't eat/drink for 2/3 days when he/she is ill like a newborn. Militant extended BFers don't really women BF.

fishie · 07/02/2009 19:28

iwantitnow you seem to have bungled your post. maybe overexcited at insulting some 'militant extended bfers'.

ooh can't wait, what can you mean?

LaTrucha · 07/02/2009 19:34

Just imagining the look DD would have on her face makes me want to cry!

MamaHobgoblin · 07/02/2009 21:31

It's called Bitrex, that stuff people put on nails, I think - same as what they put in lots of cleaners to deter children from downing them. I remember hearing about it when I was a (nailbiting) child and thinking it was horrible even to put it on nails! I also hate the idea of putting it on boobs - there have to be gentler and more sympathetic ways of weaning...

...but it does have a historical precedent. In fact, for added Pedant Points, does anyone remember that bit in Romeo and Juliet when the (wet)nurse is saying how she weaned Juliet off the boob (at three years!) by 'laying wormwood to her dug'? Yuk.

GreenMonkies · 08/02/2009 22:07

iwantitnow I am not a militant extended bf'er, for one thing I am not militant, for another there is no such thing as "extended bf", self-weaning is the biological norm, and when a mother actively ceases bf then it is premature weaning.

I have been nursing for nearly 6 years, my eldest is still a very keen boober, but I have limited her to bedtime and first thing in the morning since I got pregnant with DD2. I am very ready for her to stop, and she and I have been discussing it, and she is currently happy to stop the bedtime feed when she moves into the top bunk of the new bunk beds we are getting in a few weeks. I am hoping we will be able to phase out the morning feed too after that. I shall continue to nurse DD2 (now 2½) until she self-weans, but I suspect that DD1 has been carried along by DD2, and would have stopped herself long ago if she hadn't had DD2 to remind her!

Perhaps I sounded a little harsh, but I am really stunned at the thought of weaning a child when they have a tummy bug. At times like that nursing is a great source of comfort, and breastmilk is generally they first thing they can keep down, and, delivers a dose of antibodies direct to the source of the infection. I do understand how touched-out and antsy you can get when a child of this age is whining and mauling you constantly. But even so, I wouldn't wean at this point, it just seems, I don't know, wrong. ?

madmouse · 08/02/2009 22:18

greenmonkies I do see your point about stopping while ill. Ds and I stopped at 11 months, 5 weeks ago and last week he had a nasty tummy bug. i mourned the loss of bf then. Messing about with tippee cups of diarolyte was horrible.

but different women do things differently and I for one do and did not want to feed a toddler.

By the way I stopped the only feed we had left gradually and replaced it by lots and lots of cuddles and some warm cowsmilk from a cup.

I could never entertain the thought of suddenly making boobs taste yuck
found it bad enough when my colleague told her 2.5 year old that she was poorly and the doctor had said no more boobie. what a copout. and here's hoping poor kid won't worry about mum's health.

Original poster

tb73 · 09/02/2009 00:08

Thought I would just add that the friend I was talking about in my original post has breastfed for far longer than she should have. She has a brain tumour, which is kept under control with medication but obviously she can not take that while she is breastfeeding. She should have stopped at 1 year as she did with her eldest two but DS just loved the boob.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I still haven't read any really good tips for stopping either!!!

OP posts:

peachface · 09/02/2009 00:14

My ds stopped bf after he'd bitten me a couple of times and the unintentional YELP! exclamation I uttered at the sheer agony of it made him so upset that after it had happened a couple of feeds, he decided he'd had enough! I felt awful (and gutted, even though his teeth were SHARP)...

Nontoxic · 09/02/2009 11:07

Tb73, I also await good tips for stopping - not that it's relevant to me any more. It is sad, though, that DS1 (14), DD (11) and DS2 (8) don't seem to want mummy milk any more!
(That wasn't a cheap shot, but I have an evil habit of saying things just because I think they're funny. I know I'm bad and I do respect long-term bfers, but 2 1/2years was long enough for me - and any method of 'enforced early weaning' is horrible for the child. Good on anyone who manages to avoid it.)

IorekByrnison · 09/02/2009 11:15

MamaHobgoblin - that's fascinating!

Wittymomma · 02/05/2018 14:25

I don't find it mean. My daughter is about to be 2 and I think it's harder on her and more mean to let her scream for hours. I need her to stop breast feeding. It hurts and I need my sleep. She nurses like a newborn. I'm exhausted and am ready to try anything. I cant listen to her scream and get herself so upset that she's basically hyperventilating. That to me is cruel. She refuses a cup or paci or anything at that point.

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