Any advice or tips for gently weaning my ds off bf around his 2nd bday

[Poohbearsmom]

Hi ladies my ds2 is 20months and id like to gently wean him off bf'ing around his 2nd birthday. He loves his milk and i want to go easy and gradually wean him. Any advice or tip would be great, thanks

I just slowly stopped one feed at a time, dropping one each week, replacing it with a snack stop and cuddle instead. It was actually a lot easier than I anticipated!

Hi Poohbearsmom - I can't really help but am in the same position. DS feeds multiple times a day and has just learnt to say "milk" so keeps asking for it. I don't mind this at all, but would like to stop at around 2 (he's 18 mths now). It's so much more than food for him, it's a comfort and everything, and he doesn't feed at set times or anything so I can't really stop one feed at a time or anything. Watching with interest!

Thanks guys my main problem is he has a really strong milk to sleep association... With ds1 it was easy enough but he was never a bf addict like his little brother who would live at da boob if given the option and he was younger (14months) i will try cutting out the feeds slowly one by one

Someone i know suggested this herbal stuff you can rub on your nipples which tastes yuck but is perfectly safe and when baby tastest it spits out da nipple and doesnt care about gettin it back but i dont know, it doesnt feel right to make something he loves so much taste horrible but thats da same part which has mountains of guilt for stopping breastfeedin him at all iyswim..... Anyone heard nd it or used it?

My dd was a boobaholic, she eventually stopped when she was 2.5 yrs & I was pregnant (not suggesting you do the same!!) Initially I used snacks & distraction if she wanted to feed when it was inconvienient or I knew it would be a one minute wonder. The first feed I dropped was the breakfast one as it was an easy one to distract with shreddies! Then I cut the bedtime one, I was nervous initially as dd also had strong sleep association. It was fine though & she just asked a couple of times for boob but then settled easily with a cuddle (I did wear a top that had my boobs well hidden away!). The last feed to go was her late lunch/afternoon one as she used it to go to sleep with. I suppose I was more reticent to stop it as I knew it might mean the end to daytime napping (it did). All in all though it really was a painless slowing down of feeds & dd never seemed upset at all in fact much of it came from her losing interest.
good luck, take it slowly & I'm sure you'll be fine

Thanks Tara its just daunting i really dont know how il put him to sleep without a milky cuddle being involved... Just being silly i suppose everyone does it eventually and actually we are planning to ttc next spring!

Pooh, pick your alternative really carefully. We stupidly read her to sleep and then continued to do it for 6 months . Then I got fed up as she'd also wake in the night and want to be read back to sleep. I read the sleep book and it said the only was to do it was to get them to go to sleep on their own in a darkened room. Thats the way it is when they wake up in the night. You need to move in teeny tiny steps toward that:

holding to sleep without feeding
staying in the room while they go to sleep
staying by the door
staying outside the door
door open
door closed
voila!

good luck...

Everyone doesn't do it eventually pbm - some of us wait until our dc self wean. You do know that wanting to ttc again doesn't mean that you have to give up bf don't you? I am feeding 2 dc and am pregnant with a third.

Whilst I'd have loved it if my dd had self-weaned close to 2, that is actually quite early for self-weaning, and it would have just made life harder for us all to enforce weaning.
Have you tried just setting some ground rules about when/where he can feed instead?