Hoping to cut-down and stop BF over a period of 3 or 4 months. How best to go about it?

[DrivenToDistraction]

DS is 9 months and I'd like to stop BF shortly after turns one. I've been pregnant, BF or BF and pregnant for three years now and much as I'm sorry to say it, I need my body back sometime soon.

I've no idea how to go about it, but I'm sure it'd be best for both of us to cut down and stop sloooooowly. With DD I didn't have to stop, my milk vanished at about week 14 of my pregnancy and she didn't mind at all. She was 13ish months then.

So, what should I do? I don't want to introduce formula and I know cows milk isn't suitable as a main drink before one. DS is a good eater but he's BLW'd and I pretty much let him decide his own balance between BF and food...

I'd love to let him self wean in his own time but I just don't have it in me

How many feeds per day/night at moment. Does he take a cup?

He has about 8 - 10 feeds per 24 hours ATM. It varies though and he often cluster feeds between 3 and 5 am.

He takes a cup but it's slow going and he's happy with a bottle or a sippy cup too.

Anyone?

Oh blimey, is it such an heinous crime to want this?

Do you absolutely want to keep giving him breast milk until he's one? If so I would start with replacing daytime feeds with EBM from a cup or bottle, just to keep your life easier. Then maybe drop the first thing in the morning one by replacing that one with a bottle/cup as well. I guess it depends what you want to feed him instead- formula, or wait until he's getting everything he needs from his diet.

I'm not entirely certain tbh as all of mine have seamlessly switched to food and cow's milk only at 14, 18 and 24 months. And boy was I glad to get my body back after 5 years of pregnancy and breastfeeding... I totally understand why you want to.

Oh and honestly, I would try to stop feeding him at night straight away- you will feel a lot better for it.

Oh, and don't forget that your fertility will come back (possibly with a vengeance) once you start dropping feeds!

Thanks duchesse!

Yeah, it's important to me for him to keep having BM until he's one. TBH it's a lot shorter than I'd have liked but I can live with having managed a full year.

Should I be expressing to feed EBM then? Surely I wouldn't actually be cutting down if I did that? I do have a lot of EBM in the freezer but I'd rather not run the stock down too low in case I ever get the chance to go away without the DC, not that that's likely. I really don't want to buy formula. Could I do half EBM and half cows milk?

How on earth would I go about night weaning? It would be amazing not to have to get up every couple of hours

I'm soooo looking forward to my fertility coming back! I don't want any more DC but some level of interest in sex would be fab! I've got a copper coil so I should be safe .

Not a heinous crime at all. I am facing a similar problem but I have chosen to go back to work at 9 1/2 months and want to keep BF til 1 . Your baby is feeding like my did about 1 month ago. Now she seems to have spaced her feeds more although still nibbles through the night. I think breaking the association between the breast and the milk is the key which is what I am working on at the moment but DD doesn't like a cup or bottle.

Our method of extending useful sleep has always involved feeding the baby just before you go to bed. Practically, this means that my baby goes to bed at 9:30-10pm at the moment, although she's increasingly showing signs of being ready at about 8:30. With teenagers in the house who are up till 10 we're not bothered by the fact that the baby is up as well. That may be different for you. If you want him in bed at 7/8 ish try this, you could try waking him up just before you go to bed to feed him, then put him down again (preferably put him down awake!). That may stretch the cluster feeding at 3am back to 5 or 6.

Please reassure me that you're feeding him lying down in bed and not getting up for him? If you do manage to stretch him back to 5 or 6, cluster feeding from 5-7 seems a lot less bothersome if you're still snoozing. The 3am wakeups really do you in.

My baby, who is 6 mo and admittedly very easy, sleeps from 9:30ish until nearly 5 and then is woken up by hunger near 5. I feed her (lying down and snoozing at the same time) and she goes back to sleep. She then wakes at 7 for another feed and then goes back to sleep till 9. She is exclusively breast fed at the moment and 7.5 hours is I think about as much as you can expect on food that's so easily digested! I work from home and my au pair looks after her during the day, and my older children go out of the house with my husband, so it works brilliantly for us as we don't have to be anywhere in the mornings.

Whatever you decide to do, make sure it works for you as much as for the baby! It's fine to rejig his feeds slightly to suit you- if you're better rested, he'll get more out of you in the daytime!

y y I am feeding him laying down. I'd be dead if I wasn't TBH.

At the moment he goes to bed between 7 and 8, after a BF, then he wakes to feed at 11:30 ish (about my bed time), actually sometimes he slips a feed in at 10 too. He goes back down 'till 1 or 2 and then he's back to feed as frequently as he can starting at around 3. At about 5 or 6 he'll go down properly for another hour or two but he's never awake later than 7:30. More usually between 6:30 and 7. The little sweetie is happy to play in bed for up to an hour after his 7 am (ish) feed though.

My exhaustion and his regular waking leads to semi-accidental co-sleeping between (say) 1am and 5am about half the time. Which means he does feed to sleep / in his sleep. The rest of the time he's usually happy to settle himself in his cot or be bounced to sleep in his chair by his half demented mother.

I've tried feeding him more in the day but just wont have it. He's so distractable / uninterested that it's all I can do to get a decent feed into him sometimes.

If DD and life in general didn't keep me permanently busy I think I'd be at my wits end with his feeding TBH. Seeing it written down like this makes me feel a bit less unreasonable to want to take it hand

driven your descrition above is exactly what my ds (8.5 months) is doing. I'm going back to work in June and while I want to keep some breastfeeding going I won't be ableto cope with the same level of nightfeeds barely coping now

Will be watching this with interest as I also may have to have a shoulder op and have to wean him (six weeks in sling no lifting after)