Time to stop breastfeeding at 11 months - feeling nervous - any tips gratefully received

[sunshinehayley]

Hi all

My son turns 11 months' old on Sunday and has EBF since birth. I weaned him onto solids at 6 months and he eats a large and varied diet. I am 3.5 months' pregnant and feel it is time to wean my son off the boob for a few reasons (not sure there's actually much milk in there anymore, he pulls on and off while feeding and it hurts my now-tender boobs, I'm going back to work next month). He has a BF first thing in the morning before breakfast and then last thing at night. Three solid meals a day plus two snacks with a beaker of cows/goats milk.

I plan to go straight to cows/goats milk as he already takes it and I don't see the point in introducing formula at this late stage.

What are your tips for getting him off the boob? I guess in the morning go straight down for breakfast and then at night get his dad to put him to bed with a beaker of milk for a week so he forgets about boob? At the moment his bedtime BF is the last thing before I put him down and it does make him sleepy, although he's awake when he goes down and chats himself to sleep. If there's anything in particular that helped you I'd love to hear about it.

Thanks

hi Sunshine
It can feel uncomfortable b/f during pregnancy especially with tender boobs! With any weaning the general advice is to offer a substitution (cows / goats milk) and distraction.

Also to remember that if he's losing mummy milk that he won't want to lose mummy too...that will be 2 loses in his world so even though he might be upset if you're there and not going to let him have milk do tell him that you love him and offer lots of cuddles. It's very tempting to get cross back but he will need more love and attention during this time and a very patient mum. It doesn't have to be an all or nothing approach either, it can be a case of 2 steps forward and 1 step back.

Best of luck with your pregnancy.

I stopped at about the same stage (last feed a week before his birthday). I dropped the morning feed first - got DH to get him up and take him straight down for breakfast so that he didn't see me, and within a week he was fine and let me do it. The evening one was going to be a bit trickier as that was his favourite feed, but I started doing it slightly before bedtime (so before bath, rather than after) so that he had a week or so to associate going to bed without milk and got DH to do the whole bath, book. bed routine, and then stopped. It coincided with our first night away for me and DH, so DS didn't have a feed that night and then I decided to see whether he would ask for a feed the next night we were back and he didn't ask so I didn't offer. And that was it. All in all it was remarkably painless.

Having said all that, I tried to wean at 9mo and he was having none of it! Whereas he just didn't seem so bothered at 11-12mo. By the time he was 15mo, he was much more clingy/mummy-focused and I think we;d have had a harder time weaning then. So I think you should just pick a point where he seems fairly unclingy, and try to wean then. And rope your DP in to help out by doing the bulk of the care when you would normally be feeding - just stay out of sight if possible.

Good luck!

As well as above advice, I would say don't just suddenly stop or you might get more painful boobs. I cut down gradually going to one feed a day then one every other day then one every 2 days and after about 2 weeks we stopped although my DD1 was 18 months. After 2 weeks, I offered at night and she refused so job successfully done. Good Luck!

That's very helpful advice.
I've been waiting 2 months for my lg to stop being clingy. She's 11 months now and with teething she's on me all the time. Before, when I was trying give her bottle she was screaming.
I like the idea of changing routine but worried that she'll cry. Was there lots of drama at your house? X