anyone's bf baby self-weaned at 9mo?

[olivo]

How did it make you feel? DD2 has stopped bf, of her own accord in the past few days, and I am gutted. She was only bf at night and in the morning ,as i am back at work, but since about friday, apart from seeking out the breast during the day on SUnday, and scukling for quite a while, she hasn't wanted to bf.
do i take it this is self- weaning, and should i seek reasssurance that she is ready to give it up, rather than me having to make the decision for her?
feeling a bit tearful about the whole thing

Sounds like a nursing strike. It would be extremely early to self wean. Katherine Dettwyler (Anthropologist has worked out the natural age of self weaning to be 2-7 years. Of course no one has to nurse that long if they don't want

Is she teething or has she bitten you? Sometimes if a baby bites mum they can be put off nursing by mum's very understandable reaction (scream/shout/crying). Or it could be due to having bottles/beakers/cup at childcare (which of course she needs, I'm not suggesting otherwise ) and DD preferring to drink out of them at the moment.

Here is some information on nursing strikes and advice on ways to get baby back to nursing.

You sound like you are not happy about feeling like you have finished breastfeeding but if you don't wish to continue you have still done a fantastic job getting to 9 months and you should be proud of yourself . Hope you get the resolution you want (baby nursing again or peace of mind about not nursing anymore).

thanks Truth. yes, you're right, i'm not too happy to finish feeding now; DD2 is likely to be our last baby, maybe selfishly i want to carry on a bit. I'm just not ready

I will check out about nursing strikes and see if i can entice her back!
she has bitten me but it was about a month ago and we carried on regardless!

Hi there. My DD 8 months seems to be self weaning too. It's coincided with my return to work and I've been trying to feed her morning and night, but the last few days she's rejected it (me) and got very excited by her beaker instead. I'm mixed about it - wanted to carry on for a bit longer, planned to think about weaning when she was one. But equally my sister can't get her 20 month old off the breast, so am quite grateful that the weaning process seems to be so easy.

thanks blue, sounds like you're in a really similar situation. i'm goign to try and coax her back but if not, i'll try and look at the positives such as being able to take my antihistamines again!! She will still take my defrosted ebm so i can at least use that up and feel i'm half doing it!

Olivio - I was looking at Thomas Hale's website today and found out you CAN take anti-histamines and breastfeed. The 'anti-histamines drying your milk up' is apparently a load -of old cobblers previous theory which is now discredited I've been avoiding anti-histamines since I first got hayfever when I was pg with DD1 in 2006 and am gutted to find out I needn't have suffered.

See post 4 for details. If you go to here you can look up your preferred drug!

wow - thanks truth. yes, it would appear that both of the ones i take are ok. grrrrrr, i've only taken them for one summer since 2005!
BTW, looks like dd2 is now coming down with the pox,so maybe why she doesnt want to feed at the mo. will kep trying.

Greatful for this thread as I'm in a similar boat with 9mo dd. She fusses and fidgets at even the morning and nightly feeds. If I offer during the day I just get nibbled and she arches away so I'm finding it difficult to build up my supply. Somedays she hardly 'drinks' anything at all but then gets in the bath and tries gulping down gallons of bathwater! I'm going to check out the link posted above because Ireally don't want to stop yet. Good luck to other in similar position.