When did you stop breastfeeding?

[Jummynbean]

Sorry if this is in the wrong place, got a little one on the way and was curious to find out when you all decided to stop breast feeding and also why? Most places online recommend anywhere between 6 months and upwards of 2 years which is pretty vague. If you can also add some pros, cons and whether you think you should have done it differently, keen to learn from your experiences.

I stopped bf my little one at 14 months. Straight onto cows milk. I went back to work at 9 months and expressed twice a day so she was able to have expressed breastmilk in my absence.

We gradually replaced the morning and afternoon expressed milk with snacks and used the expressed milk to replace the breast before bedtime.

I had a good supply and expressed from day 1. So she was familiar with a bottle and didn't have any issues taking one as and needed.

Obviously it's a very tedious link but she didn't sleep through until 14 months old, same time she stopped feeding from the breast and started walking.

Also my boobs are great, it makes no real difference . Your breasts fill with milk during pregnancy anyway whether you plan to breastfeed or not, so any physical changes will happen anyway. I don’t think you can escape that by using formula.

DS stopped just before his 5th birthday. My boobs still pass the pencil test. Not that I give a shit.

9 months. Very nearly gave up in the first few weeks so see it as a massive achievement that I got that far. By 9 months she was only really bf at night so I thought stopping might make her sleep through. It did not!

9/10 months when I went back to work. By that time I felt a bit trapped with bf (altho obviously they were on solids) and I just wanted to be back to normal. Totally selfish reasons, I'd had enough.

18months, I felt she had just lost interest a couple of nights before and didn't push it. Had been great upto then, she fed a lot quite late but i managed down the feeds between 12 and 18months as I was sore at work and hated pumping there.

Dc1- about 24 hours! Didn’t know what the hell i was doing, had no support and parents I was living with at the time told me it was weird and I’d have to go in a different room to do it so I didn’t offend my brother and dad.

Dc2- about two weeks( of pure torture) with hindsight the positioning and latch were all wrong, again lack of support.

Dc3- 6 months- just worked this time!i stopped because I had 3 under 2 and it just felt easier. I did miss it and wished I’d done it for longer.

Dc4- two weeks! Thought it’d be easy because of the last baby but nope. Again looking back, I was too cocky and was feeding in all sorts of weird positions because I’d already breastfed and thought it’d be easy. I got really sore and gave up.

Dc5- 3 years! Woohoo cracked it stopped because the last 6 months I’d just had enough. I fed her on demand the whole time and she was constantly feeding the whole 3 years.

Dc6- 1 month. Ffs. Thought I’d nailed this breastfeeding thing. I got mastitis and stopped.

3.5 years. I was ready to stop then and my daughter was fine about stopping too. It was only once a day at bedtime for the last two years and I could go away overnight without her in that time. I went back to work full-time when she was 7 months and she would never take a bottle so I went to our childminders' house at lunchtime to feed till she was 1 as she wouldn't eat much or drink much water. She eats loads now. Pregnancy ruined the look of my boobs (they got comically enormous in the last weeks so the skin stretched) before I started breastfeeding - I'm fine about it.

Mine were both still breastfeeding when they started primary school, and stopped in their own time. The first few months were really tough, the first 18 months were tricky and I felt tied down, but from then on it was mostly just lovely, although I did find it hard for the first few weeks of feeding 2 children after DC2 was born. After that it was nice again, and it think that tandem nursing helped reduce sibling rivalry.

DS 16 months, I’d gone back to work at 9 months and be refused a bottle and fed all night so at just over a year I switched night feeds to a cup of cows milk and he was down to morning and evening feed. Cut the evening feed to help him sleep (it didn’t) and he gave up the morning feed a couple of months later. Was ideal really. DD is not quite 6 months and ebf. Will feed her to at least a year and then until I get fed up with it or she does!

EBF till 6 months.
Started weaning at 5.5 months (he was 2 week overdue)

From 6 months to 10 months I replaced the evening feeds with formula given by DP as DS moved out of our bed into his own cot in his own room which aided aleep (his and mine!) Morning feed was bf (didn't have to get out of bed, bliss) then through the day was just whatever was easiest (boob if out and about, formula at nursery).

Continued doing at least one feed a day until 10 months when Baba turned his nose up at the boob. Timed perfectly with him getting teeth.

IMO it was the perfect set up for us. I had a lot of milk so between 6 months and 10 months pumped out 4 liters for the human milk bank.

We stated DS on bottles of expressed breastmilk at 9 days old when bf was established and going well. DP enjoyed participating in feeding each day when he got in from work and it gave me time to grab a shower and something to eat.

Hi OP

I fed first one to 20 months and she naturally just lost interest as she gained more interest in food. I wanted to do it for the health benefits and also she refused bottles from 3 months.

Second one I've dropped a morning feed this week and down to one evening feed. She is 16 months. I think she'll be a lot trickier she's always pulling my top down and trying her luck! Also refused a bottle from 3 months onwards (after happily taking a bottle of expressed milk every other day).

I night weaned both of them at 7 months, if I hadn't theres no way I would have been able to continue

For me, the pros were

It was awful at first. Both had undiagnosed tongue tie. If I could give you any advice it would be if you have any issues at all please get checked by a qualified tongue tie practitioner. Nurses midwives HVs and doctors are NOT qualified to spot them and will tell you the baby has a perfect latch etc when they dont. I know countless people this has happened to

Night feeds are brutal and I ended up co sleeping which I hadn't set out to do

This is anecdotal but I do think bf babies sleep worse as they start off falling asleep at every feed as its so comforting to them and it quickly becomes a crutch to get them to sleep and it's a hard habit to break. So every time they stir they expect it to get back to sleep. We had to get a sleep consultant in to help us break the habit (still feeding through the night every 90 min 7 months in to the point where only needed 1 feed in the day time and wouldn't eat solids) and she said 90pc of her work is with breastfed babies who need feeding to get to sleep.

I found it tough mentally being the only one who can feed the baby especially when they started refusing bottles. You cant plan anything that takes you away from them for more than an hour and I felt like I needed that space (or the option of taking it even if I didn't actually want to if that makes sense), also having to breastfeed through a sickness bug and throug flu was grim. Sometimes after being up for the 5th time that night as the baby wouldn't settle without being fed I wished id bottle fed

Not drinking. Yes you can have one or two but sometimes its nice to have more!

Going back to work was a bit more stressful. I went back after 10 months the first time and the baby wasn't great at drinking from a cup and I'd have to rush home to feed her. Explaining to people why I couldn't go out on work socials was awkward. Turning down going away on a training course for a week wasn't great either

Pumping was a PITA. The second time I just used one of the vacuum ones that collects milk when you feed from the other side but even that was rubbish. feels like the worst of both worlds from bottle and breastfeeding

Pros
Obviously all the health benefits. No idea if it benefited us personally but I dont think people can deny this at population level and it's nice knowing you are doing something that may protect them from diabetes or whatever in the future

After the initial tough part it's so easy. Say after 12 weeks - no stressing as the shop has run out of your brand of formula, no sterilising, no warming milk etc, to me just rolling over in bed and staying half asleep seemed a lot easier than getting up and doing a bottle. Leaving the house is easy as no need to remember anything. As is taking a flight etc

I joined a group in Facebook and they're always posting articles and the science behind it is fascinating, I feel like I've learned a lot

Always had decent experiences feeding in public

I personally found it did comfort them in a way that nothing else could when they were ill or had a fever sometimes it was the only time they stopped crying

Reading back it does sound like there are equal pros and cons but overall I'm glad I did it though it was harder than I thought - more mentally than physically for me

First at 2.5yrs (ish)
Second still going strong at 20 months, probably will be 2.5-3ish again

My DS is 4 next week and still has boob on a morning and at bedtime. I am so grateful I found such a supportive breastfeeding group with Mums who totally normalised breastfeeding into toddlerhood, and gave me the right information about breastfeeding. Sadly health professionals aren’t up to date with the correct advice and information which leads to Mothers giving up, and other problems.
The association of breastfeeding mothers is a fantastic support group and I recommend you look at their website and find a support group near you with trained mother supporters. The list of pros would seriously take me too long to write! Some have been mentioned in previous posts, but there are many more that last a lifetime. As for cons, other than tiredness I really don’t think there are any!

1DC. Stopped BF during the day at 10 months as I went back to work full time. Still fed when he got up, when I got home from work, for bedtime and through the night, and weekends.
Dropped the morning feed and after work feed at 12 months. 14 months now and just started giving a sippy cup instead of night feeds (two feeds on average, but barely a few sips drank) as he's sleeping better. It's been a few days and seems to be going well. Planning to start trying to drop his bedtime feed at 16 months, to be done by 18 months I think.
I'd like #2 but no sign of AF while still feeding.

Anyone who's telling you to stop BFing at 6 months has totally misunderstood the guidance.

The guidance is to feed exclusively till 6 months, and introduce solids at that point. But you don't stop BFing because they've started eating a bit of banana!

The World Health Organisation recommends BFing until at least 2 years old. That recommendation is for everyone, including us in the developed world (there's a lot of misinformation about this, even many health professionals think this guidance is not for developed nations, but it absolutely is aimed at us too.)

Of course, BFing till 2 is unusual in the UK, but we have some of the lowest BFing rates in the world. Also, our health professionals mostly get very little training on this, and often spread misinformation themselves so you need to be very careful about heeding people's advice on this. GPs for example get little to no training on how to support BFing and what's normal.

If anyone is telling you, you must stop before 2 years, then they don't know the guidelines.

Of course that doesn't fit with our culture, and anyone telling you you must feed till 2 years can probably be ignored also!

I would say, there's not age you need to stop. BFing has lots of benefits for you and your child, even toddlers and older children, and you should carry on as long as you want to. Any pressure to stop before your child is of school age (or even older) is purely societal, not based on any evidence, and it's up to you whether you want to act on it or not.

Not drinking. Yes you can have one or two but sometimes its nice to have more!

I've BF children for 9 years, there's no way I stopped drinking for all that time!

The biggest risk to your child from you being drunk is you hurting them eg dropping them because of being drunk, not the actual booze.

The level of booze in your milk, even if you were totally out of it, is tiny. Less than in orange juice. (Did you know orange juice is mildly alcoholic? No, because it's so small as to be irrelevant).

Obviously the smaller your child is, the more you need to take care. But if you're BFing an 18 month old, for example, there is no reason you can't go out for a night - the world won't end if you don't BF them for a night, or if they BF from you and there's a tiny bit of booze in your milk. It won't hurt them in the slightest.

The benefits of BFing an 18 month old far outweigh the risks of you having a boozy night out every so often. The biggest risk is from you being drunk, and that's the same whether bottle of BFing by that point!

I suspect a fair number of women stop BFing because we want to be able to drink again. Which is a shame as it's not necessary.

You don't have to pump necessarily. I stayed off work for just over a year, and when I went back I simply didn't feed in the day and BF as soon as I got home. My body adapted, my child adapted, it was fine.

In the US women often go back to work as early as 6 weeks, and obviously they need to pump. I think that's contributed to an idea that we must pump when we go back to work, I certainly assumed that was the case till I realised it wasn't!

Obviously if you're going back to work early you may need to pump, or you may want to. But the older your child is, the less necessary it is.

I BF my first till 4, and my second till 5. She's 6 now and would still BF if I would let her. Neither of mine "self weaned" - they both cut down till we were only BFing at bedtime, but I got to the point I felt is was time to stop.

There are more people BFing older DC than you'd realise. It's uncommon but not rare by any standards. We just don't talk about it publicly much as we know how weird our culture is about it!

Agree with howmanyleftfeet.

Sadly, got duff advice when DS1 was very small from a GP at the end of the phone and stopped despite best encouragement from a BF counsellor. DS2 for about 9 months and DS3, when I was so much more relaxed, while he was still in the later years of infant school - the odd BF when he was feeling a bit grumpy or in need of a warm cuddle.

I've certainly met mums who have BF for 4, 5 years or even longer. And I've heard some absurd criticism, especially from male quarters.

DS 3 once said, at the time, that BM tasted like 'apple juice'. What was I producing?

18 months with my daughter, I was ready to stop and she just didn't ask one day and that was that!

Boobs got back to near normal, it took a good 6 months after we stopped though, they looked a bit deflated for a while.

Six months- my baby was effectively starving and losing weight

Breast fed with one bottle a day until 6 months and then added a few extra bottles. Baby was feeding every hour until 6 months and it just never got easier for us, but we still do a couple of breast feeds a day which suits us both fine and if he wakes during the night. We are happier now and the bottles don't seem to much extra work because of that. Now I just worry I'm over feeding him.

22 months with DD, as we started fertility treatment just after her 2nd birthday. DS is 21 months and still feeds a fair bit but I'm aiming to stop around 2, I've had enough of it now. I'm the only one who could ever do bedtime with either DC as they have both been die hard bottle refusers.

Still breastfeeding my almost 20 month old! Most days its just morning and before bed. Though with pain from his molars coming through we have had the odd day where he wants to nurse more often. Hoping to stop by 2 years as though I love the bond this has created, id like a little break before trying for another.

At the start your feel anxious about how much you babies getting, comments about formula fed babies going longer stretches between feeds and older relatives will have updated opinions in breadtfeefing. Eg feed 20 minutes each side. When actually there will be days early on where all you do is breastfeed (to help milk come in/baby increasing your supply) and then all babies are different and some nurse just minutes.

Fortunately my older sister breastfed her LO and was very knowledgeable and supportive.

Advice is find a local breastfeeding support group and or join a Face book breastfeeding group.

PRO its a lovely way to bring you close.

Its so coinvenient, always right there, always the right temperature and made / adapts specifically for your baby.

CON you do all feeds unless you pump, which case you have to pump.

Good luck! Xxx