Weaning from breastfeeding, please help! What did you do! Is cold turkey cruel?

[giantwaterbottle]

I want to wean my 15 month old. He's recently got way more into breastfeeding and now I'm worried I've missed a window 😭
Any tips? Gradual? Cold turkey? What did you do?
He still feeds at night too

Watching with interest op as I struggle to find anything about how to stop breastfeeding - I barely know what the options are other than cold turkey! And do you get mastitis if you do that?!

8 month old here and want to stop when he is 12 months as I go back to work. He loves it so I'm equally as flummoxed by the prospect.

Personally I'm a nurse so I have to do night shifts every so often. Started when DS was 15 months, he's now 18 months. 2 weeks ago I did a week of nights and just stopped feeding him afterwards! Might not be helpful but after a few days he forgot about it. I haven't had mastitis but had a few painful lumps the other night that I had to massage and squeeze some milk out to get rid of, nothing since. Hormones have settled now too.

At 19 months, after a terrible night I simply told dd it was gone and she couldn't have anymore. I ABSOLUTELY did not think this would work as she was pretty obsessed with breast milk.. but she just never asked again.

Not saying that will work for all babies, but it was completely cold turkey and not cruel at all, she didn't really care.

I gradually stopped when my LO turned 1.

He was having 4 feeds a day, I stopped the 2 during the day. Just did morning and night, then after a week I stopped the morning feed then a week later I stopped the night feeds.

My boobs felt a little sore and quite hard/full twice so I gently hand expressed. Just a little to release the hardness. But my boobs soon adjusted pretty quickly and I didn't have any problems with mastitis

I weaned my daughter at 18 months. I started by distracting her with an activity or a snack when she asked to nurse in the day, then replaced the bedtime feed with my husband giving her milk in a cup. The morning feed was last to go as it required someone to get up and take her straight downstairs rather than snuggling up in our bed together. We stopped over about a week and she was a lot more okay with it than I expected. It's been so lovely to have cuddles without her always signing for milk!

I went cold turkey with both of mine. First at 13 months, second at 2.5 years. I was happy to continue with the second but then couldn't stop. If you don't want to continue much longer I'd stop now. It would have been really difficult to have stopped with my second between 18 months-2.5.

Mine was older than yours, but I did it in stages. First of all I just made sure I was offering her a drink from a cup and a small snack shortly before when she would usually feed, and if she asked I told her that mummy milk was only for before sleep. No fuss at all. Then I nightweaned (which meant we were down to morning feed, pre-nap feed on my non-working days and bedtime feed) - mostly did this by reading books to her e,g, Sally Weans from Night Nursing etc. The first night she did cry a little, but I sang to her and she calmed down very quickly. No issues the second night or after that point. We kept those last 3 feeds for aaaaaaaaaages, the pre-nap feed was only dropped when the nap was dropped. She was 2 and a half when we stopped the last 2 feeds, they were lovely cuddly time together. When I told her she was too old for mummy milk now and that we would just have ordinary cuddles at those times she didn’t mind, but was a little extra clingy for about a week I think.

I’m a fan of doing these things very gradually!

Thanks so much for all the replies everyone.
@crazychemist how did you night wean off you don't mind me asking? I very much want to do this!

@Camandmitch thank you for this. I have been a little hesitant as he is my last baby and I feel quite emotional about stopping in some ways (but also think maybe that's hormones?!) but this gives me a little more drive to do it as I really don't want to be feeding him for that long (I fed my first for ages).

I won't reply to everyone individually as it'll be annoying for you with all the updates.

I have been doing shift work up until recently though never full nights so he can go without in the night and he used to mange a lot better. He's so into it now ask I don't know if it's a cold or teething but if makes me feel awful to start as he wants it so much.

I think I'll do it gradually and definitely use lots of distraction and snacks as advised!

DD is now nearly 24 and when she was a baby they said that up to a year, you decide but after a year the baby does.

She changed nursery at 20months, got a stinking cold, totally blocked up and so couldn't suck and went on strike. When she started talking just after 2 she could remember. Took a good 2-3 months for milk to dry up even though down to 1 feed a day.

I stopped one feed at a time. The last feed to go was the middle of the night.

I had a LOT of breastfeeding aversion (probably the whole time I breastfed but most noticeable past 12 months or so). I used to countdown from 10 for some feeds which seemed to work and then distracted with a toy or a snack. How fast I did the countdown depended on how antsy it was making me feel! We switched the bedtime routine up as well so that after a feed she would have cuddles with DH. We never introduced cow's milk/water at bedtime and it was fine.

I have had colleagues put plasters over their nipples or lemon juice/marmite too, but that seems cruel to me!

Used the Jay Gordon method, gentle for them, no sudden cold turkey for your boobs to deal with.

@giantwaterbottle by the time I nightweaned, DD was nearly 2 and really loved stories. Basically I did a lot of groundwork before we made the change - I got several books (Sally Weans from Night Nursing, Mumma’s Milk is All Gone, Nursies When the Sun Shines... I can’t remember them all. Two of them I borrowed, the others I bought pretty cheaply online). Each one of them was read once without comment just as a normal story. Once we’d read them all (let’s say a week) I cycled through them again, but this time I made a point of talking to DD about it - “this little baby needs milk at night. But this big girl doesn’t need it any more. She can drink from a cup. Her mummy has more energy to play if she doesn’t have to get up at night”. Third time through I’d ask her questions as we read to see if the message was sinking in. When we got to the end of each book I’d say how big she was getting and that soon she wouldn’t need milk at night any more. It had probably been best part of a month since I first brought it up so I then said “DD, you’re big enough now that you don’t need milk at night. If you wake up, give your Teddy a big cuddle to help her go back to sleep with you”.

The first night she woke up 2 hours after bedtime and wanted to feed. She did cry but I lay next to her and stroked her hair and sang her a lullaby and she was asleep within 2 minutes. She woke again 2 hours later and 2 hours after that.... I did feel a bit shit at that point! The second night I did hear her wake at 2 hours, but she settled herself without calling for me. She didn’t ask for milk at night again. We carried on reading the stories occasionally during that week and the next one, then I passed them onto someone else.