Breastfeeding at 15 months - what’s your experience?

[Ccjop]

Hi,

Just interested in other people’s stories of breastfeeding up to 15 months and beyond. I don’t have many mum friends to compare my experience to and I suppose I just want to feel like I’m not alone and hear some sage words from experienced BFing mums!

DD is 15 months and BF from birth. She likes her food and when she’s not poorly or teething (admittedly rarely these days) will happily spend a day out away from me with my DP without BFing. She is ridiculously fond of BFing though, and while it’s exhausting and draining at times I absolutely love how she’s taken to it, the bond it has given us and what a source of comfort it is for her during teething and illness and times of clinginess.

At the moment she is BFing A LOT. Shes sprouting all four first molars at once and has a chesty cold and understandably gets grizzly when she’s away from me for longer periods. DP has taken a career break to look after DD for her second year, and I work from home, so I can take breaks to BF and spend time with DD which I feel very lucky to be able to do. It’s just a lot of BFing! I’d say probably hourly at the moment when she’s with me. And often she just wants to latch on and cuddle or look at a book.

She will also only be settled in the night with BFing and still wakes up 2, sometimes 3 times a night to be BF back to sleep. We’ve tried and failed a few times to introduce my DP comforting her in the night instead, and it just doesn’t work. She also likes to be BF to sleep at bedtime so I’ve always done bedtimes since birth. We’ve been through phases of DP trying to rock her at bedtime with mixed success, but she’s too heavy now and is savvy to what we’re trying to do. She BFs as soon as she wakes up in the morning too. I’ve kind of made my peace that this is how it is - I know this wont last forever so we’re just riding it out and giving her the comfort she wants.

She just flipping loves breastfeeding. She’ll sit on my lap, lift my top and then get my breasts out and look at them both in relish as if she’s deciding what to choose on a menu, before settling on a nipple. She’ll also stand up while she’s breastfeeding and somehow stay latched on with her little bum in the air. She’s also a frequent nipple twiddler which is probably my least favourite part of BFing right now.

Do other people have experience of BFing this intensely at the age? How did you feel about it? I honestly love it, and I’m so glad DD loves it too. I do have that niggling little voice in my head wondering when I’ll get my body back and if this baby will ever want to stop. I’m nervous about when/how to wean her too. I want to take it as far as she wants to go with it but I’m nervous that will be beyond when I’m ready to stop.

Long post, thanks so much for reading if you got this far!

I had a dd who loved bf, she’s 16 now so this is a long time ago, but at some point, probably around 12 months, maybe later, I put some boundaries in place, only bf in the evening and at night I think we started stretching out the gaps between, not feeding until midnight and then going to 1am etc. Then at 20 months she declared it tasted bad and we stopped. Turns out that was when I became pg again. DC2 was much less interested and we dropped it at 18 months.

I bf all my kids till 18 months - 2 years. First there is no right or wrong way to do this but I always think that breastfeeding has to work for the two of you. By 15 months I would have been putting some limits on it. Slowly and gradually decreasing the amount of times they fed. Maybe start with the night times if you want to do this. I weaning my eldest and youngest easily - the middle one was very difficult but we got there.

Looking for advice to wean off breastfeeding!! My son is 15 months and I have been struggling for months to wean him off the boob- particularly because I work full time and we would like to have another baby.
I absolutely love breastfeeding and will
be heartbroken when it ends, but logistically it has run its course.
my baby co-sleeps and spends the entire night latched on intermittently, then cries if my nipple falls out of his mouth and I have to readjust. He isn’t really content without the nipple in his mouth.
if I try to deny him the boob, he becomes inconsolable- day or night.
people talk about dropping a feed but I feel this isn’t applicable to us because there is no set pattern or routine to feeding.
he has never accepted a bottle with milk or formula, but he has a healthy appetite and eats really well.
if I am at work, he is completely fine and doesn’t seem to miss the milk, however if I’m around he wants to feed 24/7.

any tips would be so welcomed!! I’m terrified that the only option is to leave him become extremely upset for a prolonged time until he forgets about the boob.

There are a couple of books that you might find useful as they explore this topic- "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler" by Norma Jane Bumgarner and "How Weaning Happens" by Diane Bengsen.

Hi. First of all good for you! You sound like you and your little girl are still happy with the set up and that's great. It can be a bit isolating BF older babies/young toddlers but as long as you are both still happy then that's all that matters.

I breastfed both my children to about 18 months. Its only in the last 2 weeks I have weaned my DS.
My eldest sounds similar to your little girl....she loved breastfeeding and it was a huge comfort to her, so much so I was anxious when I weaned her off. My DS was a lot more chill about BF, towards the end he was only really feeding at night.

For me it got to a point where I had just had enough. Sort of made me feel irritable and I wanted some personal space back. Weaning was straight forward, I just took the cold turkey approach and both took that reasonably well! Since I have weaned my little boy, he now sleeps through, it's only been 2 weeks but the most glorious 2 weeks of uninterrupted sleep 😄

I'm proud that I managed to BF for so long and a part of me will always be a little sad that part of mine and my children's relationship is over.

Dd is now 21 so it's hard to remember that far back but I think that at 15 months, I had cut down to an early morning feed and a bedtime feed.
She occasionally had more if she was unwell and off her food.

It did help that I was working full time so Monday - Friday during term time she didn't have access to my boobs during the day.

DD was still feeding a lot at 15 months, every evening when I got in from work, to get to sleep and constantly through the night. I managed to get her to drop down to four then two feeds in the night at just over 2 years old when she was able to understand me telling her that it was the "last one" on whatever number feed I'd decided I'd had enough at. She needed a lot of comfort to start with but within a week or so was happy with a cuddle instead. She's 2.5yo now and we're still feeding to sleep but within the last month I've managed to night wean her and she hasn't asked for milk when I get in from work for ages now. I'll still feed her to sleep for as long as she needs but ideally I'm hoping to stop before baby number 2 arrives in a few months!

DD2 BF until she was 15 months. She's now 10 so it was a while ago. By the time she was 12 months we were down to just a before bedtime feed and if she ever needed settled day or night. She took milk out of a cup in the mornings from about 11 months. I went back to work when she was 15 months and had to travel with overnights. So, the BFing came to a natural end at that point as DH had to put her to bed when I was away and she just stopped asking. I absolutely loved feeding her for that long.

My little one is 15 months now and we are still breastfeeding but a limited amount now. He feeds at bed time and then once or twice through the night. We don't cosleep so it's a feed, then back in his cot.

I started to drop feeds when I returned to work when he was about 10 months old and have gradually reduced over time. He knows now he only breastfeeds in the rocking chair in his room so doesn't ask any other time- I can sometimes rock him back to sleep without boob but it's variable...

DD1 breasted until she was over two. But I thin after 12 months it was down to just first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This happened because she was away from me in nursery, and I stopped it on weekends.

At 27 months she stopped completely, I was about 5 weeks pregnant with DD2 so I guess maybe there was a change in the milk.

Breastfed 3 to a little over 2 years, DC4 only 2 months old so still bf.

In my experience, they are most intense about feeding 15-18 months. I think this is an age with teething, separation anxiety.... They want lots of comfort and also are aware that they have some choices/control so this is how it can be expressed.

It's a good age to start putting some boundaries in. No nipple twiddling! I managed the hold this line with my eldest. Didn't with my twins (didn't have enough hands!) And it's been a real pain - they are now 3y3mo, haven't fed in a year. They STILL try to sneak a hand into my top at bedtime or if they are upset!!!! Honestly I must have said no and prevent as them well over a thousand times since they last fed. Flipping ridiculous! I did manage to enforce not pulling at my clothes - I recommend this one as quite inportant. While it may not be a problem at home, and increasingly independent and fast toddler will pull at your clothes at the library, in church, at a cafe....

I fed mine to sleep till about their 2nd birthday. They didn't sleep more than 4+ hours until we stopped this, but that didn't bother me as we coslept and they were mobile so I hardly woke up for it. Morning feed was the last one to go.

When it came to dropping feeds, I encouraged this at about 18 months. In my case, I just said mummy milk was for at home - so no feeds when we were out and about. This was accepted without any fuss. Then we moved to only before/after naps/bed at close to 2 years and then dropped bedtime feed at about 2yr3mo or so. Waking up feed went not long after.

Despite feeding, my cycles returned at about 19/20 months each time. Pregnancy didn't really affect them feeding - I was expecting DC4 while still feeding the twins a couple of times a day. I did feel uncomfortable about it though, both physically (sore nipples!) And mentally - I didn't expect this, but sometimes felt irritated during feeding. I've heard of feeding aversion in pregnancy and I think it was that.

Breastfeeding is lovely, and I feel very lucky that it has worked so well with all my 4 babies. I think you do miss it slightly when you fully wean, but I didn't find that as much as I expected. By the time they are 2yo there are so manybfacets to your relationship with them that one of them changing is pretty minor. I still have lovely snuggly time with my twins at bedtime and in the morning. My 7yo gets in with us too half the time. We're hoping to extend upstairs in a couple of years - if so, I'm going to make sure we get a ling sized bed so we can still all squeeze in as the double is pretty crowded already!

When it did come to weaning, I always did it without any tears/upset. I did wonder if that would be possible as they all seemed so keen under the age of 2 that i though it would be really tough on them. It isn't when they are ready for it and if you prepare them properly.

We are at 14m now. At the moment it's first thing in the morning, which I don't see changing as he wakes so early and seems starving and I can't be bothered making breakfast at 6am. Then before his 2 naps if its not a nursery day and we are at home, before bed for sleep and once overnight. We don't feed when out of the house, he wouldnt ask. Once a week or so my husband will put him to bed with a bottle of cows milk, he has been taking a bottle again which I'm thankful for. I have gently introduced some boundaries with night time feeds - I don't feed until after midnight and most nights he doesn't wake until then anyway. If he does my husband settles him with a cuddle. It took him a while to accept this but now is fine. We don't cosleep so this does make it easier. He has started demanding milk more in the day, presumably due to separation anxiety with nursery. I'm allowing a bit more feeding to settle him but sometimes I'll try distraction or snack instead first. Interestingly at 10m I thought he was self weaning but it turned out to be a bottle preference so we cut back on those and now there's no sign of him naturally wanting to drop feeds. I think the nap ones will reduce when he drops to one nap, and we may stop that completely if it's immediately after lunch as he may not want it. I'm OK with bedtime feed for a while, and one overnight. I'd like to stop the morning one soon, perhaps if he took well to milk in a cup (doubtful!) or started waking a bit later. I thought I'd be ready to stop now and maybe see myself carrying on until 2

Both mine only fed twice a day at 15 months; after breakfast and at bedtime. Full-time work made sure of that! They went down to just the bedtime feed at 24 months. DD1 stopped feeding at 3.5 years (naturally weaned), DD2 at 2.5 years (weaning instigated by me).

My little boy will be 2 and a half at the end of this month and we’re still going with our breastfeeding journey 🥰 He will always feed when he wakes up, when he’s going to bed and 2-3 times during the night. In the day it depends how he is feeling and how busy/distracted he is so it can be anywhere from 0-6ish times 🤔