What did stopping/reducing breastfeeding look like for you?

[newmummypm]

My little boy is now 13 mo and is exclusively BF. At the moment he has a feed in the morning, before his afternoon nap and at bedtime. I wouldn’t say he asks for it but I also think if I offered him 10 feeds a day he’d have them all 😂 I just wondered what weaning looked like for other people and whether you reduced feeds or if your LO just lost interest. Thanks!

I reduced feeds and stopped at 12 months. I wanted my body back!

I started dropping one feed at a time, morning first, then night feeds, then afternoon and kept bedtime until last. She was ready so it was quite smooth, think it was harder for me!

I only went a week at first and then she got poorly so I gave her a couple of feeds so it wasn’t linear.

This was all at around 14 months and I miss it every day 💕

With DD1 I gradually reduced the amount of BF during the day and offered cows milk in a cup instead until we were just at a morning and night feed.

DD2 is proving much more difficult because she's not such a good eater and will not drink her 'milk in a cup'. So I'm then resorting to BF because I don't want her to be hungry! Ugh

My DD started refusing feed by feed but was happy take (cow's) milk in a cup so I just switched to that full time (DD was 14 months) and my milk supply dried out without any issues.

Following with interest OP! 20 month old DS still feeding. I don’t necessarily want to stop now, but would be perhaps looking to after he’s 2. We’re apart 4 full days a week anyway and he does fine on water, but even on those days probably breastfeeds 7/8 times (3-4 during the night).
At the moment I go with the ‘don’t offer but don’t refuse’ approach, but he just lets me know when he wants it quite vocally 🤣

I didn't offer but didn't refuse - although I would delay if not in a practical venue or time.

Feeding dropped off slowly, then she got an awful bout of norovirus and it prevented her from being admitted. Went back to almost newborn frequency when her molars were coming up and down, then went to 10 seconds once a week as if she were checking they still worked. Night before her third birthday she had a longer than normal feed, patted them and said "Bye bye boobies, I'm a big girl now" - I'll never forget that. She randomly asked a couple of times when she was 4 and that was a definite no. I was still producing milk for 3 years or so afterwards

Stopped at 2 years, a week after her second birthday.

didnt offer, didnt refuse.

got to the point where feeding felt like nails on a chalkboard before my period and knew I wanted to stop. I thought she can’t be getting much milk. one day, I said “let’s have cow milk instead of mummy milk” and she happily accepted.

We’d naturally got to the point where she wasn’t feeding to sleep anyway. Just having milk and then lying in her bed, and i’d sit on her floor for ten mins. I think that was key.

First baby self-weaned at 16 months so I waited for second baby to do this but he never did.
At one year I stopped feeding outside the house as I didnt want to plan my clothes around it. Snacks and a cuddle instead.
At three years old I decided to stop and switch to never offer, never refuse (you could do this now, you don’t have to wait another two years). I also used some distractions to eliminate some of the cues that reminded him of milk.

Stopped at around 18 months, mainly nursed for comfort and also at nighttime for sleep but she was getting abit teethy and I was ready to stop.
I saw a tip about putting plasters on nipples, told her mummy has a boo boo & it worked - she asked a couple times but we just switched to cows milk bottle for nights and was easy really! Especially as she loved feeding!

@Singleandproud what you’ve said your daughter said made me quite emotional, how lovely 🤍

I’d have thought that traditionally when people had bigger families it wouldn’t have been possible to do much bf with older infants because so many more were on the scene. In my generation of the family most people have between 0-4 children but grandparents and great grandparents were having 3, 5, 7, 11 kids…in one case they had 18. So I feel like you’d be bumped off the conveyor belt by the next lot!