Help! I want to stop breastfeeding

[marchair]

My 21 month old is a complete breastmilk addict. I am at a complete loss how to stop. Does anyone have any advice?

The reason I want to stop is because I want to have a second baby and our first was IVF so if I want to have a FET, my clinic have advised to stop feeding. I am also 38 now so I feel like I have no time to lose.

LO screams and screams and screams until he gets milk - we tried sleeping separately so DH sleeps with 21mo and for a few nights it worked and he slept through until 4am or DH offered him water when he woke up, but now he's cottoned on I'm in the room next door so he wakes in the night and comes banging on my door until I come and feed him back to sleep - it's happening 4-5 times at night at the moment. Sometimes more. I'm at my wits end and so is DH. I've tried comforting, rocking, music, feeding for a shorter time and patting him back to sleep, offering him cows milk, food, telling him my breasts are "broken" (he knows this word) but nothing is working. He just screams and screams and does not give in until I breastfeed him back to sleep.

Do I go cold turkey? Or is this cruel? I just feel like we are in a cycle and I don't know how to stop! My nipples are really sore at the moment too and I feel like I'm feeding him more now than I was at the newborn stage. Thank you for any advice.. I'm getting desperate and it's causing a lot of stress for all of us.

I’ve had two milk addict toddlers, I used the same technique with both- it took about six months with my eldest but managed it in two weeks with my youngest (I did her earlier at 13 months which was way easier).
I first cut out the first feed of the night which I was usually still awake for and would just repeat “mummy isn’t giving you milk” or “no more milk” until she settled, once they got used to that I cut out the last feed of the night from around 5am so if they didn’t go back to sleep it wasn’t a huge deal. I finally did the middle of the night feeds once they were used to the idea of not feeding to sleep and also knew how to fall asleep without it.
What worked with my youngest is stopping breastfeeding in a good sleep phase whereas with my eldest I tried stopping when her sleep was awful so I was cutting out more feeds and she obviously needed the comfort more.
I also coslept whilst weaning to give extra comfort but most people I spoke to about it did the dad doing bedtimes and wake ups so I guess that works too.

I weaned my son at around 21/22 months - all "gentle" methods had proven totally useless, so I woke up one morning, managed to skip the morning feed by distracting with Coco pops then I put plasters on my boobs and informed him they had broken 🤣

We still had lots of cuddles, we stocked up on snacks and had some fun things planned in for that weekend. He was absolutely fine. Cuddled to sleep and apart from a bit of upset at bedtime and the first couple of nights with night wakes (but absolutely nowhere near as bad as we'd braced ourselves for) it was done and I felt AMAZING!

the only way that worked for me with 2 babies was cold turkey. i felt awful for them, but trying to wean slowly etc just never worked. i just had to keep saying no and pulling my top down if they tried to pull it up etc. it took a few days but they eventually gave up. for both it was probably one day of being very upset and then a couple of days of milder tantrums / upset but then they didn’t care. my third is now 8 months and i’m already over it and dreading the whole debacle again

I didn't have this issue but everyone I know who has, has just had to go cold turkey. Gentle/graded methods just seemed to prolong the distress. It might be a hideous few days but it shouldn't take long 🤞

I was in the same boat as you in October. And he's 2 this week. Literally, he would breastfeed non stop and was very dependent on it. I breastfed the other 5 kids up until 1.5y also. But he was the worst, a real milk addict. I kept saying i will use the half term break to give it up. But in the end I got fed up and just said no, no more. And I just went cold turkey

There were screams and tantrums. Worse was night time, as he used it to go to sleep and woke up about twice to have it.
But I just persevered and kept on it. Now he doesn't care. I kept him distracted with phone, YouTube and games and toys and books and fed him with other foods.
He was very stubborn at first but after about 4/5 days he knew he wasn't having it again.

Funny enough last night he pulled.down my nighty and smiled snd tried to put his mouth to feed, i told him no and gave him water. He didn't cry just gave a cheeky laugh.

Good luck with getting pregnant again. All the best.

Oh yes and now he sleeps the whole night through. Yayyyy

Thank you for the responses.

I just tried today to stop some of the day feeds by saying no my boobs are broken. This morning he cried for about 20 minutes - it was absolutely horrible. But I knew he was tired and due a nap so he would eventually give in. I played some music, eventually he settled. But it wasn't easy.

This evening when we got home from the shop he has had the biggest tantrum- I tried to say no to the boob but his screams sound like the world is about to end - he's so so desperate for milk. It was really upsetting actually to hear him suffering and crying so much, it was pure howling - enough to lose his voice and it actually made me super emotional and upset too, so I ended up giving in to him and letting him feed and he's now fallen asleep through sheer exhaustion, he's still shuddering in his sleep from the tantrum and I feel awful about it all to be honest.

Cut down gradually, I dropped everything between breakfast and dinner first (fed on demand so it varied exactly how many but I subbed with cows milk in a cup with a little nesquik as bribery) then i dropped evening feeds, then breakfast, then late night and finally overnight (bad sleeper) took about 6 weeks in total and yes bribery. The final overnight was achieved by then h walking around consoling her and extra (shhh) nesquik.

@marchair when I say I put plasters on and said they are broken, I mean I fully showed him and explained. Said we can still cuddle but no milk because they're broken.

Then just reminders whenever he went to feed/ask. "They've broke sweetheart, you can have a cuddle or we can play/have a snack" and show him the plasters, each time. I kept them on for a good few days, maybe a week thinking back on it. The first day or two were tough but we had prepped so it made it much smoother. We knew what we would say, how we would distract, the plan for nighttime. DH was fully onboard and knew the drill too.

At that age they should be old enough to semi understand but not old enough to question it too much. But don't wing it if he's really reliant on it and it's this ingrained, you need a solid plan and to be prepared to see it through. Remember you are introducing a whole "new normal" to the household essentially!

@FiveWhatByFiveWhat amazing!

We got it down to a limited schedule and then gave DS a massive cup of formula about an hour before his usual BF. Because of the routine he saw it as an extra not a replacement and guzzled it down. It just happened to leave him very full by his normal BF time. I still offered but DH and sister read his favourite book at the same time. After a few nights he just wandered off to join in the story instead. But it all hinged on the routine rather than demand feeding, which made it much easier I think.

There's a bit in the No Cry Sleep Solution that says if you can't go cold turkey, put a time limit on it. Eg agree absolutely no BF at all before 2am, really stick to that, then anytime he asks after that, you give in. When you have that secure, you shift the boundary to not giving in before 2.30 or 3am. So his body clock is learning times it's not worth persisting. It should work but more slowly than setting a rule and sticking to it.

So what worked with me was. Saying that they were broken and actually sticking plasters on them!

So when they pull the top they actually see they are broken. 😅

I stopped around same time by reading "Booby Moon" book. We then send a balloon into the sky etc and talked about milk going to the moon a lot. It was much easier than I thought it would be. Barely any cries. Definetly recommend to try that as it worked for many people and seems to be quite gentle approach. I also started offering cows milk in the sippy cup as well when she was really asking

If you want to stop of course you can stop but just wanted to say in regards to IVF, 'makes milk with emma pickett' of spotify/IG has some really good info on IVF and BF.

Aside from that you could also try something called habit stacking? Not sure if it would be effective on an older baby, but while you feed you do other things (like pat bum, shush, play a certain song) and then drop the feeding but keep everything else. Lyndsey hookway on IG has good info about that too.

Good luck!

whether you do cold turkey or gradual, it's not cruel to stop when you want to. He is privileged to have been breastfed for so long.

Can you give him a marshmallow and warm water instead?

This is really long - bear with me!

We started night weaning when DS was 21 months and did it pretty slowly, I would say ‘yes, we can have some milkies in 2 minutes, while we’re waiting we can cuddle and I’ll tell you a story’ then I’d just make up a story and cuddle - he liked it if the story was about him.

Then after a week or so I started saying 4 mins (obviously I wasn’t timing it - just kinda roughly guessing)

By the time we were up to 5 mins he had started to fall asleep during the cuddle/story about 50% of the time and he just got more and more used to falling back to sleep without it.

We started mid-June and by end of August he had stopped asking in night and asked for cuddles instead - sometimes with a story but mostly just a cuddle.

Then by end of September we had stopped the feed at bedtime by saying ‘milkies for 1 minute and then a story and cuddle’ and I’d count down for the last 10secs of the feed so he knew it was nearly done.

We could have done it a bit faster if I’d have been stricter but had a very low threshold for letting him feed if he started to become distressed as I felt he wouldn’t fall asleep while upset anyway.

By that point, as we’d stopped the bedtime and morning feeds during night weaning, we just fed to sleep for naps and he would ask 1-2 times throughout the day, I began to distract during day, for example if he asked or I thought he was about to ask I’d say ‘let’s do a puzzle together’, then after the puzzle it would be snack time, park, colouring etc. He naturally started asking less and less. Naps were quickly coming to an end too so I didn’t need to do anything there.

We stopped feeding completely around the start of November so all in all the weaning process took about 6 months, it felt gentle and worked well but you could use similar techniques on a quicker time frame if you wanted. The key for us was never saying ‘no’ but saying, ‘yes - in .. mins’ or ‘It’s not time for milkies now, let’s play trucks’.

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/ending-your-breastfeeding-journey-some-approaches-to-parent-led-weaning/

The breastfeeding network helpline is always available 24/7 if you need advice

I found it easier to drop feeds so I wasn't saying no, which is upsetting, I was saying 'we'll have some after lunch/when it's time to get up'. Then space feeds further and further apart.

Thank you this is really insightful.

Thanks to everyone for sharing their tips and their insights. LO is currently sick so he needs extra comfort and it doesn't feel right to try and stop. But I will try again in a few days, maybe I'll try a more gentle approach first and see how it goes.

Thank you so much for sharing, I will have a look regarding the IVF info and breastfeeding.