Am I breastfeeding my 11 month old too often?

[AriasMummy]

How often do you breastfeed your 11 month olds? It's just dawned on me that she's turning 1 next month and its still every 2-3 hours round the clock. My first was on formula by this age and I'm pretty sure on her first birthday we switched to 1 bottle of cows milk before bed and the rest of the day was just food and snacks.

This is our current schedule:
6:30am wake up and breastfeed
7:30 breakfast (porridge or weetabix and fruit)
9am breastfeed to sleep, first nap
11am breastfeed
12pm Lunch (egg and avocado toast/beans on toast/cream cheese pasta ect)
2pm breastfeed to sleep, 2nd nap
4pm Breastfeed
5pm Dinner and Yogurt for pudding (spaghetti Bolognese/shepherds pie/curry ect)
7/7:30pm Breastfeed to sleep

She also feeds 1-2 times in the night as well.

She loves her food and eats really well/good portions and is competent at feeding herself so I'm not worried about her solids intake. It says don't offer snacks between meals until 12 months on this NHS Website, hence all the breastfeeds in between.

Does this seem really excessive? Or is this typical for a breastfed baby? My first experience of this!

Depends if she’s going to be going to nursery as could be quite a shock to her system to not be BF.

The fact she’s eating solids well I’d say she’s evidently not using milk as her main food source.

If you’re happy with the BF schedule it’s nothing to worry about. She’s evidently just thirsty/wants to be close to momma.

The World Health Organisation promotes that breastmilk is extremely beneficial/should be encouraged for children up to the age of two.

It’s fine. When she turns 1 she will need to have snacks too so bf will reduce. I would try and introduce water throughout the day too now.

My DS was like this OP, he’s 26 months now and I think if he wasn’t at nursery he’d still be feeding this regularly! It sounds like they’re getting plenty of nutrients in through food so I wouldn’t worry at all. Like PP said though I did try and encourage water during the day just to prepare him for nursery when he turned one, as he didn’t/ still doesn’t drink milk from a cup or bottle

It sounds fine. When both mine went to nursery at nearly 1yrs they just had water there and a mixture of boob and water at home

By 11 months I only fed 4 times a day, never at night.

at 11 months mine were non breastfed at all, mostly on a bottle from 3 months, completly off the breast by 6 months as i was back at work and they were at nursery. They still had a bottle of milk before bed, as a comfort thing up past the age of 3 though.

It's up to you OP, it's fine if it's working for you, but to me it sounds like a lot. By this age I was only breastfeeding my EBF babies 2-3 times a day.

It's not a problem unless it's a problem for you.
I found the easiest BF to drop were the ones after the nap because they can be distracted or given other food/water.

My daughter is 13 months old and old and we have the same schedule as you, except I have replaced the 4pm feed with a snack. I'd like to reduce it down but I'm not sure how as feeding her seems to be the quickest/easiest way to get her to sleep. And if I try not to feed her at night she gets so sad and wakes up more😔so I'm in the same boat, but no helpful advice I'm afraid!

I was still feeding my second every 2-3 hours at that age. I had gone back to work by that time with my first so that limited it. My second didn't have snacks till 12 months just meals and breastfeeds. I was fine with that as milk is very important till 12 months. At 12 months I started cutting down feeds as by the time I went back to work a couple of months later we were on 2-3 feeds per day.