weaning late

[missperelman]

hello, my baby is 23 months now and is still not weaned. she has 3 meals a day and milk but is very much on the boob at night and in the morning. i try to distract her throughout the day but she still has a feed mid day. i did have it in mind that i would breastfeed her to aged 2 and feed on demand but i can't really see a diminishing of her wanting the boob. as i am on my own it is really difficult to wean her. i can't leave her for a night / 2 nights to see if she forgets about the boob as i don't have a trusted person to stay with her. any ideas? including, do you think she may naturally turn away from it soon. i'm getting very tired. thankyou

It's not really possible to predict when she might self wean, unfortunately. If she is fed on demand it could be at any time.

However it is reasonable to decide to wean her if you are struggling. It may well be a challenge though if she is used to it. You could tackle the nights first and then when she is used to that, try day time next.

I would just decide that you are not going to breastfeed her during the night, and then commit to settling her via other means. She will get used to it, and she doesn't need a feed during the night at 23 months. If you are struggling with tiredness I think it is a reasonable course of action.

I wouldn't say 2 is late for self weaning - typically 2-4 iirc.

My resource of choice would be kellymom if you want to start cutting down on feeds.

What would you prefer to work on first? Day feeds or night feeds?

i just don't know. i'd like a night's sleep! so nights. i will look at kelly mom. any books you'd recommend? xx

We did something like this with DS1 when waking up for night feeds got a bit too much for me:
drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

Ended up continuing to feed morning and evening for nearly another year, as getting a solid night's sleep made such a huge difference.

You might want to post on the breast and bottle feeding board as this is more used to talk about weaning babies onto solids. You'll find more experienced views over there :)

I let DS self wean and he was 4 when it happened so it could be a while if you leave it totally up to her. But I think at this age it's more about drawing boundaries about what's comfortable for you/what you want to do. I know that a lot of mums swear by Jay Gordon's night weaning technique and Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution for toddlers is supposed to be good too. I did use the baby version of that to encourage DS to rely less on the breast to stay asleep but I didn't actively night wean.

Yes, DS1 didn't self wean until he was 2.5 (and I suspect might have gone on for longer if my milk supply hadn't tanked with pregnancy), so 23 months doesn't sound particularly "late" to me. :)

Agree that you might get some more useful tips on the feeding board.