Please help me wean my 14 month old

[AimeeBern]

Hi everyone, I have a 14 month old that adores breastfeeding and is extremely reluctant to stop. I'm pregnant again, so I really would like to stop now but every source online is useless. The NHS says to feed on demand, so that's what I did, but now it says to wean you 'just drop one feed at a time' - which isn't possible since he doesn't have scheduled feeds. Scheduling him also does not work because if I ever deny him boob, even if he only wants to latch for 2-3 seconds, I am met with hysterical, heartbreaking crying. I'm at a loss at how to deal with this. Nothing online is helping, so I'm hoping that some people here have experienced the same and can talk me through exactly how they stopped. Please only reply if you went through this and have some advice - if one more person tells me that their child magically self-weaned, I'm going to lose it.

It sounds to me like you either need to go cold turkey or continue. Those will be your easiest routes. Like you say, "dropping" a feed is not only not possible but will probably result in as much heart break as completely stopping at once - but completely stopping will at least be kinder because it's clear and gives less false hope. You'd be amazed how quickly he'll forget too if you make the decision to stop and actually stick to it.

I know this is an awful thing to say but please remember too as you head into toddlerhood that sometimes you have to say no and just deal with screaming. I say this as I listen to my daughter screaming in her room with her dad at 4am. She's gotten into the habit of waking at 3am and demanding a meal and then refusing food all day (she's 3) and today we've decided it's enough of cooking at 3am and she just needs to start eating in the day again. And it's awful, I hate being awake at 3am (she probably won't go back to sleep now too because she's made this annoying new habit for herself and she's determined to continue it) and am also pregnant so get it pulls at your heart strings in a particular way that it wouldn't if we were not pregnant but sometimes they don't know what's best for them. And sometimes what's best for them is what's best for mum. In our case I know she's probably going to refuse food all day still and still wake up at 3am wailing that she's hungry for the next few days but I can't just give in. She's losing sleep and so are we. I'll put up with the screaming for a few days/ weeks if it means getting into a better schedule (also need not to be cooking and preparing food at 3am when our newborn arrives...)

Good luck.

I'm interested too!

Just listening to Emma Pickett's podcast "makes milk" on this topic