Weaning and separation anxiety

[oliviaevans96]

My little one is 11 months an BF when I am with her but when I am in work 3 days a week she is bottle/formula fed. I am ready to wean her off when she turns 1 but we are having problems in the night time and evening as she literally only wants me and will be hysterical until she gets to me. She is totally fine and comforted by her dad in the day time but only wants me at night and wants to be fed every hour or two and refuses a bottle of we try that. I totally understand this is a comfort thing, but I am so ready to stop breastfeeding now it’s affecting my mental health slowly and I just don’t know how to wean her off I don’t know what I’m doing as my son was bottle fed so we haven’t been through this before . She has never taken a bottle from me she totally refused them from everyone up until about 9 months old but now she takes bottles in the day with no issues at all but no chance in the night.

You will have to just leave her to cry. She will drink the bottle if she is thirsty/hungry.

Once she reaches 12 months you can night wean. It’s a difficult ine to call though as he could be waking as he wants contact with you and you may need to up that contact time in the day.

12 months is usually the time though that can go without the calories for a few hours overnight.

If it was me I’d stick with the daytime feeds for a short while and tackle the nights. Have a read of this article.

Whilst you’re doing the night weaning i would still BF her in the morning, on pick up and before bed.

Once you’ve done the night weaning I’d give it a week or two and think about which feed you want to drop next.

We tackled the first feed by DH taking her down to breakfast and having tgat with a cup of milk whilst I had a shower. After a few days she stopped adking for that feed and loved the time either her Dad.

Then the pick up one was dropped with the offer of a nice drink and snack and a cuddle and a book.

Then the pick bedtime one was a bit tougher, more for me than the DC. I went out for a few nights at bedtime and DH did the whole routine but offered a cup of warm milk instead of a BF.

Let us know how you both get on