Help!! Breastfeeding Weaning Advice?

I nursed my daughter until she was 13 mos. and my son until he was 12.5 mos. I'd recommend weaning gradually! Try to begin weaning about a month before you want to be done. My doctor says some whole cows milk is okay from 11 or 11.5 mos on. The evening feeding was the roughest to break my daughter of...we finally went away for the weekend and left her with my parents. She knew Grammy and Grandpa couldn't nurse her, so she was just fine! I was quite engorged for my weekend away, but everyone settled into the new "life" once we all returned home.
My son weaned easily of the first three feedings over about two weeks and then we held onto the evening feeding for an additional two weeks. He'd kind of nurse every other night or so, and then didn't ask for it for a few days, and I didn't offer either. Eventually it gets easier.
If you really want to continue nursing you could pump while you're away, but...I just didn't love nursing enough to do that! I was ready to be done once my kids were a year!
Is your son drinking from a real cup? If so, that's great! Then you don't have to worry about weaning him from a sippy cup and teaching him to be careful with a real cup later. We liked both the Nuby cup and the Playtex with the soft spout to begin with--easier transition from the breast and they don't have to suck as hard to get a drink as they do from other sippies.
Sorry for the rambling, I was trying to type this as I loaded the dishwasher and the washer...Not the best way to multitask...
Good luck!

weaning gradually is the best approach. like cutting back one feeding/week. You may find yourself up against some resistance. How Weaning Happens is a great book you might look into reading in the next week or so before you would start the complete weaning process. The World Health Organization recommends a minimum of two years of nursing for ALL children of the world, so if you are feeling yourself desiring to nurse longer, it may be helpful to know that one year is not necessarily the only marker out there for weaning. And if your job is saying you need to go on a four day trip, this may be ammo to request a ticket for baby and a caregiver since he is still nursing. four days is a pretty long time for a one year old to be separated from mom, particularly if JUST having weaned, or not completely weaned, so there are options. Good luck with whatever you decide, it's a difficult spot to be in. And congrats on nursing your baby to this point, you've given him a great nutritional and emotional start to his life!!!!

Oh, honey. You sound so stressed! But you also sound like a wonderful mother--congratulations to you on your breastfeeding relatioship. I hope you never feel apologetic about meeting your child's needs in sensitive, responsive and intuitive ways.
Here are a few thoughts:
"How Weaning Happens" is an excellent book and could be a great resource for you. You can find it cheap online or borrow it for free from your local La Leche League group. You can find LLL and a Leader near you at www.llli.org. I notice you are in Salt Lake; there are several Leaders in your area and all the ones I have spoken to are excellent and their suggestions are respectful and medically accurate. They can offer you free phone help, and if you attend a meeting (which I highly recommend) you could chat with other moms about weaning and get feedback from other experienced breastfeeding moms with respectful parenting philosophies. Plus, you could borrow "How Weaning Happens." That book helped me a lot; it's not at all the same old stuff, but has lots of strategies and ideas I have not found anywhere else.
It's important to remember that weaning is a process, not an event, so it is vital to do it gradually. From the first time your child took a bit of solid food, he has been weaning. If you wean abruptly, you risk getting engorged and setting yourself up for mastitis, and you sound too busy to put up with that! ;) It takes your body about 48 hours to adjust to an increase or decrease in milk supply demand, so dropping one nursing every three days would be as fast as you'd want to go to stay healthy, but that would be really fast, considering emotions and all. I would think going that fast would only be advisable if you were facing some kind of medical emergency and needed to stop nursing.

I agree with your friend who mentioned the possibility of pumping if you must be away from Baby. If you and your baby are not yet ready to wean, you do not have to. One year is by no means a cut-off point. . . it's the minimum amount of time the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a baby be breastfed. They said to continue "as long as is mutually desired by mother and baby." The World Health Organization and the last U.S. Surgeon General recommend nursing to age two, for added protection from allergies and other chronic health conditions, so really, you're under no pressure to wean from the medical experts. Everyone else can go jump in a lake if they try to pressure you; you're the mom and you're the expert on your baby, so you will do what's best for the two of you.
You say you're concerned about grandparents being stuck having to soothe a breastfed baby to sleep in other ways. . . but that sounds normal to me. Even if he is weaned, don't you expect they will need to soothe him to sleep with lots of rocking, singing, snuggling and stories? Taht seems like a healthy, happy, people-oriented way to go to sleep. I think they expect that, so I personally don't think his being weaned or still breastfeeding will make a huge difference in how they care for him.
My third son is the same age as yours --born last August-- and if he wakes up early in the morning while I'm at the gym, my husband just snuggles up next to him and they both fall back to sleep. (We don't even bother offering him a bottle anymore--he's so insulted by it, it cracks us up. Coach is such a bummer when you've always flown first class, you know?) I honestly think grandparent cuddles will be an adequate subsitute for nursing for those four days, if you really must leave him.
Keep in mind, too, that you must wean *to* something. You can't simply cut out something this important to him without finding something else to fill the void. With little babies, that typically means artificial baby milk. With older toddlers, you have so many more options--you can wean to extra snuggling and stories, healthy snacks, games and puzzles, walks in a sling or backpack, quiet songs--lots of fun things.
Regarding, dairy, my first son was horribly allergic to cow's milk and I have been very, very cautious about offering dairy products to my other boys and we don't drink cow's milk as a beverage at our house. When my first son was diagnosed (as a newborn at Primary Children's, since his intestines had swollen shut) the gastroenterologist quizzed me and my husband and we all realized that the reason my hubby is such a picky eater is because he is mildly allergic to several foods. (Duh, I thought.) He does not like things that give him a bellyache. I think babies who are experiementing with solid foods are much the same way. While they often need to meet a food several times before it is familiar and appealing (and no one claims a "cookie intolerance," go figure) I think there is often a reason they don't like something they are not ready for. I notice you're already dealing with reflux issues--it might be appropriate to be extra cautious about introducing dairy, since you don't need any more tummy upset.
More than anything, I think you should find the book "How Weaning Happens" and get in touch with your local La Leche Legaue group. Their meetings run in a series of four, and one of them is actually titled "Nutrition and Weaning."
I offer you my sincerest best wishes to enjoy this lovely season of mothering. Don't rush it or wish it away or analyze it so much you aren't able to just enjoy that little man. My older two sons self-weaned and it was a very peaceful and gradual transition. They are so big and confident and I will never regret the time they spent nursing. Happy mothering!

Having weaned my first and being right in the middle of weaning my second, I have to say that every baby is different in how they will be weaned. My daughter (13 mos. now) is so totally not interested in anything but the boob for liquids. She will drink water, but she wants all her milk from "the source." I cut out one feeding a week, but until I got down to no feedings during the day she wouldn't really drink milk at all. Now she will drink milk, but "asks" to nurse first. I still nurse once in the morning and right before bed, but we'll be cutting one of those out this week.
My son (now 4) was weaned by this point. But that was because he took to a sippy cup and milk like a duck to water. For him, I replaced a feeding with milk in a sippy cup every 5 days and was done with weaning him in less than a month. It's been 2 months now for my daughter (although I paused in weaning her because she got a really high fever for a week).
For your own comfort, one feeding at a time is the best way to go, but if your son absolutely won't drink milk when he knows you'll feed him in a few hours, cold turkey might be best. Either way, keep it up until he's a year old. Even if it's only been a week since he quit feeding when you leave -- a week is a very long time for a baby. And it might be easier for him with you gone (and therefore not accessible for food).
Good luck!

I'd back up what many have said- a gradual weaning will be easiest on both you and the baby. I just wanted to comment on leaving your son with your parents without weaning. Some people I know have said that when they were trying to wean from the bedtime nursing, they would actually do what you would - they would find someplace out of the house to be at bedtime because the kid would go to sleep w/o nursing only for someone else. It happened once to us. We left out daughter at a babysitters in the evening. When we were gone, she was just sitting on the couch and then she fell asleep. I was so amazed that she fell asleep easily because she always nurses to sleep.

I am in the process of weaning my youngest, who is 11mo today. I would suggest gradual weaning-it makes the process so much easier on both of you. (not to mention worlds less painful for you!!) He is not nursing that often now, so if you start by cutting out just one nursing a day, you will be done in 3-4wks. Even if he is still nursing once a day (or at night-don't feel bad about that!! It's perfectly fine!), you can go away for a few days, come back and still nurse once a day if you would like to. Typically when you are only nursing once a day your supply is low enough that if you go a few days w/out nursing you're not going to get engorged at all.

It's fine to start introducing cow's milk at this point as long as he doesn't have any dairy problems (he can eat things like yogurt w/out problems, or he hasn't been bothered when you eat dairy and nurse him), and you don't have a family history of dairy problems. How are you offering it to him? My little one doesn't really like milk in a sippy cup, but she is a champ when we give it to her in a regular cup. We just put about a 1/2 inch of milk in the cup and hand it to her so that it's enough to get a drink, but little enough that if she spills it's not a huge mess. You also don't have to transition right to cow's milk, but could use goat milk, almond or rice milk, or even a toddler formula.

It is a hard thing to wean sometimes, so just go at it slowly at a pace that works for both of you! Good Luck!

You don't want to wean more than 1 feeding every three days because you will be feeling the pain as well. I would suggest pumping breastmilk and giving it to him in a sippie (try Nuby first). Just keep offering it for that feeding and telling him that "it's all gone" if he continues to want you instead. (Go pump at this time and freeze for later, and then ween yourself from the other feedings you drop -- drop the time you pump last).Then after he turns 1 year in August, start adding half cow milk and eventually go to all cow milk. After they are a year, they don't need to drink as much milk -- 1 cup a day is enough I believe. I give my little guy a sippie cup of milk, juice, and water everyday. Best wishes to you!

one thought on the sippy cup--my baby won't take a traditional one, but we got him one that has a straw and he loves it. i haven't tried milk with him yet (he turns one next week, so...we'll try that soon), but he will drink water like crazy out of the cup, i think because he is so proud of himself for being able to suck it through the straw. i'm hoping that novelty will continue to work when we try milk...i'll have to let you know. :)

Wean as gradually as you can. It's best for your child and also best for you to prevent engorgement. When I weaned my daughter, I started by cutting out the least desired feeding first (for me, those were night feedings), and a few days then cut out another day feeding, etc, until we were only nursing in the morning and before bed. Since my daughter was more attached to her morning feeding, that was the last one I cut out. I nursed one day, not the next, nursed again, skipped two days, and then nursed one last time. I think it took a total of 2-months to completely wean her, but you can do it quicker than that with only 4 feeds to wean. I would also suggest getting him weaned at least a couple of weeks before you leave, so that way he doesn't have to have you leave at the same time he stopped breastfeeding.

Best wishes!

My adivce is this. I just weaned my son. He just turned one. I just started giving him juice mixed with water and milk in a bottle or sippy cup & kept offering it to him all day long. If he is thirsty he will drink it. Start taking a feeding out maybe one a week or every two weeks that way you don't gorg up and he doesn't have to have the boob taken away all at once. I do not suggest nursing and pumping while he is gone that will make it harder on you, him and the babysitter. Any questions let me know. Other then that he will be fine:)

My 3rd child self-weaned and did so gradually. I would think that is the best way to wean so you can both gradually get used to the idea.

I do think you may have issues either way though, because you are leaving right after you plan to be done weaning. It is something that will probably cause a couple fits while you are gone, but your son will probably be fine after you return since he is being left with the grandparents.

I have not personally been through what you are trying to do, but I have been through many changes and disruptions with all my children.

Good luck. Make it a GREAT day!

S.

I am in the same boat. My daughter is a year just last week and will not drink milk and has wanted to nurse. I started off slowly getting her down to 3 nursings a day (this was a big deal). After a couple weeks I took out the middle nursing and then the morning. And then she got sick so that went back up. WE are back to once a day or none at all, but we won't touch milk. People suggested Ovaltine or Carnation Instant Breakfast to add to the milk, or to try strawberry. But she just takes a drink and will not touch her cup again. I have been giving her yogurt, and she eats that well. And after talking to her doctor he said to make sure I give her at least on yogurt a day with active cultures. (This is the time they are developing the enzymes to be able to break down dairy, so it is important they get some dairy, otherwise it will lead to being lactose intolerant). HE also said that it sounds mean, but don't let her drink anything but milk. She will eventually get thirsty enough that she would drink it. (I haven't tried this last part yet because we are outside a lot and she steals my water.) Good luck to you. There is nothing wrong with introducing milk to you little boy right now. Good luck. Some days will be harder than others. Hang in there. Oh, when I was eliminating a feeding from my daughter, she would cry and ask for it and cry some more. That day I stuck to my guns and didn't give in, the next day she didn't ask. So it may be hard one day, but it will probably be easier the next.

I am also in the process of weaning my 14 month old. We were trying sippy cups with limited success, but then the Gerber Nuk was recommended to me, and it made all the difference. First, try all the sippy cups that you get, yourself. If you have trouble getting liquid out, imagine their frustration. Most sippies require the baby to bite down to get anything out. The Nuk, actually almost feels like a bottle and only requires the sucking. I plan to go to the Born Free next, but right now, the flow is too fast.
I started with the daytime feedings because I wanted to stop pumping at work. There was much crying and pushing away, but when I (I know that this sounds awful), held his arms and put the cup in his mouth, he finally took it and drained the cup. I make sure that I am still holding him, so he still gets the loving....I will work on that next.
I do still give milk for each of the feedings I have dropped. He doesn't have to drink the milk - he can have solids, but I let him tell me what he wants.
I have been dropping one a week, and stay with that until he actually takes the feedings. When I got to 2 a day, he rebelled, so we stayed another week at that. We will be moving to 3 this weekend. :(
I had given daycare some whole milk before weaning and he didn't seem to have an issue with it, but you can do the ratios of milk to breastmilk until he is good with it. Also, I know that my son is soooo less picky about everything at daycare, so he may be just fine with you parents. He will probably miss you, but it will probably be easier for him to have someone else comfort him if he isn't hoping for the breast. Good luck.

I too am slowly weaning my 10 month old. I was not planning on weaning him this early, but come to find out, I am pregnant againg and my body has been weaning him on its own because my milk has jsut gone nothing but DOWN since getting pregnant. He was nursing like crazy all day but I was empty and he was crying in hunger, so we really had to up his solid foods during the day to keep him full and work on introducing him to the sippy. He has NEVER taken a bottle ever, so I NEEDED to find a way to make sure he was getting enough liquids.

We started with a sippy cup that has a soft, rubbery nipple on it, that does not have the spill proof funtion, since that makes it really hard for them to get the milk out. Since he was not used to sucking on a bottle or a binkie (he would just chew on them) it was good that it dribbled into his mouth when he bit down on it so that he realized that milk comes out of it. It took about 2-3 weeks and a lot of patience for him to actually start sucking on and drinking well out of the sippy cup, and now we have just introduced the spill proof sippy and he is doing well with it since he knows how to suck to get the liquid out.

A tip that I found was really helpful in introducing the sippy was to take the cup and make it look like I was drinking out of it myself. When i would do that, he would then drink from it too, and when he stopped I would do it again and then he would drink again ect. You might want to try that, because it was a really helpful little trick for us because it made him interested in it when he wasn't very interested in it.

Now we are just working really hard to fill in the nutritional gaps in his diet. He WILL NOT take formula - he has a dairy allergy (gives him hives) and the soy formula is SO DISGUSTING that he had gagged every time I tried to give it to him. My midwife reccomended soy milk because it has lots more calories and nutrients than juice or water does, but tastes a WHOLE lot better than formula, and although he wasn't sure about it at first, he has grown used to it and now drinks it very well. We have been mixing some of his soy formula into his cereal and masking the flavor with fruit or veggie baby food and he will take it that way so he can still get the nutrients from it. This has been working pretty well for us.
You might want to try soy milk since he isnt supposed to be having cows milk yet because it could still cause him to become allergic this early. Trust me, a dairy allergy is NOT an easy one to have, so don't push the dairy too soon if you can avoid it.

I found that with my baby, once he got used to drinking out of the sippy cup he STOPPED wanting to nurse during the day. I just can't get him to do it anymore except when he wakes up at night once or twice. Whenever I try he is disinterested and just keeps looking around. This might turn out the same way for your baby. I think the sippy cup is such a novel thing to him that he just LOVES it and wants to only drink from it. The other day I was trying to nurse him and he wouldnt take it, and then I went and got his sippy and as soon as I got it he got SO excited. I wish I could breastfeed him longer but he needs to be weaned, and now that he isnt eating during the day my milk is just going to decrease even more. Ahh well, he needed to be weaned by august anyways because of the new one on the way.

I hope my answer help you out! Good luck with everything! As someoen who is goning through this too, I feel for you! its kinda tough!

K.

Our son liked Avent cups and our daughter likes Born Free cups. As for weaning, you can do one feeding a week, which usually works really well. Two of my kids decided to just call it quits after dropping the second feeding. You can go cold turkey when you leave. I had a friend who did that. I wouldn't recommend it for such a little guy, though. I usually dropped the easiest first, the hardest second and then the other two went pretty easily. If you're not ready to wean yet, there's nothing wrong with just pumping and continuing when you get home. However keeps him, though, might have a rough few days. However, we found with our daughter, she was just fine for other people, because she knew she didn't have the option of nursing. GL! I know it's tough being away. I just did it for 3 days.