How to Start the Weaning Process

You shouldn't use regular milk yet - he's not close to a year, if I am reading this right. Please use a little formula - it won't hurt to buy some. Warm it so that it will be like breastmilk temperature-wise. Replace one feeding a day so that your breasts get used to. When he get close to a year, drop another feeding, making so that morning and night are the last ones. Then drop to just one of them. Once you get down to one feeding, put cabbage leaves in your bra and replace them when they get wilted - the chemical in the cabbage reacts with your sweat and breastmilk to help you dry up your milk. (This comes directly from the lactation specialist at the hospital.) Drink less fluids when you are trying to wean.

If baby wants your breasts, tell him that you have boo-boos on mommy (you can even use bandaids on your nipples.) Make sure he's getting enough calcium, even if you have to give him vitamins for it. Try not to give him juice at all until he is drinking formula or milk out of a cup. That will help him understand that he cannot turn his nose up at the milk vs juice.

All the while you are dropping feedings and getting him to take the cup, make the temperature of what's in the cup cooler. It's a process.

Dawn

If you are feeding him enough by breastfeeding you should definitely have enough to pump too. The way I did it was to start giving her bottles in place of breastfeeding by 11 months. The only time I would actually breastfeed was in the middle of the night and to be honest it was totally out of convenience (I didnt want to have to get up, go downstairs and prep a bottle). So other than the middle of the night feeding she would only get her breastmilk through a bottle. Then at 12 months I started mixing small amounts of homo milk into her bottles with the breastmilk. Slowly adding more and more homo milk and by the time she was 13 months she was completely weaned from breastmilk. I stopped the middle of the night breastfeeding at 12 months and started to prep a bottle at that point because I wanted to be completely done with breastfeeding by 1 year.

I suggest that maybe you feed her what you do have in the freezer so that your milk supply builds up and you can start pumping to build it back up that way. Also after each feeding from the breast, pump whatever you can and your body will naturally start to produce more

Good Luck and Congrats for making it this far with breastfeeding - its a tough job =)

When I weaned both of mine, I just gave up a feeding and added a snack. I kept the nap and bedtime ones the longest. Eventually getting to a snack before nap with milk and lying down with them for a few minutes for the comfort factor. I then did the same at bedtime.

Both of mine were a bit older and they could communicate some, so I could talk them through it and explain what was happening, to some degree. There was some fussing, but I didn't cave in and they were fine.
Good luck to you. If you do it without rush, it won't be so bad. Give at least a week or two in between each time you eliminate a nursing session.

Are you a stay at home? That will make it much more difficult for him. You need to spend some time away from him so that other people are feeding him during the day. I never used formula with my twins, but I did use Pediasure. They really like it. It comes in differnt flavors so he is bound to like at least one flavor. My girls would go grab a can out of the cupboard and bring me their sippy cups in the morning.

I just cut down gradually on the feedings until all we had left was the night time feeding. Then one night I just stopped. One of them was devestated that first night (she was mean to me- pulling and screaming at me), but it was just that one night that she was terrible. They were exactly 18 months when we stopped.

When I weaned my daughter she did not like formula. We switched to powdered milk because it had the same cosistency of breast milk. She would drink the bottle and be satistied. I used the formula up in some baking and all was well.

This might help if formula doesn't go over well. I made the milk a little warmer in the beginning and cooled it to frig temp.

Good luck to you. I know this is a difficult time but it is a milestone for both of you.

The other S.