Weaning a Toddler from the Breast

first and formost: THANK YOU MAMA for being so sensitive, responsive and connected to your child that you have taken the extended breastfeeding route! im in complete and total awe and amazement; i had aimed for one year, then two, and my son unexpectedly weaned himself at 19 months.

what i would tell you is to go to www.llli.org and find a local or nearby la leche league leader. either she, or someone she knows, will have had a very similar experience and will be able to help you to make this journey with the sensitivity and attachment that you desire.

i know one thing that helps is to rearrange furnature, and dont sit in a normal nursing spot. just changing schedule and where you sit and stuff can help distract a kid from nursing. sitting in the normal spot can remind him to nurse even if he doesnt need to you know? so that is something i know.
other things are to just keep busy all day. try to find something else to do during a time where you think he would like to nurse. whether that means you have to read SEVERAL books before nap and bed, or if that means that you have to keep him highly active until he "drops" from exhaustion :P

whatever works.
wow. im amazed! sometimes i feel like im the only person online who is all for this kind of parenting!! :D so thank you from your babies, and thank you for the knowledge that i am not alone!

by the way. i do NOT enjoy the sound of the vinegar approach you receieved. what a bummer you know?

I think you've gotten a lot of good suggestions already from the previous posters here. Basically you just have to redirect his attention to something else, because he's probably ready to move on whenever you are. However, I've got a friend who nursed her daughter until she was 7 years old--and the kid is now about to graduate from high school and is just fine. It is totally up to you and your son, so I hope you are not giving in to societal pressures because the relationship you have with your son is only between the two of you. For a variety of ultimately meaningless reasons, sometimes as Mommas we are pressured to go against our instincts. I hope you find the solution you are seeking. Congratulations on doing such an awesome job at nursing!!!

I weaned my son at the same age. I just forgot to remind him to nurse. He was so busy that he forgot a few times and my milk production went way down and when he remembered I would allow him to try and he would just say "broken". He seemed to hardly notice and we still had planty of cuddle time.

I breastfed our 2nd till he was 18 months old. I also wanted to quit because I wanted to get pregnant.

He was also nursing at those 3 intervals. We just cut out all EXCEPT the bedtime nursing. He was fine with it because I would give him breakfast as soon as he woke up. As for naptime, I just started giving him a soft blanket and bear and told him to snuggle with them and put him down, turned on the fan, and walked out. Night-time nursing was the last to go and the hardest. We also co-slept so he kept trying to lift my shirt and nurse. I just kept handing him his bear and blanket and hugged him and told him to snuggle with me instead. He only asked to nurse for about 2 or 3 nights and then seemed to adjust and be happy with the snuggling......

Good luck. It was hard to give it up nursing and I do still miss it. (We did get pregnant about 6 months after stopping nursing but miscarried at 11 weeks. So now we're back to trying again and it makes me wish I wouldn't have given up nursing till he was 2.)

At 2, your son should be able to understand a lot of what you tell him, so just start broaching the subject with him. My daughter was 2 1/2 when we went through the weaning process. She and I had a discussion (several, really) - and I explained to her that we weren't going to have "Momma milk" anymore. To the inevitable "why?" I said something like, "Now that you're so big, and you eat so many foods, you don't really need Momma milk to be healthy and strong anymore." I also explained that we could still cuddle as much as she wanted to when she woke up, went to sleep, etc.

She and I went shopping together and we picked out a stuffed bear that she could hold onto. And, we cuddled a lot. Still, it took probably 2-4 months for us to reach the point where she didn't look to me for nursing as comfort. What finally did it is that I went on my first trip without her - and she did fine. When I came home - there was absolutely no more milk for her, even if she had tried to nurse.

Good luck!

I had to leave town to get my oldest to wean. I nursed her throughout my pregnancy with my second child, and nursed them both for 9 months. It was miserable. Finally I took the baby to St. Thomas for a wedding, and left the big girl at home with her dad.

I kind of suck at weaning.

Don't bother buying the La Leche League's books. They were absolutely no help with this. You just kind of have to put your foot down and say "no more," and trust that the kiddo won't be scarred for life (he won't).

The thing that worked the best when I weaned my second child was distraction. She'd ask to nurse, and I'd give her something else or do something else with her to distract her. Eventually she stopped asking, but it took a while.

Good luck,
A. @ http://prettybabies.blogspot.com

I vote for the vinegar approach.... the child "makes the decision" as they're the one telling you they no longer like it and it's quick and easy. We all think that we're going to tramatize our kids w/ some of the things we do... but the fact is they are so resilient and it's usually the adult that has the issue! Good luck and let us know what you used/worked.

I have a 15-month old son and I'm actually working on weaning right now. When I say working on weaning, I should be clear - I'm not really doing much at all. I'm afraid I'm like Amy and am going to have to leave town to quit.

I have heard from mothers who have actually been successful at weaning that getting dad to do the majority of childcare for a few days makes the transition a little easier. I would suspect it's a little less traumatic when you can't see what you can't have.

I am eager to stop for a number of reasons, though they don't include getting pregnant quite yet. I'm eager to have my body belong to me again for awhile and I'm also hoping my son will gain a little weight after nursing stops.

Good luck and please post how it went in the end.

My son will turn two this month and we're still nursing, but we're down to once a day. Mostly. I have friends who say they just nurse when baby wants to--in stressful situations, etc--but that does NOT work for me. My baby would nurse 6x a day if I'd let him! We took a look at which nursing sessions were least important to us: the nighttime one he almost got out of himself; we starting sending him to bed w/ a sippy of water with daddy, and, while he still wants to nurse at night occasionally, it tends to be at times he truly is thirsty or needs comfort: after a full day outdoors in the sun, when we had something for supper he truly didn't like and is a little hungry, or when we have guests and he's feeling out of sorts. Our children do not sleep well, so we weaned him from night-nursing first (I know...it took til like 20 months!)...then started on weaning him from naps, which was fairly easy. I don't like the idea of "lying" to my child about my milk being gone, so we just worked to avoid it. I'd say, no, not now; we'll nurse later when he'd ask, and about 90% of the time, that worked fine. He'd fuss, grab at my breasts for about 3 minutes, then settle down into reading a book just fine. Times it went longer than that, I gave in and nursed him. Our nursing session is in the morning, because he gets up early and joins us in bed and I nurse him to avoid getting up at 5 am. :) Lately, though, he'd like to nurse for like 45 minutes straight, and he hurts me, so we need to look at ending that one, too, I think. Then we'll probably just nurse as he needs it. Anyway--I've found it beneficial to simply tell him no, and to persist. If you are nursing him to sleep, add other things to your routine (don't nurse to sleep; nurse, then read, then rock...) and slowly remove the nursing while keeping the rest of the routine. Having my husband help was a big help--he "jokes" with daddy and tries to nurse from daddy, but obviously, that's not gonna fly. I think it will be hardest getting rid of that morning nursing session, but I also think sometimes he gets up early to be able to nurse. I know that when grandma and grandpa are here, he will sometimes very willingly go downstairs with them--and not nurse. And finally--my boys were with grandma and grandpa for a week in May. I thought it would be horrible; I hadn't weaned the baby. He did FINE. Didn't miss me particularly, didn't miss nursing. We resumed when he came back; I had no engorgement at all. It was surprisingly easy. Good luck; just be sure you're ready to wean and stand firm!

Hi A., congratulations on breastfeeding for the duration that you did, I think that is wonderful. It's only been a little over 2 weeks since I stopped breastfeeding my 23 month old little girl and things transitioned a lot easier than I expected. I found out I was pregnant again in May and assumed I would continue breastfeeding until my daughter was around the age of 2 but my ob had a different plan for me. He thought I should wean immediately. That caused me a lot of stress and anxiety, having someone else tell me what I should do since I had spoken with a few lactation consultants and have read many things online about nursing while pregnant and it seemed fine as long as I didn't have any history of preterm labor. So we started to wean slowly, like you, she was feeding in morning, naptime, and before bed. We eliminated the naptime feeding first because I didn't want to tackle getting her to fall asleep on her own with 2 feedings in a row, so we started just laying her in our bed while we layed next to her and gave her a sippy cup of a little bit of milk. The first day I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, it took probably 45 minutes for her to fall asleep and she was crying and upset, wanted to get down and play. second day still cried a bit but was considerably less, asked for my milk a few times and within 30 minutes or so was asleep. Continued this process for 1 week, by the end she was falling asleep within 15-20 minutes and not asking for my milk, was happy with the cup of milk. After one week I stopped the morning feed also, we would get up and I would snuggle with her in our rocking chair and give her a cup of milk. No crying with that one and only asked for my milk maybe one or two times but was fine. It took a little longer, about 3 weeks for me to completely stop feeding her at night because my husband was going out of town and I didn't want to tackle that one all on my own. The last night that I did feed her on the breast, she only stayed on for a few minutes and then we just went into her room, I held her, no rocking or anything, and she fell asleep within five minutes or so. So at nighttime now, we have a cup of milk before bedtime, brush teeth, read a book or something calm and quiet, after teeth brushing offer her water and say it's bedtime. She walks right into her room and lies down on the floor, I lie next to her until she falls asleep and then put her in her crib. We still have to work on me laying her down in her crib and falling asleep on her own since she relied on breastfeeding to fall asleep for so long but we'll get there. They are only little for so short of a time and people these days ask kids to grow up so fast. I'm enjoing these times with her and glad we ended the breastfeeding on a happy note for the both of us. She will ask about my breasts once in awhile and say milk? I tell her that mommy has to start getting the milk ready for her new brother or sister and she seems fine with that answer. So I hope some of that helped you and that everything goes smoothly for you and your little boy!

i nursed my daughter until she was a little over two....maybe 28 or 29 months....i finally had to be a little firm, because she wasn't looking like she was ready to stop any time soon, and i was wanting to....i actually told her that my body didn't make as much "mama milk" any more since she had teeth and was bigger and could eat....finally dwindling down to that sometimes i had mama milk and sometimes it was all gone....

finally, i was saying that i didn't have any more mama milk more times than not, and i would always offer to cuddle instead....we talked about it a good bit, and she even explained to her dolls they were getting to be big girls and didn't need to nurse any more....

this worked for me....slowly and gently, but i was firm about it too...i realized that she needed that closeness and so did i yet...so that's why we cuddled a lot during this process....

good luck to you....

If having to tandem nurse is your only concern, I would just try seeing what happens. If you are able to get pregnant while nursing right now, chances are he will give it up during the first few months of your pregnancy. I have experienced this over and over, though I thought it would be so cool to tandem nurse once. When I get pregnant my milk supply goes down (and maybe tastes funny?) and the baby starts pulling off sooner at each nursing until he/she eventually stops asking to nurse and starts some other type of cuddling behavior. I have had one that loved to put his hand down my shirt (yikes!), one that twirled my hair, and some other quirky substitutes that kept us nicely connected as long as the child wanted it.

I've replied to others with this same advice ~ but it worked so well for us that I feel inclined to share. I nursed my first until he was 16 months and my second until 22 months. To wean, I brought vinegar upstairs. When they wanted their bedtime feeding, I rubbed vinegar on the nipple. They did not want the Ucky milk! It only took two times to realize that nursing was a done deal. I used this same technique with the bottle for my daughter who was adopted and adicted to her bottle. It truly works like a charm! Good luck!

I haven't done it for almost 9 years and my son was younger (14 months), but based on my experience I would strongly recommend that you do it gradually and eliminate one feeding at a time. Start with the one that seems to be the least important to him. The last one to go for us was the one right before bedtime. I weaned relatively quickly because my husband and I were going out of town for a weekend. We ended up having four miserable nights where my son didn't sleep at all. He was so distraught that I actually took him to the doctor to make sure there was nothing physically wrong with him. So, eliminate one feeding and after he seems to have adjusted to that eliminate another. Your milk production should adjust. Another benefit to doing it gradually is that it is more comfortable for you. I was pretty uncomfortable that weekend out of town right after I weaned my son. He did fine that weekend though. Oh, I traded the pre-nap and bedtime nursing for reading and singing. We had a particular Winnie the Pooh sound music book with 4 short songs. We rocked and read/sang/played the exact 4 songs before every nap and bedtime so that it got to be a signal that it was time for sleep. We stuck with that routine regularly. It wasn't without glitches, but it really helped to have some sort of replacement. My son also had a favorite blanket and stuffed animal. Good luck!

My son dropped his before-bed nursing last. We transitioned to a cuddle where I held him similarly to how I held him when he nursed, we rocked a little, and listened to music. He was 16 mos., and it was easier timing because he had a ear infection and wasn't nursing well anyway. But the cuddle time with me was actually a pretty easy transition, even for a mama's boy with a history of comfort nursing:)