Extended BF questions

acbfreire

DD is almost 1 and I intend to continue BFing. Are you giving WCM in addition to BM? How much should they be nursing?Do you still feed at night?

DD still nurses at night about 4 times and another 4-6 times during the day. I mostly stay at home, but will return to work in the fall.

I am thinking about introducing WCM to avoid pumping. Any suggestions for successful extended BFing?

neumc14

Hi dd is 13 months and I started giving her a little cows milk with Cheerios in the am. She still nurses 4 times a day and 2 times at night. My pediatrician said its very important to introduce very slowly because if how hard it is on the digestive system. She said an ounce and then wait a week to see how her body reacts to it. She eats lots of cheese and yogurt but that stuff is processed so the body has an easier time with it.

tokenhoser

I went back to work when DS was 12 months. I did not pump, just nursed on demand when we were together and let him have some WCM at daycare.

I introduced milk at 11 months, just as another food. He never really drank much and really still doesn't (he's still nursing). 

I would just start giving WCM with meals once or twice a day and continue nursing as usual. When you go back to work, you don't need to pump. 

tracyl0826

I stopped pumping when my LO turned 1 (I work part-time, so he was only having one bottle a day).  We just replaced it with food.  I nursed him when he asked otherwise, about 3-4x per day.  He was waking 2-3x per night at that time.  His night wakings slowly reduced and at 18mo he was waking only once.  I decided to cut that feeding out around 19mo and now he is only nursing 1-2x per day (sometimes in the morning, and before bed each night).  

I offered WCM, but he never really liked it.  Recently he's been drinking maybe an ounce with his dinner a few nights a week.  He's always eaten a lot of cheese and yogurt though.  

Suggestions for successful extended BFing - I would just nurse on demand, but I don't see any harm it trying to cut out the night feedings, one by one, if you're tired of waking. 

lisac1017

Hi - Congrats for making it this far...good for you that its working so well you'd like to continue. 

We didn't introduce animal milk until 15 months or so.  I really wanted DS to have just BM for as long as possible.  He would nurse 1-3 times overnight, morning, after work and before bed and then get 9 ounces of BM sippys during the day.  On days I was home, he would nurse as much as he wanted (which is still quite a bit, even now at 16.5 months). 

We just made more of a shift to animal milk (in his case, goat's milk) so that I could stop pumping.  I started by mixing goat & BM together (some people say don't do that in case they hate it, you waste the BM) but he took to it right away.  It is so nice to be able to give him animal milk and not have to worry about pumping anymore. 

The best things that happened for me to continue to love nursing:  we finally night-weaned, so no more motn nursing, and I quit pumping.  It's made it even easier than it was before. 

Good luck!