Time to Wean - Tips Please!

Senorita33

My daughter is 18mos. old and has only been nursing first thing in the morning and before naps and bed for the last several months.  She will still ask for milk if she's tired or bored and in my lap, but I can usually redirect her without much complaint.  My "plan" was to let her self-wean and not worry about my mom-friends that think that my kid is too old to continue to breastfeed.  I would be happy to stick to my guns except that I have an upcoming business trip (in a month) and do not want to take my pump to ensure my production doesn't creak to a full stop.  I would love some tips from other moms in ways to slowly wean her in the next month so that she will not be expecting to nurse when I return from my trip.  OH...and she will not drink cow's milk or almond milk, so any thoughts on getting her more interested there would also be welcome.

mommatotwo2

Hello I am currently in process of weaning my 18 month old. 

Short Story: We didn't really wean slowly. We just quit cold turkey the last 3 days, with the exception of stopping the daytime pumping at 12 months (that I did wean down gradually) and then dropping the morning feeding at 15 months.

Long Story: The last time I nursed her was Wednesday night at bedtime.  We went down to morning, evening, and night and on demand weekends at 12 months while we were working through a cows milk sensitivity, which she has since outgrown and she drank a couple of ounces of soy milk at meals at daycare. At 15 months, we dropped the morning nurse.  That worked itself out because she started sleeping later and so I just let her sleep up until we were just about ready to head out the door and then I woke her up, got her dressed, and we left. She had breakfast as soon as she got to daycare and that went off without a hitch. I still nursed every night, plus at naps and on demand on weekends. She outgrew her milk sensitivity around 15 months, so at daycare, she started having a few ounces of cows milk at meals, and cows milk at dinner time her. Gradually, from 15-18 months, she started nursing like a newborn again on weekends, and especially in months 17-18 she started getting really demanding about nursing. If I was in the room, she was bringing me her boppy and pulling up my shirt, hitting my breasts, asking to "noose noose" over and over. It was starting to become too much. She didn't want to play with her toys, and I could get absolutely nothing done. It also started becoming painful for whatever reason, I'm still not really sure what that was about.

Thursday night, I had DH put her to bed. She cried and took a long time to go down and she woke up and had to be settled twice within the first two hours. But after that she slept all night. Last night DH tried to put her down and it just wasn't happening. So I went up there and rocked her.  She asked to nurse once, but I told her that nursies had gone bye bye and she she just snuggled up with me and we sang a bunch of songs and she went to sleep.  At naptime today, we rocked for awhile, I patted her for awhile in the crib and told her I loved her and night night and left. She cried for about 10 minutes and then slept a couple of hours.  She has not been asking to nurse at all. I really can't believe it's going this well, considering the level of breastmilk addiction she'd gotten herself to

Best of luck to you!