Weaning

lmc929

I know it is early to bring this up, but I have started to wonder how it works. Especially with a little guy in daycare and me pumping. Any advice for first time mamas from veterans?

Did you just send more food to daycare in place of milk? Did you send cows milk? How quickly did you decrease pumping? How did your baby handle the transition? Etc. Etc.

Thanks!

myjessesgirl

No direct advice as my situation was a little different, but I can share what I did. I have been weaning for awhile now (with a bad case of mastitis leaving me nursing on only one side) and I have been using my store of frozen milk plus formula. I try to make a bottle in the morning of 5 oz milk plus an ounce or two of formula, then she gets formula for the remaining bottles (I don't have a huge stash of frozen milk) and I nurse at night. Of course, last night she decided to skip nursing altogether and fought me tooth and nail until I just decided to give her a bottle. Cow's milk still should be avoided until 12 months. And solids can be added, but you'll likely need to either make up bottles of frozen milk or formula for the next few months. I decreased pumping by first eliminating all the extra pumping I did (I used to pump every morning in addition to every time she nursed), then cut back one feeding at a time. I'd recommend cutting back each one over 2-4 weeks. It can be uncomfortable!

soupalou

I just finished weaning. What a relief! I also did it over about 8 weeks. I started out by weaning LO onto formula over about 2-3 weeks. I wanted to make sure I found something that he would accept before I started decreasing supply. While I weaned him up on formula (it took awhile to find one he'd eat- gerber gentle) I continued pumping like normal (I exclusively pumped). I froze my additional stash (I now have ~400 oz frozen). Once he was established and didn't seem to differentiate breast milk or formula I started weaning the pumping. I dropped 1 pump/ ~5-7 days. At the end when I got down to 2 pumps a day then just started only pumping when I was uncomfortable. I also started only pumping for about 10 min- or just the big rush and as soon as it stopped flowing in big streams I'd stop. My LO now has mostly all formula except 1 8oz bottle BM at bedtime. I read that studies show a huge benefit for breastfeeding the first 6 months but then there's not much research. But Im also hoping that the 1 bottle a day will also benefit him as studies have shown a benefit with as little as 50ml/day. So I'm going to use my freezer stash at 1 bottle a day until I run out. It took about 10days for my breasts to not be engored at all once I stopped. And I have been such a b****. but so happy to be done- I am also significantly much less tired & hungry- YAY!