Talk to me about weaning

mssaint

LO will be 1 in 6 weeks (OMG!), and soon I'll probably start thinking about weaning. Right now, he nurses 3-4x/day and drinks 10-15 oz of bm a day from bottles at daycare. He eats 3 meals of solids a day -- purees and finger foods -- but not huge amounts, and snacks on puffs and fruit, too.

Obviously, I'll talk to my pedi about this, but how do you do it? Not only how do you start limiting nursing, but how do you get them transitioned to milk? I intend to keep nursing at night for awhile after I stop pumping, but how long does milk supply last if you only nurse once a day?

Basically, can you walk me through your experience?

 

northernvabride

Congrats on making it to 1 year.  I fully weaned each of my LOs around 14 - 16 months, but they were only doing bedtime nursing at that point.  Around 12 months, they were basically on sippy cups during the day and/or transitioning to cow's milk.  So we started the process by introducing the sippy with water and then, eventually trying it with a little milk in it.  I used BM and formula mixed, since that was what they got in their bottles since I could not keep up with their demand.  It helped that daycare does sippy cups too, and so they see other kids drinking milk from cups.  DD#1 took to the sippy cup with cold milk really early (11 months) since the other kids were a little older and doing the same, so she stopped bottles during the day before 1 year and never looked back.  DD#2 took longer, so we just switched what was in the bottles slowly to cow's milk after her 1 year appt and gradually phased out BM and then phased out daytime bottles around 15 months (I didn't want to go this long with bottles, and not with cow's milk, but the pedi said it was ok and she had no problem dropping the bottles all together when we did).  Neither one seemed really upset they weren't nursing during the day anymore and liked to do it still at night or in the morning for a few more months.  As for me, I dropped 1 pumping session a week at work for the 3 weeks leading up to their birthdays.  I had some freezer supply and we mixed with formula, so I was able to still give the same amount of BM even with less pumping.  By 13 months, both were fully on cow's milk, whether in bottle or sippy.  Once they started on sippy cups with milk, I would offer that at bedtime, and then nurse right before bed.  So my supply was probably minimal, but they were satisfied with this amount (after solid food dinner, sippy and then nursing) and did this 1x a day nursing for 2 - 4 months with the supply level staying the same as far as I could tell.  At the later stage, it was more for comfort/relaxing than nutrition I think.  DD#2 was a really picky eater and that is probably why we felt like we needed to hold on longer to bottles, but she just needed less than DD#1, which we didn't account for.  Good luck.  I bet everyone has different experiences on this, as my 2 LOs were so different. 

tomandcourt

My experience:

After J turned one, I started weaning off of pumping. I was pumping 3x/day at work plus once at night before going to bed. I dropped the night one first, then over a period of three weeks dropped each day session. I was doing them at 9/12/3 for about 15-20 minutes (however long it took). I dropped a few minutes each day so by the end of the week the session was gone. I dropped the 12:00 first, and then moved my sessions to 10 and 2. Dropped the 2:00, moved the morning one a little later, and at the end of the third week I was done with that. Whee!

During this time, we were still sending BM to daycare, but started mixing with whole milk. By the end he was on all milk during the day at daycare. On weekends, I tried to match up (so when I dropped the mid-day pump, we would give a bottle instead of nursing).

For the other feedings . . . I think at that point I was doing morning, bedtime, and kind of as-needed. I didn't fully wean until he was 16 months. The morning feeding kind of dropped on its own. He just wanted to be up doing things rather than nursing, so that was easy. The as-needed ones I used the LLL "don't offer, don't refuse" method and they kind of faded away too.

For the bedtime feedings, I started letting DH take over more often, with a bottle (I can't remember if I pumped or not). Then I just set a date for myself (New Year's Eve of last year) and nursed him before bed one last time and that was it. I never had a huge supply, so I was never engorged/uncomfortable during this process. YMMV.

I will say, I was more emotional about the whole process than I expected (hence this long post!) and I was really worried J wouldn't see me the same way and wouldn't want to be with me as much as before or something, but that wasn't the case at all. I do wish I could nurse him sometimes, though, still--there are times when he's having a meltdown where I know a boob would help :-)

Mrs.Handy

At this point, I'm only weaned from the pump. Whenever I'm home (morning, evenings, weekens), DS still nurses, but we do offer him a sippy cup with whole milk throughout the day.

My weaning from the pump started at 12 months. I dropped to two sessions a day from three sessions. This was really easy. I kept this up for a while maybe two months or so. DS wasn't thrilled about whole milk so we mixed BM and whole milk together to transition him to it and gave him one sippy cup and one bottle.

I think you definitely need some transition time between whole milk and BM, since DS really was not interested in whole milk at first.

I was planning on dropping to one session a day at 14 months and did for one day. But I left my pump on the Metro! While I was able to get it back a week later, I decided it wasn't worth the hassle to get a manual, so I just stopped pumping. I was engorged at first. But I adjusted. Now DS gets two sippy cups with whole milk and I nurse him mornings, evenings, and weekends.

I really have no idea how I'll wean him from mornings, evenings, and weekends since he is still very much interested in nursing. I'll let him keep going until he wants.

amh_navyblue

Congrats on making it to a year:)

My experience is pretty similar to the pps.  With DD#1, I started weaning around 11 months because I was going back to work after being at home and had no interest in starting to pump more at that point and my pedi said it was fine.  She never took a bottle, so it was just a matter of replacing one nursing at a time with milk in a sippy cup (she was fine with cow's milk and we never had to mix it with anything else).  I replaced a feeding every 3-4 days and within 2 weeks, I was just nursing in the morning when she got up, in the evening when I got home from work and before bed.  The evening nurse was the first to go, probably by the time she was 13 months old, next was the morning nurse, around 15 months.  The nighttime nurse lasted until 18 months, when I realized that she was able to go to bed without it and there was a 2 night stretch when I was not around at bed time and she went to bed without a problem.  For the first 2 nights that I was around and not nursing her before bed, she fussed a bit, but it was a pretty easy transition for her and like others have said, I think it was more emotional for me than it was for her.

DD#2 has been similar, with a few variations.  I went back to work when she was 8 weeks, so I was definitely doing the full pumping schedule.  The few weeks before her first birthday I dropped the before bed pumping session, and we started to incorporate cow's milk into her milk at daycare.  She was not a big fan of it at first, but seemed to adapt fairly quickly.  I then dropped one pumping session at work just before her birthday (I was only pumping 2x a day at work) and then the other session right around her birthday.  She lost interest in the morning and evening nursing sessions fairly quickly, probably by 13 months, but we are still nursing at night before bed and she is now 22 months.  I'm on the fence about whether I want to be more proactive in totally weaning. She is clearly interested in continuing, so we'll see how long this goes.  I thought a work trip this fall was going to provide the natural ending, but I had to cancel the trip and so here we are;)

Also in terms of supply, my supply seems to be fairly consistent and engorgement was only an issue early in the BF process, not really an issue during the weaning process.  I have no idea how much milk I'm producing right now, but she's clearly getting something.  I think the key is taking your time with the process and not dropping more than one pump session or one nursing session every 3-4 days. Your body will most likely adjust well if you don't rush it.

GL!

WinesNotWhines

It was fairly easy for me to stop pumping. By the time M was a year old, I was only pumping twice a day. I consolidated the sessions, so instead of pumping at 9 am and 2 pm, I only pumped once at 11 am. I continued nursing him in the morning, when I got home from work, and before bed. After a couple of weeks of pumping once a day, I was able to drop pumping entirely. I was a little engorged at first, but it was completely manageable. 

M was still really into nursing at 1 year, so I did the "don't offer, don't refuse" thing starting around 13 months. I thought eventually my supply would drop and he'd lose interest. But now I think maybe I should've pushed it more, because he shows no signs of stopping! I feel done at this point, but he definitely doesn't want to be done. Sigh.

He has never been a fan of cow milk. He will drink a few sips if we add some flavoring to it, like a little bit of "drinkable yogurt" or kefir, but he won't down an entire cup of milk. We give him yogurt twice a day and his pedi says it's fine.

amh_navyblue

WinesNotWhines:

M was still really into nursing at 1 year, so I did the "don't offer, don't refuse" thing starting around 13 months. I thought eventually my supply would drop and he'd lose interest. But now I think maybe I should've pushed it more, because he shows no signs of stopping! I feel done at this point, but he definitely doesn't want to be done. Sigh.

 yep, I think I'm in the same boat with DD#2...she is showing NO signs of being ready to drop that before bed nursing.  Actively asks for it.