Need weaning advice please

bikitybinx

We made it a year BF'ing, and I am ready to begin the weaning process. I want to continue BF'ing for the first AM feed, before bedtime, and any overnight feeds. I am thinking of doing that until she is 2. But, during the day I want to transition to WCM. I gave Nat her fist drink of WCM last week in a straw cup and she didn't bat an eye. Since then I have been giving her the straw cup with WCM at every meal and over the course of a day she maybe drinks 1 - 2 oz total. Because I am now offering WCM, I stopped giving her water. I currently offer the boob when she wakes and before naps. Sometimes she takes it, sometimes she doesn't. So...how do I go about weaning? Is it best to go cold turkey and only let her nurse in the AM and before bed and give her only WCM in straw cup - and have her learn the hard way? Or should I take a more gradual approach - maybe stop offering before I put her down for naps, then stop offering when she wakes up from naps. If I do gradual, should I do it over a week, two weeks? I am at a complete loss on the best way of doing this - any advice would be greatly appreciated. What worked for you?

bikitybinx

Sorry for one paragraph formatting - I had it broken out in separate paragraphs when writing this to make it easier to read, but apparently TB didn't like that

2chatter

I dropped 2-6 cold turkey.  I pumped ONLY to relieve engorgement.  Worked great, much less stressful (but these were overnights).

Day time would most likely be harder.  DS here sometimes still wants to comfort nurse 1-2 times a week outside of our schedule - I let him.  I would try dropping one at a time but I am betting the key will be consistency.

bethanyturon

I am weaning very gradually, just because I want it to be as painless for her (and me) as possible.  I am actually just cutting out a feeding every 2 weeks.  We started around 11 months and we are down to just 2 feedings per day now (before going to sleep for the night and once during the middle of the night).