13 month old...BF,hates reg.Milk...The works...help pls :)

AvianaNmommy · November 2012

Hi everyone!

Sooo, I have a precious little girl who is currently BF. I would LOVE to get her off the boob and onto regular milk, the thing is, she HATES it . I don't know what else to do( I have tried milk substitutes, and she dislikes all of it. She only likes water in her sippy).

She also wakes up a few times at night and refuses to be rocked to bed , or self soothed...she wants the breast.

I am looking for any mommys with some tips on how they weaned there little ones, or how to get them off the breast at night.

I have a few things coming up in December in which I will have to stay Overnight without LO, and I desperately want to help the situation by getting the milk situation under wraps, and hey, if I can get her sleeping that would be great too, although I don't count on it! Thank you for reading

law&order · November 2012

Mine is the same way. Absolutely will not drink milk. He gets dairy from yogurt, smoothies, and cheese. Dr. and nutritionist both say it's fine, he'll get there eventually. But I weaned anyhow because I needed to be done pumping and DS needed to be hungry enough to eat solids.

I began weaning about two months ago. I started by cutting out all feedings during the day that weren't associated with sleep/nap. So he got his wake up, before naps, and before bed nursing sessions.

Then I dropped the before nap session. Then we night weaned one feeding at a time. It's not for everyone, but I used Ferber to push back (and drop) each feeding (a 2am and a 4:30am). It worked well for us because, like your LO, mine will not be soothed with rocking, holding, etc. He cried for 10 min or less for two nights at his normal wake up time.

Then I dropped the morning wake up feeding because he was least attached to it and didn't always even want it. Now we just have bedtime.

For me it's worked well to drop feedings one at a time, in reverse order of importance (to him) and dropped daytime feedings first. I always put at least a few weeks between dropping a session.

HTH

lageorgiapaperie · November 2012

Does she take a sippy at all? If not I would try warming her up to the cup with just water, or maybe some diluted juice. Or, you could try pumped milk in the sippy, then gradually start adding WCM until you're no longer putting pumped milk in the cup. GL!

momofmanyinthemitten · November 2012

I had a lot of people tell me that once LO was totally weened, she might start drinking milk. Not our DD. She has been completely weened since July and still won't go near it. She eats a TON of dairy products, just not milk. I'm not too concerned, as neither DH, nor I, drink it either. As for nursing at night, it took a strong effort from DH to get her to STTN consistently. If I went in to soothe her at night, I wouldn't be able to leave without giving her a boob. She would get upset that it was DH and not me coming in the room, but she soon learned that DH didn't have the goods and that I wasn't coming to her rescue. It took probably 2 nights for us.

MrsCodeMonkey · November 2012

We're still in your shoes at 16 months. My DD uses me for comfort with teething, ear infections, etc. It's hard!

dairygirl19 · November 2012

My kid hates milk too. After months of casually trying she'll finally down some in a sippy at bedtime. I guess I never saw the big deal. She's an otherwise good eater and there's 400 other ways to get in dairy, so we went that route. My kid is a fiend for water and a sippy cup addict, so I don't worry about dehydration either. I wouldn't push it. No sense in starting a battle over something that's not the end all, be all, must do.

As for the self soothing thing..you're just going to have to stay strong and not give in. She'll probably cry/whine/scream a few nights but she'll get to used to. (I was never a fan of CIO, but in some cases it's all you can do. Been there). Or maybe send your H in to soothe her so she doesn't "smell" you. My LO gets a sippy of water in her crib at night. That's how she self soothes (yes, I've already gone down in Bump flames over that, but it works for us.)

And as for going away, maybe that's what it'll take. LO will know you're not around and that'll be the end. I wouldn't stress about it until there's an issues. Kids do different things with different caretakers. It might be a good thing in this case.

SharonB222 · November 2012

What worked well enough for us: DD got dairy from solids but eventually she started drinking room-temperature WCM (bottle - started my mixing 25% then 50% with BM), now at 15 months she drinks cold WCM on occasion (cup with straw). As far as weaning overnight --- we would start a Friday night --- and for two to three nights DH would console DD for 1-2 hrs until she went back to sleep; then she'd sleep through herself. I still BF morning and bedtime.

trs1978 · November 2012

I dont have any advice, but just to let you know that I am going through the same thing!

stepheverhart · November 2012

My DS was the exact same way. I know some people won't agree with what we did but it worked for us. We added chocolate syrup. It worked wonders. We dont add a lot just enough to help the taste.
Now for night time feeds. I would go in and pick him up. Hug him and lay him back down. He was upset the first couple nights but got the hint. Eventually he would wake up once. I let him cry for a minute and he would fall back asleep. He sleeps from 9pm 10 or 11am with one quick feeding at 7am.

sierrablue · November 2012

I just dropped my sons last feeding 2 weeks ago, my son just turned 16 months. Before he was 1 he always got bottles of pumped milk at school, then switched to a cup, and the first time I tried putting regular milk in a cup at 12 months he spit it all over! Gross. So I started gradually mixing regular milk into the breastmilk, starting with a splash of regular whole milk, with mostly breastmilk, then tapering it off to a splash of breastmilk with mostly milk. It didn't take long for him to take all milk cups at school and I would still nurse him at night and in the mornings, then I gradually cut those out. He was constantly pulling at my shirt, sometimes out in public and I am not ok with that. He would still pull at my shirt in the mornings when he wanted to nurse but if he got a cup he was fine with that, as long as he got something. This weekend was the first time he didn't even ask for anything in the morning.

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13 month old...BF,hates reg.Milk...The works...help pls :)

Re: 13 month old...BF,hates reg.Milk...The works...help pls :)

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