Weaning From Breastfeeding

Re: Weaning From Breastfeeding

• Sunshineflo member

  May 2014

  My 10 month old isn't fully weaned yet but we are down to 3 breastfeedings per day. We were at 5-6 feedings a day and I just eliminated one feeding every week or two. I just didn't offer to nurse her. On a few occasions I could tell she wanted to nurse and I would let her and then she just let them go herself.I would keep her busy during the times I would normally be nursing her-walks, park, play dates, etc. And I did make sure to feed her filling, nutritious meals. Basically, if it doesn't provide her with nutrition I don't feed it to her. 

  
  

  Also, I have not added any milk. My pedi didn't think it was necessary as I don't really plan to use much cows milk and I make an effort to make sure she gets the fat and nutrition from other foods, like full fat yogurt.Talk to your pedi-you may not need to use as much cow's milk as you think. Good luck and hang in there mama! 

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• AllyOops member

  May 2014

  Did you start feeding her meals before offering to nurse her? Like my son nurses at noon and then eats lunch, would you recommend feeding him lunch instead of offering to nurse and see how he does? I could possibly do the same for his dinner eventually and get him down to just morning and bed time if you think that may work. Or sounds similar to what you did. I was still giving him a dream feed feeding at 9:30/10 but last night when I nursed him at 8:30 I put him down for the night and it worked well. My plan is to try to keep that up and maybe that will get us down to four nursing sessions a day. Also, would you mind sharing some meal ideas your giving your little girl? I'm at loss for trying to feed him nutritious meals with only two teeth, we still are kind of on a mixture of solid/table foods and puréed. Thanks for your comment! That helps a ton because it's very similar to what I want to do. I don't want to give him that much milk!

  

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• jlpev member

  May 2014

  My dd has 2 teeth. She is 11months & eats everything I do & has since 6 months. I did blw.
  With my ds I just slowly stopped offering to nurse & he slowly weaned himself by 13 months.

  

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• Sunshineflo member

  May 2014

  @allyoops, I did exactly that-fed her meals and then nursed her. She currently nurses upon waking up in the morning, again around 4-5pm, and at bedtime, usually btwn 8:30-9pm. Honestly I think the 4-5 pm feeding is more of a comfort feeding for her but I don't mind it at this point. 

  
  

  Some meal ideas- a "smoothie" using full fat plain yogurt, a banana, and spinach. scrambled eggs, shredded cheese, puree of steamed spinach w/roasted pears and parmesan cheese (she LOVED this one.) I typically do one yogurt meal a day using plain whole milk yogurt and some kind of fruit mash or puree, avocado and ground flax seed mixed in. Another one she really liked was lentils, sweet potato, carrot and celery-all cooked and then run through the food processor together. I always use full fat yogurt and cheese (and milk if called for in a recipe) and use unsalted butter if needed when cooking her food. 

  
  

  I made my own baby food and I would do it in batches and then freeze it. I found this to be easier when she was still on purees and/or needed her food run through the food processor because I could just grab food cubes rather than trying to figure out what to make that she could eat. I really like the baby food cookbooks Start Fresh by Tyler Florence, Top 100 Baby Purees by Anabel Karmel, and Super Baby Food by Ruth Yaron. The Super Baby Food book really helped me understand what my baby's nutritional needs are and how to meet them. She is more exacting with food than I am, so I find myself using this book more as a reference. The Tyler Florence book is good because his recipes can be fed to babies and adults. And the top 100 Baby Purees is good because it has lots of variety and she tells you if the recipe is suitable for freezing or not. 

  
  

  Let me know if there is any other info I can provide-I'm always happy to help or support!

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• amchambers member

  May 2014

  It was recommended to me that once my DD is a year old, that she needs between 16-24oz of milk a day. I started weaning earlier because I had to go back to work, So when I was weaning, I offered her milk in a sippy cup (she was already used to it) with her morning snack, and then when I was comfortable (aka it didn't hurt to not be feeding at that time), I did the same in the afternoon. I was pumping milk anyway for her at night so my husband could spend that time with her, so I just kept going until I cut out dinner, lunch and breakfast as well The last one hurts the most since you're not getting any relief in expressing milk, so I was told if I needed to, to pump a little off but not enough that you signal your body to make a bunch more milk. Hope that helps!

  

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