Thinking ahead - how long does it take to fully wean?

[chicago]

Assuming I'm still nursing DD at one year, how long do I need to give my body to fully wean?  H and I are about to pull the trigger on a trip for the two of us, but we'd be going two weeks after DD's first birthday.

One thing I'm worried about is that I won't be ready to stop nursing and I really wouldn't want to bring my pump on a romantic getaway at that point.  But I also want to know roughly how long before our trip I'd need to stop so my body can be back to normal.

I'm also freaking out in a vain way.  Are my boobs going to look crazy deflated right after weaning?  This does not bode well for bathing suits and lots of naked time with H. 

Of course this could all be moot if my supply can't keep up with her once I'm back at work.  

[anna7602]

There's really no way to know what your body will look like/how you'll feel when you wean based on how varied the experiences of my BFing friends have been. When I weaned, I was only nursing once/day and didn't expect to be as engorged as I was for 2 weeks after our last nursing session. I ended up having to take lots of Sudafed to dry up. And my emotions were all over all the place for a while. I have no way of knowing if this is due to how long I nursed or just how my body deals with hormonal changes in general.

On the upside, my breasts didn't look deflated after I weaned and in fact, unexpectedly went back to being pert and perky (although not right away).

[ssmjlm]

It all depends on you. At a year, we went down to 2x a day, but I wasn't looking to end things right at her birthday. I went until almost 14m.

That said, by the time we went down to 2x a day I wasn't pumping anymore, wasn't uncomfortable, and dropping the last 2 sessions was NBD for my boobs.

So far they haven't deflated too much, but I can tell the skin is looser.

[teatimefor2]

It depends on the person. When we weaned I was down to one session per day. I was engorged for a few days and had to hand express. I was also very emotional, more than I was expecting. I also was eight weeks pregnant, so that may have played a role.

Overall they recommend dropping each session and waiting a few days before dropping another. It's called the step process.