Another weaning question

[bunch]

I am still so confused on this one. I'm thinking that I'll be ready to wean soon after the one year mark. I go back and forth daily, but my gut says that's what I'm ready to do. Anyway, I have no idea how you do this. Right now dd nurses 5-7 times a day including 1 overnight feeding. Some days she does a consistent 4 hrs between eating. Other days itll be totally random - 2 hrs, 3 hrs, etc. She also eats three decent sized solid meals and occasionally a late afternoon snack.

So, as I drop feedings, am I supposed to be replacing the nursing with solids? Or at the 1 yr mark do I just start replacing the nursing with a sippy of milk?

My thought is that I need to be more scheduled with the feedings if I'm going to hope to drop them. Is it even realistic to think that dd could be easily weaned at a yr if she's still bfing this much?

Id love to hear how this worked for your kids...

[ijack]

Q is starting to wean herself now. I've just been offering her a sippy of formula with her meals to make sure she's getting enough. She nurses when she wakes, before her 2nd nap, late afternoon and before bed.
When you're ready I would just offer a sippy with milk instead of nursing.

[victoria21]

My situation was a little different, but maybe it will still be helpful to share. At a year we were doing an overnight feeding and five sessions during the day (when she woke up, before her first nap, before her second nap, before bed and usually one extra between naps or in the afternoon). I should also add that I never really nursed on demand, though she never really asked for it either.

I started only nursing her in her room, in the rocking chair. This easily dropped the random nursing session. I dropped the night one next by just not going to her when she woke up. After a few days she stopped waking up. Then I went on vacation over the weekend and when I got back, I stopped feeding her when she woke up in the morning. When she went from 2 naps to 1, that dropped another session. I did this all over a six month period, but I could have done it faster. The only one she really had a hard time adjusting with was the morning feeding. We had some rough mornings, but I just had to work really hard to keep her distracted.

I kept the last 2 sessions for the next 6 months. For those I just mixed up the nap/night time routine so that we nursed first and I slowly decreased the amount of time she nursed for until she was barely nursing. Those were the hardest, probably because she was older and it was so much a part of our routine.

To answer the food/milk question, As I dropped sessions, I added sippies of milk. Midmorning, afternoon, then first thing in the morning, and also one at dinner (she is in bed an hour later). Eventually I stopped giving her the milk between meals on most days.

[Deleted]

There is no way Owen would wean easily at this point. He has been slow to take solids (we started at 6 months and he didn't eat a significant amount until daycare at 12 months) and he just loves to nurse. Weaning can be very baby specific - he has friends of the same age that really only nurse morning and night. He nurses morning, night, overnight, and a few times between 4 and 7 pm when I'm home.

I did start WCM in a straw cup at 11.5 months so he'd have something when I was gone. It will be harder if you're there. When he wants to nurse he whines and paws at my shirt and can not be distracted. Again, it's a personality/temperament thing. He's persistent and hard to distract.

There are lots of ideas here: kellymom.com/ages/weaning/wean-how/weaning-techniques/
We'll probably night wean in July (14 months). I'm okay with continuing some nursing for a while - we want to TTC in the fall, and I'm not sure what I'll do if it gets painful when I'm pg.

[bunch]

Jun 15, 2012 9:40:09 GMT -5 @tokenhoser said:

There is no way Owen would wean easily at this point. He has been slow to take solids (we started at 6 months and he didn't eat a significant amount until daycare at 12 months) and he just loves to nurse. Weaning can be very baby specific - he has friends of the same age that really only nurse morning and night. He nurses morning, night, overnight, and a few times between 4 and 7 pm when I'm home.

I did start WCM in a straw cup at 11.5 months so he'd have something when I was gone. It will be harder if you're there. When he wants to nurse he whines and paws at my shirt and can not be distracted. Again, it's a personality/temperament thing. He's persistent and hard to distract.

There are lots of ideas here: kellymom.com/ages/weaning/wean-how/weaning-techniques/
We'll probably night wean in July (14 months). I'm okay with continuing some nursing for a while - we want to TTC in the fall, and I'm not sure what I'll do if it gets painful when I'm pg.

Thanks. The Kellymom tips are what made me think that I'll need a schedule if we're not just doing don't ask / don't refuse. Dd actually doesn't seem that attached to nursing. She is definitely NOT a comfort nurser, so it might just be as simple as offering the cup. I just wanted to make sure that it's ok if she's still getting a good bit of nutrition from milk.

[Deleted]

At a year, as long as she's also eating other foods, it's fine to switch over to mostly/all WCM. I think kellymom says 16-24 oz of WCM as the max/day. You could try just offering the WCM before nursing if you don't want to get on a schedule (because that just seems like a lot of work at this point in the game).

Oh, and if she likes yogurt, you can also shake some into WCM for flavour if she's not diggin' it.