Weaning from breastfeeding?

[Bernadine]

How do I do this? I swear, I can't figure it out. Lol.

Currently- Between nursing and pumped milk/formula, dd is still getting milk 5 times per day at 11 months. At minimum, I want to stop pumping at one year, but I will continue to nurse at wake up/night.

I tried to give her some formula in a sippy cup the other day, and she wasn't interested.

How do I do this? At one year, just start giving her WCM instead of formula/breastmilk?

[pinotgrig]

Are you wanting to wean from nursing or breast milk?

From breastmilk: We did a slow transition - so he took (4) 4oz bottles at daycare. I made 1 oz wcm and 3oz BM for a week. Then 2oz, then 3oz, then all wcm. We initially tried a faster transition and he got an awful diaper rash, so we eased up and he never had any more issues.

[pooh8402]

how much/how often are you pumping?

at 11 months, I was in the process of weaning off the pump. I started weaning from the pump at 9 months, and weaned slowly due to oversupply and history of clogged ducts. I was off the pump by 12 months. I had a good enough stash of BM that my son continued to get BM at daycare until 13 months. he got his BM in a bottle, and when he switched to the toddler room at 13 months, he started getting WCM in a sippy.

starting at about 6 or 7 months, I offered water in a sippy cup with meals so he could get some practice. daycare did the same thing. if you're not already doing this, I would start now.

I would imagine your DD wouldn't want formula if she's been getting BM this whole time. E never liked formula past 4 months. as for when to introduce WCM, I just offered small amounts at home in a sippy cup, between nursing sessions or with meals, so I would know if he was going to react or not. I started this around 11 months. once I ran out of BM, he went cold turkey to WCM. it was nbd for us. some people mix the BM and WCM, gradually increasing the WCM and decreasing the BM, to let their child get accustomed to the taste.

and you can absolutely stop pumping and continue to nurse. I stopped pumping at 12 months, and E was still nursing 4-5x/day at that point, when we were together. we continued to nurse until 18 months, gradually dropping nursing sessions until I finally weaned him completely.

[ssmjlm]

For BFing I cut the pre-meal sessions first. So I stopped feeding before lunch and dinner (but still did wake up). Then I cut the pre-nap sessions. At that point we were basically down to wake up/before bed.

I stopped pumping around 10m, but basically cut all non-work pumping, then went to 1 morning session, but moved it by a hour later. So I was doing 10/12/2. Cut the 12, when I cut the 2pm, I moved the 10am to 11am. Then cut that one.

We started offering WCM with lunch probably around 11.5m. It took her a while before she took to it. Honestly she probably didn't start really drinking milk until I cut the wake up session around 13m.

[mary]

I cut down my pumps at work slowly- 5 mins/ day for a week on each of them before I dropped the pump completely, so it took me 3 weeks to stop pumping.

We transitioned the same way pinotgrig did- substituting 1oz of BM for WCM per week until he was completely on WCM. This took some freezer stash because I was making less and less pumping as I cut sessions and dropped pumps.

He is now on WCM completely without any stomach issues and he doesn't care that it's not BM.

[Bernadine]

May 25, 2017 9:02:16 GMT -5 pooh8402 said:

how much/how often are you pumping?

at 11 months, I was in the process of weaning off the pump. I started weaning from the pump at 9 months, and weaned slowly due to oversupply and history of clogged ducts. I was off the pump by 12 months. I had a good enough stash of BM that my son continued to get BM at daycare until 13 months. he got his BM in a bottle, and when he switched to the toddler room at 13 months, he started getting WCM in a sippy.

starting at about 6 or 7 months, I offered water in a sippy cup with meals so he could get some practice. daycare did the same thing. if you're not already doing this, I would start now.

I would imagine your DD wouldn't want formula if she's been getting BM this whole time. E never liked formula past 4 months. as for when to introduce WCM, I just offered small amounts at home in a sippy cup, between nursing sessions or with meals, so I would know if he was going to react or not. I started this around 11 months. once I ran out of BM, he went cold turkey to WCM. it was nbd for us. some people mix the BM and WCM, gradually increasing the WCM and decreasing the BM, to let their child get accustomed to the taste.

and you can absolutely stop pumping and continue to nurse. I stopped pumping at 12 months, and E was still nursing 4-5x/day at that point, when we were together. we continued to nurse until 18 months, gradually dropping nursing sessions until I finally weaned him completely.

I'm pumping twice a day at work. I'm in the office three days per week. I nurse her the other four.

We're doing the sippy cup with water, and she's ok with that. I have had to supplement BM with formula recently, and she's done fine with that. She's had a few all-formula bottles as well.

I'd be happy to keep nursing when I'm with her, but I worry that the three days per week I'm away will kill my supply.

[pooh8402]

so as far as weaning from the pumping, you can try shortening your sessions first. also, you can try delaying your pumps by like a half hour, and gradually lengthen the time between until you drop your last pump of the day. so if you currently pump at 10 and 2 for 20 minutes each, you could try pumping at 10:30 and 3 for 15 minutes each. do that for a few days. then pump at like 11 and 4 for 12 minutes each, do that for a few days. then pump at 12 for like 10 minutes for a few days, then 5 minutes, then you should be able to stop.

as far as the worry that it will kill your supply... it adjusts. I also only work 3 days a week, 13 hours each day. my breasts were able to adjust to nursing on my days off, and only nursing morning/night on the days I worked. my supply went down very slowly, over a period of about 8 or 9 months. we nursed for an additional 6 months after I stopped pumping, but I was easily able to express milk from both breasts until very recently.

[nessness]

Try giving her a sippy of WCM. If she drinks it, great! Drop one bottle per week until she's off them. You could replace three bottles with WCM and two with food or something like that; 5 cups of milk would be a lot.

If she won't drink it, you may need to mix it with breast milk and gradually increase the amount of WCM until she's only on WCM like PPs suggested.

[ssmjlm]

May 25, 2017 10:24:10 GMT -5 Bernadine said:

I'd be happy to keep nursing when I'm with her, but I worry that the three days per week I'm away will kill my supply.

I stopped pumping at 10m and was able to nurse fine on the weekends and morning/night during the week until 14m.  Babies are more efficient than the pump.

[Ashley&Scott]

I agree with pooh8402. Reduce the lengths of your pumps, then get down to 1 pump per day, then reduce the length of that & eventually stop pumping. Your body will adjust to nursing just when you're together. Great job mama!

[macmars45]

Can't add anything to the weaning from BFing or pumping as I EFF. We just replaced bottles with food and water/milk. Currently DS (almost 13 months) has milk with breakfast & dinner and water with snacks at 9:30/10am and 3pm & lunch 11:45am. All in sippy cups. We went cold turkey and replaced formula in a bottle with WCM in a sippy. (Apart from wake up bottle which we're dropping soon and bedtime bottle which he may go off to college with. ) Oh, and we started the switch to WCM at 11.5 months with his pedi's approval.

This switching from all bottles/BFing to all food/WCM and water is an interesting ride. GL!