Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

My son is almost 16 months old and he still only drinks breastmilk and water but eats 3 solid meals plus a snack or 2. I am so ready to be done breastfeeding! I only nurse him in the morning when he first wakes up, before his nap if I'm not at work and then he gets a bottle of pumped milk before bed. I am having a really hard time getting him to drink anything else! He has a milk intolerance so I avoid whole milk but so far I've tried hemp milk (vanilla and regular), coconut milk and the latest today is vanilla almond milk. I have been offering the milk throughout the day in the same type of straw cup he drinks water in. He will take a sip or 2 and then won't touch it again.

I'm at a loss for what to do. I really don't want to start cutting his BM bottle with almond milk because I'm afraid he won't drink it and I will waste the breastmilk - which is in shorter and shorter supply these days. How did the transition from BM to milk work for you?

I know they say he doesn't technically need milk but he just doesn't eat enough dairy to make up for the fat/protein he would get otherwise. I really want to stop nursing but I don't want to cut him off before I know he will take something else in place of BM.


Thanks in advance!

Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

Following! My 21 month old would nurse all day if I let him. On weekends, he still nurses at least 5 times - in addition to eating all day! I'm looking to cut the cord at 2 years if he doesn't self wean by then.

Have you tried coconut milk? I feel like that is the closest to milk. I'm also confident that if you did stop BFing, your child would be forced to drink something else. At this stage of the game, my DS feels like he can help himself whenever he wants when we are at home. Once the weathers nicer, we'll be out of the house more which I'm hoping will help.

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

My daughter has a milk protein allergy, so she drinks almond milk. At about a year we cut her breast milk with the almond milk. She didn't seem to have a problem. Started with more breast milk than almond milk, then equal amounts, then more almond milk than breast milk, then strictly almond milk. Worked out well for us and she didn't bat an eye. If you're worried about wasting breast milk just do it in small increments. You don't need to do a whole bottle or cup at a time.

Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

when I weaned my dd she refused any type of milk. She drinks water and eats yogurt and cheese. Her pediatrician has me give her a vitamin D supplement and Tums for extra calcium--dd is thriving.

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

I dealt with a similar situation. When I was ready to wean, I was nervous more about toddler losing the fat of breastmilk rather than the calcium. LO was also milk/soy protein intolerant, so giving animal dairy wasn't an option. LO was eating a varied diet and getting calcium in other ways, but i tried to push almond milk for more calcium (the fat and protein content is actually pretty low in almond milk). what i did out of desperation, and this went SO against my parenting principles, was add a little sugar into the almond milk I didn't want to buy the sweetened almond milk, because i did my own nerdy calculation on the sugar content of the almond milk vs. the sugar content of the sugar i was putting in myself and my way was less. i added such a tiny amount - like 1/8-1/4 tsp to a bottle. then i would also warm the almond milk. so it was warm and sweet, like breastmilk. occasionally i could get LO to drink fully unsweetened, or I would go through sugar weaning phases where i gradually decreased the sugar in the bottles but mostly LO needed some sweetness to drink the almond milk. LO also never really took to drinking anything but water in a straw cup. So when I was ready to ditch bottles, we basically ditched drinking almond milk. Probably starting around 20 months or so, LO only drank water. Though by then LO also outgrew the dairy intolerance, so was occasionally eating things like yogurt and cheese and eating even more of a varied diet, thus getting calcium elsewhere. The fat conundrum led me to try and beef up LO's foods with fat, so i added olive oil to things (like mashed lentils and beans, sweet potatoes), tried avocado, encouraged fattier meats like beef and sausages and serve some form of a nut butter daily.

Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

My DD was allergic to dairy and we weren't able to send almond milk to daycare, so she drank soy milk. We did start by cutting bottles of BM with the soy and eventually went all soy. The only thing was that she would only drink it warm and in a bottle. Once we weaned her off of bottles around 2, she stopped drinking soy milk. Now that she's outgrown her dairy allergy, we've tried to get her to drink regular milk but she just won't. She eats a lot of dairy and has a good diet so we just aren't that worried about it.

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

we mixed the breast milk with the whole milk (or whatever milk you choose)
With DS we had to do it veryyy gradually because he seemed to notice, so we started with 1oz milk and 7oz breast milk...did that for a week and increased to 2oc/6oz etc until he was fully transitioned.

Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

Can you just cut out one feeding for now and see if he does better with solids? I wanted dd at 16 months and it took her a while to take to milk. She had an allergy so we did soy at first and eventually switched to almond. I used to give her a sippy of milk before nursing at night, usually distracting her with books while sneaking the cup in her constantly. In the mornings it was while she watched a show. I don't think I'd worry too much about what else he gets as it may take time to find replacements. Dd loved yogurt in reusable pouches so that was probably my best go to.

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

Re: Need advice - weaning a toddler from breastmilk

Message edited 1/30/2016 10:29:05 AM.