Weaning from BF after a year.

Hi,

I have posted about this before but am still having problems so looking for advice from any long term BF moms.

My DD is 14mths now and since her first birthday I have been trying to wean her from BF at least during the day. She still feeds in morning, at night and a few times during the night!

Some days she is okay and is happy to take her sippy cup of cows milk but today she cried and cried until I let her BF.

I work from home so am readily available to her during the day.I have tried distraction and the sippy but on some days like today she wont settle for anything other than the boob.

My Q. is do i persevere and not give into her demands or do I feed her and hope that someday she will wean herself?

TIA

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

i would distract distract distract with something more fun when she wants to nurse if you want to wean during the day. She doesn't really understand no right now. but at night you can try the "no cry sleep solution" to get her to stop eating at night, worked for me with 2 kids

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

I would definately take the initiative. Babies are babies and she doesn't understand just yet. I think the fact that she is not sleeping through the night without feedings should be addressed first. She is old enough to sleep through and its bad for her teeth to be eating in the middle of the night. When my son was doing this, I read How to solve your child's sleep problems by Ferber. I personalized the method a bit but basically followed his plan. My son stoped feeding in the middle of the night after 2 nights. I think it will make you feel better if you can get some sleep yourself.


Whatever you decide works for you. good luck!

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

Forget what other people think for a moment and consider what you want. You talk about what she "still" does as if you have some sort of outside expectation for what she "should" be doing on her own.

Why do you want her to breastfeed less?

The few times during the night is a different issue than weaning. That is a sleep issue.

At 14 months I continued to let my daughter call the shots except at night. She was allow to nurse one time per night until 21 months at which point I said no more night nursing.

You persevere if you truly don't want to be nursing anymore. If you are indifferent or just think other people are going to judge you, I'd keep going -- there are still huge health and emotional benefits to continuing if you are ok with it!

Of course my 2 year old daughter still nurses 3 times a day, so you may not want my advice. hehe.

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

Thanks Ladies. I think I will pick up a copy of the no cry sleep solutions. Ferber is not for me as I cannot do cry it out!

The main reason I would like to wean is that for 14mths now I have been EBF - well she started cows milk in a sippy at 12 mths but other than that its just been me, my boobs and DD..no bottles, which means I HAVE to be here at nightime to put her to bed. I dont want to go out partying but recently a few things have come up which would require me to be out of the house in the evening for a few hours - ie a CPR course and because I wouldnt be here to settle DD down I could not do it. She will not go to sleep without BF..

I know the nighttime feeding is a problem and its a habit I have to break. I think if she stopped the night time feeding then I may be able to let wean herself during the day. The nighttime feeding is wearing my down. We co sleep most nights so there is no stopping her...she will scream at night if I try to stop her feeding and frankly I dont have the energy in the middle of the night to stop her.

I have not had an undisturbed 5 hours sleep in nearly 1 1/2 and I am pretty exhausted.

Sorry so long..I guess I have two intertwined (sp) issues - not sleeping through the night because she is BF through the night and maybe because I am trying to stop her feeding at night she is trying to feed during the day!

Anyone still reading this?

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

I hope you have better luck with the No Cry Sleep Solution than I did. My daughter was far too persistent for the gentle approaches to work, so we went with Weissbluth's extinction method.

My daughter also never took a bottle, so I know where you are coming from. I still nurse her before every nap and bedtime, but now she now sleeps from 8:30 pm - 6:30 am every night.

Personally I think you should take your class. If the boob isn't there, and she is with someone who loves her, she'll be just fine. They'll figure out their own way to get her to sleep. Or worst case, she'll be awake when you get back from class. So you'll nurse her then and she'll snooze.

At this point its time for mommy to matter too -- but I don't think you need to wean just to be able to spend 1 out of every 10 evenings away during the nighttime routine.

Re: Weaning from BF after a year.

Thanks "calla"...I am going to try the no cry and see how we go....

You are probably right about leaving her..I would be leaving her with my DH who she knows pretty well although at times when she only wants me you would think she had never seen him before!

I will keep you posted on how we do.