Want to quit nursing an 8 month old [Archive]

karen w

06-05-2001, 07:58 PM

Bluemoose,

I have 3 kids and each of them were weaned slightly different. Does your baby take a bottle yet at all. That may make a difference. If she/he does, your set. Otherwise, I would start by pumping milk, and giving breast milk from the bottle before weaning until the baby is comfortable with the bottle.

With my sons(whom I started giving a periodic bottle of breast milk starting at 3 weeks old), I weaned by making one of those bottles formula. I then pumped a little less every couple days until all of their meals were replaced with formula.

With my daughter it was very different because I breast fed her until she was 15 months old, and then weaned her straight to a cup. She never did have a bottle-not even of breast milk. With her I dropped her midnight nursing at nine months(especially since I always had to wake her up for that one anyway-even when she was much younger!! She was a good sleeper!!). At 12 months I dropped the midday nursing. By this time she was using a sippee cup, so I gave her whole milk in a cup instead. However, she really never became a big milk drinker until after I stopped nursing completely. The morning and evening nursings were more difficult(for both of us!) to drop. I did these when she was 15 months. I believe I dropped her A.M. nursing first, but waited a few weeks until my chest was more comfortable and then dropped the P.M. nursing. After dropping the a.m. nursing I had to express alittle to relieve discomfort, but try to do as minimal as possible so as not to continue to promote milk production. Also after dropping her p.m. nursing, I waited about 3-4 days before expressing the engorged milk. This worked to get rid of the "stored" engorged milk without stimulating alot of new production.

I know this is long winded, but I hope I have given you some useful info. in all of it.

P.S. Weaning my daughter was the most difficult(emotionally-for both of us) since I nursed her a little longer. After I dropped her last nursing, there were a few days where she was very "whiny" and just not herself. But babies bounce back quickly, and I'm happy to report we BOTH recovered quickly.

Karen W.