Breastfeeding - Greenwood, IN

When someone takes something from you that youhave been used to ALL your life, you'd be upset to. His way of expressing this is crying. There's going to be crying involved.
With my son we just quit one day. Unless you want your 5 year old breastfeeding you have to deal with a little bit of him being upset.

First of all way to go momma for listening to your instincts and your son by continuing to nurse and not "cry it out" I read the other advice and all I can add as a Lactation Consultant is, go slow and it will happen. Pretty much the don't offer, don't refuse works well along with distraction. The main issue is the sleep tie in. I would honestly do the nap time one first. You have to replace the sleep routine with something other than nursing. Does he cosleep? I thought my daughter would not be able to cosleep and nurse..but she did quit nursing at night and continue to cosleep...Dad was instrumental in this...definately a team effort and didn't take long (days not weeks:) ) Enjoy this time...soon you will miss the cuddling when your little guys is running around trying not to be held!

This does NOT have to involve crying as others said. My son stopped at 29 months of his own accord. We just did things very gradually. I stopped nursing him before nap an bedtime at this time when he got his big boy bed. Once he got the bed he was not interested in nursing anymore. I asked him, he said no he just wanted to go to sleep in his new bed. I said, ok...and that was the end of it. You may just have to wait a bit longer until he is ready to completely wean. Someone suggested waiting till after 2 when part of that sucking need goes away and that would probably be a good idea.

Hi C.-

I just went through this about 3 months ago with my daughter--she was 18 mos at the time and I thought she'd want to nurse until she went to college at the rate we were going. She had NO interest in giving it up. The only time she nursed was nighttime and naptime like you.

It actually was much easier than I thought it was going to be and we've never looked back. There was also no crying. My husband stepped in for bedtime (after we read books and went thru the routine then I left the room) and naptimes (which I used to handle). The nighttime weaning went easiest and it took a couple of weekends when my husband was home to get through naptimes. I'm sure it will be much harder being an at home mom but hopefully if you persevere it will hopefully work. She eventually seemed to lose interest. She was nursing purely for comfort and ritual more than a need for food as my milk had nearly dried up anyway.

Good luck!
D.

My mom talks about doing this with me. She was a SAHM and I only nursed, never even took a bottle or a pacifier. My mom says one day she decided to stop nursing, and we spent two days cuddling. As she says, I was very "sad" for those two days and she needed to cuddle me through those days, but then on day three I was done and I never nursed again! I think that it was it's all about, loving and comforting.

Dear C.,
I nursed 6 children.
Don't offer and don't refuse.
He is at the age when he should be more interested in what is going on around him etc., so use these distractions when you can.
If possible, have Dad or brother or ? interact with him at the times when he usually nurses.
Make it a gradual thing and at some point he will just forget about it.
If he asks, tell him it is "all gone" and offer him a cup instead.
Good luck.

If you can wait until he turns 2 it may be a little easier. Their need for sucking rapidly diminishes after that. My 2nd son needed a lot of extra cuddling and reassurance but there was very little crying. I believe if you comfort them a lot and hold them then it is a much less stressful of a transition. Good luck!

My children were a bit closer than that in age (now 9 and 12), but I still didn't have a problem. What you can do is get a sippy cup or a bottle, fill it with water first then if necessary you can add just a touch of breastmilk. Depending on where you are when it is his nap time, this may not be suitable. You go ahead and start like you're going to breastfeed, letting him snuggle skin-to-skin but give him bottle/cup instead of letting him suckle. It's more of the closeness and skin contact and mother's scent that is the source of comfort rather than the actual breastmilk. If he happens to have a favorite cup/bottle, be sure to use that whenever possible.

Hope that helps!

Congrats on breastfeeding for so long! I nursed my son until 13mo. I think it's probably a lot different for a 13mo. old to stop vs. a 21 mo. old, but I'll tell you what I did anyway. I gradually weaned him down from several nursings to only nursing for nap & at night...which I see you've already done. I first stopped the naptime nursing, and was surprised that he really didn't care that he didn't nurse. My issue is I nursed him to sleep so instead of nursing to sleep for naps I rocked him. After maybe a week I ceased nursing him b/4 bed. Again, we rocked him to sleep. I felt the transition from nursing to sleep to using another method was more difficult than the weaning itself. Good luck, and do it gradually. I know you face more difficult challenges since your son is older, but take it in stride b/c it's great you nursed him for so long. Good luck!

Oh how I remember these days! My daughter was almost 3 before I got her to stop nursing. I let her snuggle and found her a cup and dolly she really really liked. It was rough at first with her crying. I used to give in to her so she'd stop, but eventually had to just let her cry some so she weaned off.
Good luck to you!