Help!!! I am having the worst time weaning my now 17 month old son. My 3 yr old weaned when he was 12yrs 3 wks, and I was planning on around the same age for this child but he has his own plans. He refuses to stop nursing, he will scream,cry, pull at my clothes, and basically freak out if he wants to nurse and I wont let him. His doc told me he will stop when he's ready but at this rate he'll still be at it when he start school(I'm exagerating lol) Any suggestions???
*I forgot to add he's never taken a bottle and has been taking a sippy since he was 5 months old and has been drinking whole milk since he was 12 months. Hes ok as long as we arent home, BUT if we're home he wants to nurse in addition to his juice or milk sippy. My mom had him for a week while we finished packing our house to move and he was fine till I picked him up and then all he wanted was to nurse.
From what I read and it worked for us is that someone else should be giving him a bottle and then only breastfeed him maybe once in the morning and once at night. After a while he'll forget all about breastfeeding, I hope. Good luck.
Hi K.,
My son wanted to nurse when he was tired, bored or scared. I knew he was old enough to be comforted in other ways. My pediatrician who is from Portugal kept telling me how his mother went away on vacation to the "seaside" for a few weeks to wean her youngest. I thought this was a terrible idea and felt so bad for his brother. But at 22 months I couldn't stand it anymore. For Mother's day, my mother and husband sent me to Florida for 4 days (a long weekend). When I got back my son only tried to nurse once, I distracted him and then that was it. He was weaned! My husband said he was fine and it wasn't traumatic for him (just for me, even though lying on the beach helped- lol). I would only recommend this route if you have tried everything else and are at the end of your rope. Good luck.
Dear K.,
Weaning is a process that your Local LLL is truly the expert about. I suggest you look yours up and give a phone call to one of the local meeting leaders- the website will have thier phone numbers posted. Blessings for a peaceful loving end to a beautiful bond that you and your lucky baby had.
A great video on 50 years of La Leche League
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3-YGLnoELQ
Doula S.
Hi K.
Try decreasing the amount of time you breastfeed gradually. Offer regular milk and plenty of healty snaks during the day so he won't be as hungry when is breastfeeding time. He will refuse regular milk at first but eventually will drink it. My younger son is now 15 months and it tooked me almost a month to wean him of the breast. You just need time and lots of patience!
Good luck!
C.
My DS used to headbutt me because he wanted boob....so I casn feel your frustration. I have been there. What I did was I would offer him some dried cereal or fruit...after a while he got the picture. Good luck...I know it's hard.
you could try by giving him either a sippy cup or bottle with milk in it (if he doesn't like whole milk, try to give him skim...i was told that it's the closest in taste/texture to breast milk). the only other thing i can think of suggesting is using band-aid's i knew someone who had to do that when she had a baby and 2 yr old that wanted to feed to. she put them on her nipples when she'd be done w/ feeding the baby, and when her other child insisted on feeding by picking up her shirt, and lowering her bra, he would find a band-aide there and she would just tell him that mommy has a boo-boo there and he had to use the bottle, or cup! it only took a couple weeks to completely stop him from lifting her shirt to feed. but almost instantly (few hrs) to get him to go to the cup (since he couldn't get to the nipple). good luck.
Hi K.. We are in the process of weaning our 20 mo old. It's been hard as like yours, he's resistant to the process. We've been doing it very gradually. For about 2 months he was doing just a morning and night feeding with occasional afternoon naptime nursing if we were home and he was asking. I found out I was pregnant about a month ago so I suddenly became very motivated to wean. I started telling him that he had to share mommy's milk with the baby in the morning. Then we stopped morning feedings and my husband would wake up with him, take him downstairs and let him watch Barney while he ate breakfast. He loves Barney so that always helps when he's cranky. He'd protest for about 10 min at the start then was ok. He started to refuse milk in a cup for about a week and a half then got over it. After doing this about 2 1/2 weeks we took away the night feeding. We're only on night 3, but so far going ok. I started talking to him about 2 days prior how he now the baby needed ALL of mommy's milk and he's a big boy thus drinks big boy milk. So daddy gives him a bath, reads books in his room, then lays him down and tells him night night. I've been trying to really let him run around and exhaust him now so he's really tired. The first night he was up til almost midnight. My husband put in a Barney tape. But the other nights he didn't need to do that. It's still early on so we'll see. My brother's son did the same thing and he had to rock his son to sleep after he cried for about half an hour while they weaned him. I hope this is helpful. Basically it's been a weaning over about 3 mos, slowly eliminating feedings one by one. The other daytime feedings were easier to wean since he was occupied doing other things - we'd be at the mall, playgroup, playing outside, etc. Anything I could think of around a nursing time, and giving him lots of snacks/drinks/etc. Good luck!
Hi,
My daughter is now 2 and I started weaning her about when she turned 17 months. I probably wasn't very consistant at first because my goal was to have her weaned by the end of her 18th month. I thought 2 months was more than enough time. I started out just trying to get her to drink from her cup more and more. (I got her a small spill proof sippy cup with a straw...I don't know if that made any difference, but she would drink from it). After about 4 weeks of really trying to get her weaned, I was in the same spot you are in. I thought she would never give it up and she was getting pretty demanding about wanting the breast. I just kept trying to distract her and get her to take the milk in her sippy cup as much as possible. By the end of her 19 month, she was weaned. I don't know if she was just finally ready at that point or if my persistance paid off. Just hang in there and keep trying. You'll get him weaned soon.
Hope that helps- B.
