Okay mommas, this isn't my first rodeo with weaning, but my goodness she NEEDS me!!! I tried to wean her off last week,just giving her a nighttime feeding just before bed. Maybe becuase she was teething, but she was having withdrawls! Fiesta, needy, unhappy, clingy. so I decided to nurse her again. She is happy again, grabs her blanky and comes to me for nursing. Before it was just a 15 minute nursing but now it is 30 minute nursing on both sides!! UGH! I mean I love nursing my babies but I am ready to move on, lose weight etc... Need advice please!
Losing that last nightime feeding was the hardest for my son too. It took almost a month. I cut it down by time -- so if you're at 30 minutes, go to 20, then 10, then 5, then 2, then 1, then literally 30 seconds (I let him nurse at each length of time for a few days before halving again). He would squirm and try to fight his way back on in the beginning but eventually adapted and then one day it was just over. Good luck!
I would do it slowly for her and you. Just cut one feeding per day (unless you are down to that already. I cut the midday ones first... then kept the night time one as the last to cut. It took a while, but it let my body slow down production w/o pain and let her adjust as well. I was lucky mine was about "done" w/ me by the end, she actually weaned me I think. They are all different. Good luck.
I would keep nursing . . . one year of age is quite an arbitrary limit (the World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least two years) . . . especially since she seems to still need that connection so badly. I am still nursing my two year old daughter (just went to one feeding a day) and I must say that nursing during the second year was more helpful for calming her, putting her to sleep, and losing weight for me (yes, you burn even more calories during the second year of nursing than the first) than I did not first year of nursing her. A few more months, or years, is not very much time to give your daugther considering her and your lifespan.
It sounds like she is not ready to wean. I nursed my youngest till she was 2, with the mindset that as long as it was working for both of us and we were both happy with the arrangement, there was no need to wean. If you are no longer happy with her nursing, then you should wean, but if you are okay with nursing her but you just feel like she is "too big", please reconsider and give yourself permission to keep up this bond a little while longer.
Instead of dropping all feeding but one, try dropping 1 per week. That's what worked for me. Drop the one that is hardest first...for me, it was the lunchtime one, they were eating solid food, so it wasn't hard and they didn't miss it. Next was the 3/4:00 feeding, next was morning, and last was before bed. My last child nursed before bed for a while...he was harder to wean, but it may have been 3 weeks instead of 1 and then he was done. Good luck! Great job nursing for 12 months!
