Weaning

@ambercaron So I used the "don't offer, don't refuse" method with my oldest. Just for my comfort, I would nurse in the morning, nap time and night time. Other than that I would only nurse if he "asked." I wouldn't refuse, but just didn't offer. This allowed my supply to gently regulate down. Over time (like 4-6 weeks) we were down to 2 times a day, then once a day. Then he had a sleepover with Grandma and Grandpa...and that was it. He never asked again. He was 16 months old at the time. I still had milk for another TWO MONTHS but, would just hand express for comfort and then eventually nothing. Hope this helps!

@giglykatie Thank you so much for the advice. I am slowly trying this approach. It is easier during the week when i am at work and he is at daycare but i feel like we go backwards on the weekends because it is so much easier to just nurse him. 🙂 he is currently 13 months old and thinks he needs to nurse all night so i am anticipating this to take a while. Thanks again!

Ugh so true! It's hard to say no to those cute little faces.

Currently working on weaning from nursing and pumping. Yesterday for the first time only nursed AM at wake up and PM for bed. Super excited to attempt to not pump at work for the first time in 9 months! *happy dance* However, my daughter refused to drink any milk yesterday from a sippy or a bottle. My daughter is 12 months and we would like her off the bottle but our in home daycare provider isn't pushing it, since she isn't drinking milk from a sippy well yet and she wants to make sure daughter drinks enough milk still during the day so she keeps with the bottle. (on food program) But my strong willed daughter refused milk even from a bottle with me downstairs out of sight. She never had issues when introducing a bottle or going back in forth between nursing at home and bottles at daycare. She also drinks water from a sippy just fine.

Any suggestions on how to encourage her to still drink milk at home? Curious to see how daycare goes today. I think she has her routine at daycare and knows when I am around I am the source, even though she didn't seem to mind not having any daytime nursing sessions yesterday. And I think daycare will fight back if I say to stop the bottles completely.

Good Luck!! hope it went well!!

Any tips on how to best reduce supply? I am trying to wean and not have to pump at work anymore but the other day I tried not pumping and by the end of the work day I was miserable! I am worried about getting mastitis as I have had that before and that was not fun.

@ambercaron How many times a day were you still pumping and trying to drop? I did 3x for a long time but dropping to two was pretty easy. I was nervous to go down from there. What recently worked for me is I gradually pushed back the morning pump time by 30 minutes each week for a few weeks, I work a rotating schedule with my lunch fluctuating and used that to move back the time. Along with that I cut down the time of pumping. I still pumped a 2nd time later in the afternoon but I cut down the length of pumping and made it pretty short to just relieve. Then after a few weeks of doing that I dropped that pump 2nd pump. When down to 1 pump I continued to cut down the time of it. And after actually just one week of pumping 1x a day I cut it out the next week, just last week!. I was only down to 1.5oz from that pump so it wasn't worth it anyways!

From everywhere I read they suggested slow weaning and dropping 1 pump a week. Now I need to figure out how to drop the morning nursing session. I did get a plugged duct when dropped to the 1x pumping and that was no fun. So definitely try not to cut too quick! Best of luck!

@jostby I was pumping 2 times a day and now 1 time. I think maybe i will try to just pump for a shorter amount of time. My biggest problem is that my little guy is still nursing through the night. But we will work on stopping that once he is healthy. He has been fighting a respiratory bug one right after another for the last month. I don't want to wean him or stress him out too much while he is sick. Thanks for the info! I cannot wait to stop pumping, will get to finally not have to worry about what to wear so i can pump! hahaha, its the small things!

@ambercaron Hope this week went better for you! I have LOVED wearing a regular bra and not worrying about what I am wearing to work, if I can pump or not! You are right its the little things 🙂 I meant to cut the AM nursing this week but just couldn't do it, and she was sick last weekend. Thinking next week need to give it a try. Gosh it seemed so hard in the beginning starting but now seems so hard stopping! Have a great weekend!

I have tried to not pump at work but by the end of the day am engorged and in pain so i have kept pumping one time. My little guy is doing so much better drinking out of his sippy that i am hoping my supply will start to drop. He is waking up and wanting to nurse 2-3 times a night so he is working hard to keep my supply up. He is teething really bad right now so i am not pushing it too hard. Hoping April will be my month! 🙂