WEANING thread #2... Come share experiences and offer support

[roseola]

Marking my spot to follow along!

[Ethan's Mom]

Hi everyone, Im starting to wean my 2 year old son as we plan for another baby next year. Now we are actively weaning his night time feed & nap time as he has always been nurse to sleep previously. Things are getting smooth now for the bedtime but we are still struggling with the naptime as he would play and jump for an hour before I finally leave him in our room ( we are still co sleeping too ) for 2 minutes. He still have lots of waking during 4am - 6am but hardly to get back to sleep if I dont nurse him. My friends said that I should be consistent and keep the feeding until 7am, but many times I couldnt see him crying so bad asking to nurse. Is anyone has the same experience specially for the nap time & early wakings ? What is the best way to handle it. He is a very spirited little one, so sometimes Im worry that too much pain would make give him some traumatic experience. thanks !

[LucysMommy]

Hi Ethan's Mom!
I am slowly weaning my 14 month old as I am going back to work in January.  I am planning on keeping the before bedtime feed until she drops it herself but I want to drop the morning feed because I will have to get up very early for work.  I also feed my daughter around 5-6am every morning.  She goes right back to sleep until her wake up at 8:15.  I am worried that if I drop the feed that she will wake up earlier for breakfast, or have a lot of crying and then not go back to sleep. 
Does anyone else have experience with dropping the early morning feed?  Right now I only feed 2 times, around 5-6am and then before bed.  Otherwise DD drinks goat's milk.
ThaNKS!

[momtokennedy]

Hi Ladies

I'm in the same situation. I'm ready to wean my 15mth DD and it's especially hard after our holiday to Mexico where she nursed ALL the TIME!!  I'm back down to the before bed and EW.  She wakes often throughout the night for a few minutes...like every hour but only for 2-4 min and then she falls back to sleep. This morning I just didn't go in and get her until 6 (5:50 actually) and then only nursed her in our bed for about 20 min instead of hours! I just love this cuddle time. She is nursed to sleep so I have switched it around at night slightly.  I now nurse her before her bath, and then just for a few minutes before putting her into her crib, in the hopes that this nurse to sleep assosciation will ease the transition.  Next week, I'm going to get daddy to do the bedtime routine....it will be the first time in 15 mths that anyone other than me has put her to bed...  Any tips would be very helpful.  She is addicted to nursing and does her sign for milk ALL day.  I just wish she would find her thumb for comfort now.

Sarah

[inoella]

Hi everyone! This is kinda a slow board - I see a few of you were starting new things a few weeks ago - Lucysmommy, did you decided to drop the morning feed? I haven't been brave enough to do that yet... right now DD is just so tired (I think teething?) she's up a lot so i'm not trying anything new. 

Sarah, how did it go with DH? DD won't take a bottle anymore so the nights DH does BT he just takes a sippy of milk. She still wants to nurse every night but I introduced story time after that so that the association of nursing to sleep isn't quite as strong.

I had thot that DD's NWs were getting habitual so I tried weaning her for a while and it we had some success (dropped all the night feedings except the early morning) but then she got sick/fever and we were back to nursing just to get liquids in her! and now she's teething. If it's not one thing it's another , eh?

[EloysH]

anyone out there? I am trying to wean feeds and failing miserably.. really need a pep talk

[gogomama]

I am also trying to slowly wean... I am hoping to stop BF completely by 18months.  We were just at 4 feeds a day not too long ago and are now successfully (without protest) down to 2 sometimes 3. It was just impossible when DS was sick or teething and Now that he's feeling better his solids are up and he just isn't interested as much anymore. Your baby is still under 1 so I an guessing you are just subbing formula for each feed? Is you LO not taking the bottle?

[EloysH]

He's nearly 11 months and I am on a strict ED, as soon as I wean him I can eat normal foods again.  I am pretty desperate to wean him as close as i can to 12 months.  He won;t take the bottle,  he will drink about 30 ml of water form a cup.  He is not yet on so few feeds that he needs supplementary milk.   He was on 5 feeds in 24 hours until he started teething two weeks ago.  He resisted any attempts for me to distract him even if he had substantial snacks.    He is now feeding more often thatn ever and now 1-2 night feeds  (with the teething!).  THe main problem area is sleep time, I started feednig before sleep as he was sooo ubncomfrotable and crying in pain that I just stuck with it the past week. He is a determined little person and persists to get what he wants    I am just waiting for the last bit of his tooth to pop through so I can give this another attempt.  I am confident that I can stop the feed to sleep once the teething is over...  ..


He is dairy/soy/wheat free and moderate salicyalte and no additives/preservatives. When I get down to 3 feeds in 24 hours I will try a raw goat milk challenge in him to see if he can tolerate it, otherwise it will be bufflalo milk yoghurt. If he fails both of these, he won't drink any milk and just get the fats and calcium through diet.

I don't know where to start.. this is so hard, with my DS1 it was much easier and less time pressure involved.

[gogomama]

{{HUGS}}} Eloise that sounds really rough with the ED and kudos for you for keeping up with it. Your DS sounds really similar to mine at 12 months, so I can definitely understand your frustration. I think that there is also a GS in there somewhere too that really ups their intake. I agree that it will be a lot easier once that tooth pops through, he sounds like he is doing a lot of comfort sucking to maybe distract from the pain. Have you tried giving any pain meds or rubbing some of the gel on his gums to alleviate some of his nitetime pain? Maybe offer some cold applesauce or a frozen washcloth to suck on to sooth it also. Would it be possible to have your husband put him to bed a few nights so he wont be tempted as much to do the feed before bed? Its so much harder to try and distract and offer other things when the see the boob right in front of them, iykwim. I also found that trying to distract my DS when he was already hungry was near to impossible, the best thing was to keep offering extra food a little earlier than normal so he would fill up before his tummy told him he was really hungry and he could think of nothing else besides milk. I hope that your LO passes the goat milk test and you will have another option to sub. Wishing you the best of luck!

[inoella]

Hi there - just wanted to offer some support. I agree with pp that having DH put DD to bed was a must for us - she still protested but it went much better than for me! He also took over nights for about a week until she was weaned of nursing to sleep at night too (oh, yeah, we had all sorts of props and bad habits!)

Like your LO my DD did not respond to distraction at home - she had one track mind! But she does love to be out and about so we went to the mall a lot the first week.

About teething - do you use a paci (dummy, nook, whatever)?  DD never did for actual sucking but loves to chew on them as teethers - silly girl! I've also noticed that when she's teething she doesn't like the sippy but she'll drink from a straw for straight from the cup.

Hope it's going well for you!!

[EloysH]

Thanks so much for your ideas and input ladies. I have been pondering about where I have gone wrong, what state is he in, why has it been so hard.  I have given it a break for a few days. I think the teething is nearly over and I think he was reacting to something the past two days so waiting that out too.     Will try again in a few days.

Getting out is definantly a good idea he is us always trying to get out the door, in the house he is a handful trying to climb everything and has a temper!  Yep we use the paci as a teether too.  He likes ice.  Meds are tricky as he is intolerant to preservatives and sals so no teething gels are allowed.  I can only do paracetemol suppositories so middle of the night its hard to get some pain relief into him.

DH was doing well putting him to bed for a while there, but as soon as the teething started he would scream and scream for me, refusing to give up jsut stading in his cot. DH get very upset and felt useless.  After  a while I gave in and started feeding him to sleep again... that's how the mess started.  Then I started feeding every waking as he would scream when DH would go to him in the middle of the night, he even started saying "mumma" from the cot!

Will let you know  how I go I think I will be back needing some help soon 

[~Sarah~]

I'm going to catch up, but I think we are starting to wean and I honestly don't know how I feel about it.

Just starting dinner BBL

[EloysH]

Hey Sarah,  will be here when you are ready xx

So I am still trying to wean the night feed, at least we have him down to one night feed and sleeping indendently again for all sleeps, no boob before naps or bed. 

Also, I have gotten a few days of 3 feeds during the day now. 

So this week still wokring on dropping the night feed and keeping to 3 days feeds.   Once we have dropped the night feed for a week or so consistently will see how consistently I can stick to just 3 days feeds then take it from there! 

Phew, this has been exhausting.  Still having long NW'ings and battles at night ... but he seems to be falling asleep after 1 hour of crying instead of 1.5 hours.

[timmysmommy]

 Hey everyone.  I am quite sad to be here, but I am 8 weeks preggo and my milk has about dried up.  We started supplementing with formula last week, but I was still bfing him first.  Last night I couldn't pump any milk, so the end is really near.  The problem is he still wants to nurse.  We were nursing frequently since my supply had dropped, and so he now wants to nurse all day.  Today he is refusing the bottle.  I'm not sure what to do.  There was some milk in there this morning when I bfed, but I've been running on empty ever since.  He doesn't take a paci and I can't get him to chew on anything else.  He is teething right now- molars.  He ate breakfast just fine.  I don't know how to get him off the boob. 

[~Sarah~]

{{HUGS}} Amy!  I am not sure as I haven't weaned a baby yet.

I sarted Ry BFing but it went south early on so by 7wks he was fully on a bottle and that is what he wanted anyhow.

{{{HUGS}}} Eloys! You have come so far...again no help but here with support I guess.