Weaning questions

[Gummi_bear63]

My son is 9.5 months old. I will go back to work one week before his first birthday. So I am beginning to think about weaning. I have a friend telling me I should be dropping breast feeds and replace with meals. But he's already having three meals a day and breastfeeds four times during the day and once (usually) overnight(too much?) Is she right? Is it time to drop feeds? I was following the idea that breastfeeding is the primary nutrition in the first year(although he eats plenty of solids!) I know I have to wean him off breastfeeding but wondered if I need to supplement with formula or a bottle of breast milk. Or do I just drop them? He's still feeding at night so that worries me. I try and try to not feed him at night but that doesn't work. I wanted to try and pull him off earlier and earlier but he's now sleeping terribly and often is awake for hours in the night after being fed so I'm too scared to try.

Also-I know partial breastfeeding is possible. But do I have to pump during the day or will my body adjust to producing milk only in morning and evening when it is needed?

Since he will go back a week early-can he drink cows milk at daycare or should I send formula? Or should he have no milk if I continue morning and night feeds?

Thanks!

[Gummi_bear63]

I should also mention his feeds are wake up, bedtime, and before his two naps. I re-associated the feeds with naps becasue that's the only way I could get him to nurse. He pops off every few seconds otherwise. He can be like this for am feed too if he fed recently in the night. If it's been longer he has a better wed.

[jessmum46]

But he's already having three meals a day and breastfeeds four times during the day and once (usually) overnight(too much?)

This sounds perfect to me for this age   You're completely right that milk should form the major part of his nutrition until he is one, and in general I wouldn't be cutting out daytime feeds while he still has a night feed.  It's slightly tricky if you feel that night feed is a habit/prop rather than a genuine hunger need but personally speaking I'd be aiming to drop that one first when you are both ready before cutting out daytime milk.

In terms of feeding just morning and night - yes your body will completely adjust to that.  Lots of people do it   In general when it comes to it you'd aim for dropping one feed at a time just to give your body time to adjust and hopefully avoid too much in the way of discomfort/engorgement.

If you are planning to gradually drop feeds over a few weeks (while he's still little) before your return to work then you will need to replace what he doesn't have in a breast feed with either expressed milk or formula by cup or bottle.  Cows milk isn't recommended as a main drink until a year of age.  That said, of course there is no magic switch that changes on the day they turn one!  There would (in my opinion, others may disagree) be no issue with him continuing on breast milk for now and then starting cows milk a week before his birthday.  Or, to be honest, just going with the milk in the morning and at bedtime from a year onwards as nutritionally he can get what he needs in the daytime from other sources.  Lots of people feel strongly their LO should still have a milk drink in the day as a toddler, mine didn't and were just fine but it's what you feel comfortable with ultimately  

Others may have chosen to do things differently, but I saw 10-12 months as a transition time from 'mainly milk' to 'mainly solids' so we did drop one of the daytime breastfeeds in favour of water/snack when mine were 10-11 months, and then kept 3 feeds until closer to the year when we fairly quickly weaned off the other two (my choice to stop at that age - but obviously no need to do so at all unless you want to!). 

Hope that's some help, am sure others will have some (much wiser) words of advice for you soon! 

[cath~]

I was going to say pretty much all the same things   BFing all gets much more flexible after 12 months I find, as the emphasis on how much milk they need drops.

I went back to work when my DD1 was 11.5 months.  Up to 10 or 11 months she'd been having 4 BFs/day.  One at WU, one mid-morning, one mid-afternoon and one at BT.

At about 11 months I dropped one of the daytime BFs (she wasn't so interested in it anyway, I just changed it to a small snack + water) and switched the other daytime feed to formula for a couple of weeks (not long really, just until she was 12 months), although really I think I could have just kept BFing that second daytime feed, and then simply dropped that feed (switched for snack + water) when I went back to work.

Then from 12 months (when I was back at work) I BFd at WU and BT.  There was no need to pump and my body just adjusted to the new frequency of feeds.  I stopped the BT BF a couple of months later (switched it to cows milk) and dropped the WU BF at 18 months.

With DD2 it was similar, but I never introduced any formula at all.  (She was still BFing at night though, until 16 mos).  I did BF at WU and BT until I think about 2, or maybe just before.. (can't remember now) and just the WU BF until about 2.5 yrs.

HTH x

[*Ali*]

It's up to you really if you'd like to pump and feed him that milk at daycare. Breastmilk is definitely more nutritious than cows milk and obviously offers the immune benefits that cows milk doesn't.

We just dropped the 4th BF when we dropped the associated nap and moved to one nap.

My sister didn't drop any feeds at all when she returned to work full time when her eldest was 12mo. He just accepted that mummy wasn't there so he'd eat food instead and got cuddles from nanny who was looking after him. My sister allowed her DS to feed during the day at the weekends too when she was around.