A lady recently asked this question on our Facebook
page:
"My one year old is still breastfeeding three times a day,
which is wonderful, but I want to wean her before I get pregnant
again. Any suggestions to encourage her to wean herself? She
doesn't seem to like cows' milk or formula, is it OK if she only
has water to drink?"
Well done feeding to a year!
In my opinion, I would suggest you start slowing, reducing one
feed per week from the 3 that you do each day. Maybe stop doing the
lunch time feed first, and the following week try stopping the
morning feed. And then try stopping the evening feed. (that one
will probably be the trickiest). I say to try it slowly as
you will get a bit engorged on the first day or so, while your
boobs adjust. (heat packs!)
Give your baby a good lunch followed by a yogurt and big drink of
water. Then be active all afternoon and don't think about it.
Tough when she doesn't like milk or formula. Are you sure its the
milk she doesn't like and not just an aversion to the bottle? Have
you also tried sippy cups and straws?
Some toddlers will self wean when their mums get pregnant as the
milk changes flavour a little.
We had a reply to this message thread from three other mums, who
shared useful information so I thought I would add their comments
to this webpage"
"I dropped the lunch time feed first,
and instead gave my 15 month old daughter yoghurt about 1hr after
lunch. Then started giving her a bit of cows milk in the evening
aswell as a breastfeed. Gradually she became familiar with the
taste and just a few weeks ago I dropped the evening feed cause she
was not really interested if people were around , but would take
her water bottle with milk in it fine. She still has
the morning feed sometimes."
Another mum also replied and said:
"I weaned while pregnant with my
second so supply issues may have increased his willingness to self
wean.. I started offering a smoothie (fruit yoghurt and
milk) in a glass with a straw before reading his bedtime stories,
so he'd finish that be basically full and only have a wee
breastfeed after... and then it didn't take long for him to forget
to ask. I actually found the morning BF easier to drop. Just
because as long as I was out of bed I could offer a cup of
water/juice and breakfast or even better if my husband was up some
other distracting thing like a DVD and breakfast."
The third reply we had to this thread was from a mum that
said:
"My 2nd started "playing" instead of
feeding at about 14 months. He was only feeding 2x a day and I had
not been able to get him to drink cows milk or formula by any
method. He loved (and still does) yoghurt and cheese, and was happy
to have cows milk on his cereal so I just switched to giving him
water to drink. I slowly introduced cows milk by giving him a plain
fluffy whenever I made myself an espresso - and now he loves milk!
Didn't take long for him to change his mind about it!"