how to wean from nursing
I plan to start weaning my son and I'm not sure where to start. He drinks from a bottle at daycare and he nurses many times a day on the weekends. I'm also trying to introduce a sippy cup and cow's milk. Is it too much to try all these things at once?
3 Answers
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Love all of Anonymous's suggestions. My add-on question - how do you make sure your baby is getting enough to drink? I know that wet diapers and easy bowel movements are clues that he has enough liquid in his diet but, with only nursing twice a day and me trying (with not much success) to get my son to take a bottle from me, I'm not sure he's getting enough. He does like to eat fruits.
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Thank you Anonymous - your suggestions were really helpful. I'm happy to report that the weaning actually went really smoothly. I eliminated the morning nursing first and did this for about a week. I also switched to giving bottles on the weekend - inevitably I broke down occasionally and nursed once during the weekend day. In the subsequent week, I switched to having my husband do bottles at bedtime. This was good because we were also doing sleep training. The first few nights were very rough - the baby cried for 30 minutes before going to bed. He also woke up in the middle of the night wanting milk. My husband got up and comforted him until he fell back a sleep. Of course, there are still some nights when he cries himself to sleep but for the most part he falls asleep really quickly and easily.
Like you suggested, we introduced the cow's milk gradually. First, it was 1 oz cow's milk, 3 oz formula. Then we did 50/50, 75/25, and finally 100% cow's milk after about two weeks.
In terms of my milk production, I had a little engorging but I pumped very briefly (2-3 mins) to relieve the pressure. Starting for about a month, I eliminate the pumping at work. Then I took about 3 weeks to stop my milk entirely (eliminating nursing morning, evenings, and weekends). I gradually stretched out the amount of time between when I had to pump or nurse so it was every 2-3 days until I stopped completely. My lactation consultant recommended using cabbage leaves inside my bra - which both served as a cold compress and also releases natural chemicals that suppress milk production. This trick was really amazing.
In retrospect, it would have been nice to wean more gradually. I didn't get to have one of those dramatic bonding moments at the last time I nursed - it just became more infrequent and eventually ended without me or my baby really noticing. Part of my incentive was I took a business trip to NYC for 4 days/3 nights so I needed the baby to be self-reliant and I needed to be fully independent of pumping/nursing. I feel fortunate that my son was really easy going about the adjustment (perhaps because he gets the bottle all the time at daycare since he was 5 mos old and actually he learned to drink from bottle occasionally when he was 3 mos).
In response to Alana's question, one thought is to make sure that you baby is gaining weight. Is your baby sleeping through the night? If so, this is probably a sign he is getting enough food/milk during the day. Generally, my son gets fussy when he wants milk so I use this as a gauge of when he needs to be fed. Since he was about 8 mos, his daily schedule is milk (at wakeup), breakfast (60 mins later), milk (30-60 mins after meal), lunch (2 hrs later), milk (30-60 mins later), milk (2-3 hrs later), dinner (2 hrs later), milk (1 hr later). My pediatrician said that a 12 mos old should get 16 oz of mlik a day. My son is 13 mos and he drinks more like 25-30 oz.
Great tip about the cabbage leaves. Thanks!
- LeahB, Jul 15, 2010