I want to stop breastfeeding my 2.5 y/o

[thealmightygodisreturning]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has any advice on how I can stop breastfeeding my toddler without going cold turkey. I have adored our journey but I'm just done now and have had enough. I have tried the 'don't offer, don't refuse' thing but he just jumps on me and pulls at my top and says 'I like boobies', which is pretty cute I'll admit but he gets so upset when I say no, or offer a cup of cow's milk instead. He loves his bottle as well which I am also trying to stop because I know he's too old for it because of his teeth etc. I think he just gets comforted by sucking and nothing else seems to be as effective at soothing him.

If I'm honest I wish i'd have stopped sooner.

Any advice welcome

 

[katrina2017]

@thealmightygodisreturning I nursed my oldest until about this age. We just slowly started cutting it out. It went to only before nap and nighttime, then only nighttime, and then from there I decreased the amount of time for each nursing session until it was literally 2 seconds on each boob. One night we rocked and did songs and when I put her down she cried for maybe 20 seconds and fell asleep. She totally understood that it was done, and it was way harder on me than her.

 

[bella15]

@thealmightygodisreturning What we did was first cut back to just bedtime and wake-up. I told my toddler something like “Mommy only has a little milk left, so we need to save it for bedtime.”

Then shorten each time until it’s just a few seconds.

Also, overnight trips and sleepovers can be really helpful in breaking up a routine. Ie toddler spends a night or two at grandmas house and has had a break from regularly nursing to sleep, so it’s not as hard of a habit for him anymore.

 

[snailchan]

@thealmightygodisreturning Do you still nurse to sleep? I started with - we only nurse in your bedroom. So I would enforce that we have to stop what we’re doing and go to his bedroom to nurse. Sometimes having to leave wherever we were was enough for him to change his mind. Then I enforced, we only nurse before sleep. So when he asked, I would offer to go to his room to put him down for a nap - and that was always a no. Then, we did a week of my husband putting him to bed. Then when I started doing it again, I just said, no nursing to sleep but we can cuddle. There was some protesting here and there but nothing too dramatic. Good luck!