In last week’s post, we talked all about when and how to wean your baby or toddler from the bottle – when it’s recommended to be totally done with bottles, your options for dropping them, common hesitations, and more.
This week we’re on a related topic but also really different…we’re going to talk about weaning from breastfeeding.
Unlike with bottles, the American Academy of Pediatrics does not have a recommendation for when you should be done nursing your little one. There are no oral development issues from prolonged breastfeeding – in fact, there are a lot of benefits of extended breastfeeding – so it’s truly a personal choice for families based on what’s best for mama and little one.
So although weaning from the bottle and from the breast are very different, there are some similarities. And I’d say one of the biggest similarities is that they can both be really overwhelming and we can be left trying to figure out how the heck we’re supposed to do it!
Not to mention the benefit of simply hearing others share their experience and stories – it’s invaluable! Our girls are currently 7, 5, and 2, and I nursed them until they were 17 months, 18 months, and 20 months.
So in this post, I’m going to share:
- How to balance nursing and solids for babies and toddlers
- The different approaches you can take to wean your baby or toddler from breastfeeding
- My personal experience weaning my girls
Before I dive in, I just want to pause and bust a big myth…I am a sleep consultant, and nursed my girls well past 12 months old. And guess what? They all slept through the night while I was still nursing them!
My oldest started sleeping through at 10 months when we finally sleep trained, my second started sleeping through around 10 weeks old, then threw a feed back in for a couple of months, and slept through again around 6 months. And my youngest slept through starting around 10-12 weeks and never looked back!
So you can absolutely have a great nursing relationship and sleep train and have a baby sleep through the night. Because they’re fed, they’re full, and they have the sleep skills to naturally connect their sleep cycles overnight (once they’re physically ready).
How to Balance Nursing and Solids with Babies
Around 6 months old, when your baby is able to sit up more independently and when your pediatrician has okayed it, you’re going to start introducing solids to them. But you’re likely just going to offer one meal a day and it’s really not for nutrients, it’s more for practice.
Until that point your baby has only known how to eat when latched onto your breast or bottle, so now they’re learning to put food into their mouth, move it around, and eventually swallow it. Though they may not swallow anything those first few weeks, and that’s okay! Again, this is really just practice.
Milk is still their main source of nutrients, so we always recommend nursing or bottle feeding first, then about 45-60 minutes later offering solids.
Then around 7-8 months, you’ll likely start adding in another meal, and by 9-10 months they’ll likely be eating three meals a day. So solids will continue to become more and more important and more and more filling as they get older. But we’re still generally offering milk first, and then about an hour later giving them solids.
In that 10-12 month window, however, depending on the baby, milk and solids are likely becoming pretty equal – both milk and solids are really important now.
In our online sleep class, Baby Sleep from A to Z, I actually walk through what this milk and solids breakdown might look like depending on your little one’s schedule as they continue getting older, so if you’re looking for more specific direction on how to balance the two, check out our online classes!
How to Balance Nursing and Solids After 12-Months Old
After that the 12-month mark is when we want to see solids become the main source of nutrients and milk is an added bonus. Some babies seem to self-wean right around this time, some families choose to wean from nursing right around this time, whereas others keep going! And any and all of those options are okay.
Just remember, if you continue nursing, we want solids to be the main source of nutrients beyond 12 months old.
There will be times when your baby still nurses before they have a meal, but we don’t want it to be too close. If you find they aren’t eating much solids, there’s a good chance they’re too full from nursing and we want to delay solids more or maybe nurse after solids.
Another transition that we recommend around the 12-month mark is pulling milk out of the bedtime routine. So if you’re still nursing, absolutely continue nursing your baby! We simply recommend no longer nursing them before bed.
So if they usually nurse around 6:30 and go to bed around 7, you might start nursing them at 6:15 for a few days, then 6, then 5:45, etc. And eventually, they just won’t be hungry anymore, or it’ll be dinner time, in which case they can have water or milk with dinner. And then hang out and go to bed later without needing more food, just like you or I do.
I also want to pause and remind you that I’m saying all of this with my sleep consultant hat on. We find that when milk, whether from the bottle or breast, lingers in the bedtime routine for too long, it can start negatively impacting sleep!
But if you’re reading this and you nurse your baby to sleep every night and it works for you, I’m not saying you all of a sudden have to stop after 12 months old. If your goal is independent sleep, however, or your baby is already an independent sleeper, milk out of the bedtime routine around 12 months old is the goal.
Finally, one more 12-month transition is whole milk. 12 months old is when you can start introducing whole milk to your baby. I know some breastfeeding families don’t offer their little one whole milk at this time, and I think that’s fine. We always did it simply for the introduction and also knowing that nursing beyond 12 months was mostly for comfort and just sweetness between our babies and me, and having milk introduced made it easier to wean down the road.
When my youngest was 15 months old, I went away for five days for a sleep conference. I was still nursing her 4-5 times a day and neither of us was ready to wean, but I also had no intentions of pumping 4-5 times a day and I knew she didn’t need my breastmilk. So I brought my hand pump and I pumped each morning and night, simply to keep up my supply.
I did have some frozen breastmilk at home if my husband needed it, but between her normal solid meals and whole milk, she was totally fine! And I was so thankful that when I got back home, we picked up right where we left off with nursing and continued for another five months. So perfect example of getting what she needed from solids and even whole milk, but having nursing as a great bonus.
Hopefully this all helps give a backdrop and helpful “first steps” in the weaning process, even if you’re not actually trying to wean yet! Simply having solids as the main source of nutrients and some sort of milk in a cup is the first big step.
Here are our favorite training cups for babies:
- The best water bottle for babies and toddlers
- The best training straw cup
- The best straw cup for older babies and toddlers
- The best open cup for babies
The Most Common Reasons We Wean from Breastfeeding
There are many reasons weaning happens, and the most common include:
- Mom is having trouble with milk supply and the stress and work of extra pumping and supplements is just too much.
- Mom is back at work and balancing work and a pumping schedule and all the bottles and extra dishes each day is too much.
- The child is ready to wean! One of my best friends has three kiddos all similar in age to mine and all three of her babies naturally self-weaned right around the 12-month mark. They were simply done and just wanted food!
- Mama is ready to wean! This is what happened with all three of my girls. I loved nursing, we had a great breastfeeding relationship, they would have all happily continued, but I hit a spot where I was just ready to have my body back and be done!
And I’d say all of these come at different times, it can really vary child to child and also family to family!
I also want to add that a reason to stop nursing is NOT because others say it’s time, or they think it’s weird you’re still nursing, or all of your friends are done. That’s not a decision for anyone else!
So given that we all wean at different times and based on different reasons…
Three Approaches to Wean from Breastfeeding
1. You can Wean from Nursing Cold Turkey
Weaning from Nursing cold turkey might be the approach for a mama who is struggling to keep up her supply, or who’s going back to work and doesn’t want to manage all of the pumping, or someone who just wants to be done breastfeeding.
A baby or toddler might also choose to stop cold turkey! Mom might not really be ready to be done, but their little just is, so one day they stop.
No matter the scenario, if your breastfeeding relationship is coming to an end by way of stopping cold turkey and you still have a steady milk supply, I recommend chatting with a lactation consultant to make sure your body stops producing milk in a healthy way and not one that would cause clogged ducts or mastitis.
2. You can wean from nursing with a gradual, go-with-the-flow weaning process
A mama might choose to go this route when she is ready to stop nursing but doesn’t want that cold turkey approach, whether that’s because it would be emotionally or physically tough on her or her little one.
This typically looks like trying to distract the baby or toddler when they’re asking to nurse or when they usually nurse, and see if they’ll instead be content with a snack or a toy or a walk outside. And this is usually a bit of a roller coaster for several days or even a few weeks or months until the baby or toddler is officially weaned.
Or again, a baby or toddler might naturally start weaning by randomly dropping nursing sessions and eventually fully weaning themselves!
This “go with the flow” breastfeeding wean-down is pretty much what I did with all three girls, which I’ll tell you about soon, although I kind of mixed it with this next weaning approach…
3. You can wean from breastfeeding by dropping one nursing session at a time
Dropping one nursing session at a time is an in-between option. This is an intentional process where mom decides what nursing session she wants to drop first, then a few days later or a week or two later she chooses another one, then another, then another, until they’re fully weaned!
As I mentioned earlier, it’s around 12 months old that we recommend families pull milk out of the bedtime routine, so whether you’re ready to wean or not, that bedtime feed is a good first nursing session to drop.
Then from there, it’s really up to you! Maybe you want to stop pumping at work, so you first drop one of the mid-morning or early afternoon nursing sessions. Or maybe nursing first thing in the morning means you have to wake up extra early to be able to get yourself ready for work, or get ready for school drop-off for the rest of the kiddos, so dropping that morning session would give you some time back.
Whatever the reason, you simply choose it and go from there. And then once that nursing session has been dropped, you choose another, then another, and another, until you’re done.
Whichever of these weaning methods you choose to go with, or any combo of them, your little one’s age will determine what you do with that dropped nursing session. If they are under 12 months old, they may need that nursing session replaced with a bottle, or at the very least, a snack.
If they’re over 12 months old, that nursing session can be replaced with whole milk with their meal, or again, with a snack! Or if they’re really not getting much from that nursing session, maybe it’s just replaced with a flashy toy or trip to the playground.
My Personal Breastfeeding and Weaning Stories
My nursing journey was different with all three girls.
With my oldest, I had no clue what breastfeeding would be like and how long I would nurse. I would say I’d stop nursing her as soon as she could ask for it, because I feel like that’s what the world said, or it felt weird to think of a kiddo asking to nurse, but let me tell you, I loved when she was able to start asking! And I had no intentions of weaning anywhere around that time.
I was also working full-time as a teacher when I had her, so pumping was the name of the game at school. I actually remember going back to school after summer break when she had just turned one and I was still nursing, so I continued pumping twice a day every day for a few months and we still sent bottles to daycare.
This is also when we were trying to mix breastmilk and whole milk together in her bottles and still heating them up to get her adjusted. I think we started with three parts breastmilk one part whole, then two parts of each, then one part breastmilk and three parts whole milk, and then eventually just whole milk.
We then had a space when she was getting just whole milk in the bottle, warmed up, then slowly she adjusted to having it colder and colder. In hindsight, I don’t know that she needed this full of a transition, but it’s what we did!
I also felt like she should get a bottle any time we would have nursed, which again, in hindsight thinking about my 15-month-old when I was away at a sleep conference, I don’t think was necessary. But also, I don’t think there’s a right or wrong here, it’s just what we knew and what we did and we made it work!
I then taught until the day my second was born and switched to staying at home and also working from home as a sleep consultant. She took bottles every now and then so I could work and get out of the house, but Covid hit when she was five months old, so she barely took any bottles after that – there was no need to as we were all home all the time!
And then with our third, I was still home with the girls and still working from home as a sleep consultant, but we were also in the midst of my oldest daughter’s cancer diagnosis. So while I nursed her anytime we were together, I also pumped more often than I otherwise would have so my husband and I could take shifts at the hospital.
So I’ve done the exclusive breastfeeding with daily pumping, I’ve done the exclusive breastfeeding with very few bottles, and I’ve done the exclusive breastfeeding with regular pumping but still many days of just nursing.
And each time I set out to nurse as long as it worked well for me and my babies.
With my oldest, I started to feel like I was ready to be done nursing when she was 16 months old, right around Christmas time. But I didn’t want weaning to be hard for either of us, I wanted it to be as seamless as possible. And I figured the morning feed would be the hardest to drop, because I almost always got her up in the morning and it’s just what we did.
So we took advantage of being at my parents’ house to drop that morning feed. Jason would get her up each morning and pass her off to my mom, so she didn’t see me that first hour or so. By the time I came down, she had already had breakfast or was eating breakfast, so that grandma and daddy distraction worked well to break the routine of nursing first thing every morning. So that was the intentional nursing session we dropped first.
Once that morning feed was dropped, I switched to the go-with-the-flow weaning method and would simply try to distract her anytime she asked to nurse. If that distraction worked, yay! We moved on. If she still asked to nurse, then we would, because again, I didn’t want it to be hard. So then over that next month, the amount of times we nursed each day just continued to decrease until we were done at 17 months!
That weaning process was fairly similar to our second. Once again, it was around 17 months old that I was feeling pretty ready to be done nursing. We were going to visit my family, once again, so I decided to use that same daddy and grandma morning distraction to drop our morning feed first.
And at that same time, I would try to distract her away from nursing whenever she’d ask, but give it to her when the distraction wasn’t working. I also remember one morning my hubby and mom couldn’t take her for whatever reason, so I got up with her in the morning. And she asked to nurse and wouldn’t take distraction for an answer, so I fed her. But she was super frustrated because there wasn’t much milk left, so we had a few random one-off nursing sessions like that for the next week or two, but by 18 months old we were done.
Our third was a different story. Once again, I started being ready to wean around that same 17-18 month mark, but she was NOT. There really wasn’t any distraction that worked for her, she just wanted to nurse! We didn’t have any upcoming travels planned to my parents’ house and my hubby worked in the mornings, so we didn’t intentionally drop that morning feed first – I actually think that morning nursing session was one of the last ones we weaned.
Around 19 months I was finally able to distract her more when she asked to nurse. I realized that sitting on that one couch was just a recipe for wanting to nurse, so I tried avoiding sitting there with her for a bit. Then we hit a point when we were really just nursing around 4 pm or so – I just could not distract her at that point. And then very slowly but very surely I was able to wean that later afternoon session by preemptively getting her a snack, trying to get outside before she asked, having her sisters do something silly, etc.
By about 20 months old we were done, and I was thankful! Thankful for the wonderful journey, AND also thankful to be done.
The Physical and Emotional Side of Weaning from Nursing
I am not a lactation consultant or postpartum doula, so this is not my forte, simply my personal experience and what I’ve heard from others.
I don’t know if it was because I nursed my girls for so long and didn’t have a crazy supply by the time we were done, or because we dropped just one or two nursing sessions at a time, but I never had to do anything else to help my body wean. I didn’t take any sort of medication and didn’t have to stick cabbage leaves in my bra. I didn’t get any clogged ducts after weaning, it just happened naturally.
But if you’re worried about weaning and how your milk supply will physically respond, especially if you still have a pretty good supply, definitely speak with a lactation consultant so you’re set up for success!
I will also say I didn’t feel any big hormonal or emotional shifts like some people do. But I’ve had friends and have heard of others who feel a big emotional swing when they’re done nursing, because of the hormone shift. So if you find yourself weaning and your emotions are all over the place, first know that that’s very normal! And also don’t hesitate to reach out to your doctor or a counselor or someone if you’re really struggling to see how they might be able to help.
Conclusion
When it comes to weaning your baby or toddler, whether that be from the bottle or breast, it can be overwhelming! And it’s a big decision for some.
So the goal here is to share what your options are when it comes to weaning from nursing! The goal is also to share my personal experience with weaning from breastfeeding. Maybe you don’t have any friends who have nursed their little ones or they don’t have babies yet. Or maybe you don’t know anyone who has nursed for that long, or you’re simply nervous to wean and want to hear as many different experiences as possible to feel more confident in what your own journey will look like!
Also remember the grace! It’s okay if you’re ready to wean and your baby isn’t – you’re still a great mama. It’s okay if you’re baby is ready to wean but you are not – you’re still a great mama. And it’s okay if weaning is a bit of a roller coaster, it doesn’t have to happen overnight. Give yourself grace, give your baby grace, maybe take a few final pictures to remember your journey, and appreciate what you had!
With Grace,
Lauren
