tips on weaning 15 month old son from nursing?

Question

My son is very attached to me, nursing + sleeping with me, makes me very tired, I'm ready to break the addiction, please help.

He does drink from a sippy cup and even normal cup, if I hold it, nursing is more like a comforting thing

Answer 1

Haha, I just love how people assume that if your child is breastfeeding still that he isn't using a sippy cup yet. My son is 14 months old and still nursing, and he uses a sippy cup and gets plenty of solids. We are also still co-sleeping, and I know how tiring it can be to nurse all night long. One option for you might be to night-wean, rather than weaning all the way. I put a link at the bottom for you. Also, you might want to consider looking into Elizabeth Pantley's "No-Cry Sleep Solution". It's a great book about getting babies (or toddlers or preschoolers) to learn to sleep through the night, whether they are breastfeeding or bottle-fed, in their own cribs down the hall or co-sleeping. In fact, the author co-slept and breastfed her babies and still managed to teach them how to sleep through the night. I put a link to this at the bottom of the page, too. Actually, I would recommend trying Elizabeth Pantley before night-weaning, because she helps you recognize when your baby is nursing for comfort in the middle of the night (and how to stop it) and when he is nursing for nourishment (which you of course would not want to deprive him of). Good luck and congratulations for breastfeeding this long (I'm hoping to make it to the two-year mark, like the World Health Organization recommends)!

Answer 2

Wow you have a few things to address. None will be easy and will definitely not happen overnight!
Weaning from breast:
The longer you wait past the 12 month the harder it gets!
Don't starve baby but try skipping breastfeeding a session a day and offer a cup instead.
Putting breast milk in the cup could also help the transition.
Try different cup, color , size etc.
Be patient!

The first and last feedings of the day are the hardest. Try giving the baby milk in a cup before other feedings to try to cut down breast time.

Sleeping alone.
Like feedings start in the mid day. Put baby in crib, give him a small blanket or toy. He is use to being with you, so he may need a diversion with security. During the day lay him down, let him cry. Make sure is ok at times, but do not talk to him and do not pick him up!! This is the hardest part!! This will take time, but you must be consistent!! When you start the transition at night, you should have a routine. One is: Bath, reading, feeding, bed.

My baby is 12 months and sleeps in her crib. I'm having the battle right now with weaning at bed time. She will take a cup for most of the day, but for nap time and bedtime is hard to break!! I can not stress enough how well routine is!!

Good luck!!

Answer 3

if you want to do it all the way at once then you need to get him a tipy cup. you can use breast milk in it so that it isnt different from the norm for him till he gets used to it. i am sure you are giving him table food by now just give him his cup when he wakes up and anytime he wants a drink. show him how to tip it up and hold it. as for the bed thing you really should have had him in his own a long time ago so it might be a little harder to get him to go there. you will probably have to let him cry when you put him to bed. he will get used to it too but it does make you feel bad at first but when it is done you will both get better sleep and he will be more adjusted. dont worry about the cying he will learn. just leave a little light on in his room and keep a baby monitor in yours so you can hear him. if he is jujst crying or whinning you can turn it down so that you still hear him but not as loud

Answer 4

Wow, congrats on making the move! Mommy needs rest too!

The moms I know who breastfed and slept with their babies past 6 months all seem to have this problem - waking and nursing several times a night. (I just mean that as opposed to nursing and baby sleeping in his own space). It becomes a habit, not a need, for the child. You can break the two together - once he is used to his crib (use the crib for naps for a week first), start putting him down in his crib to sleep at night. Tell him its his big boy bed and make a big deal about how neat it is. Use another child he seems to look up to if you need to "You know, Mikey has a big boy bed - dont you want to have one too?" If he cries, reassure him, but make sure to make him stay in his crib. Or resort to a short-term bribery - buy 5 toys, put them someplace visible and tell him he can have 1 for each night he sleeps in his big boy bed.

As far as the nursing..decide when you are done, and be done. Let him know that this is his last nursing "ok, after this its all gone, there isnt any more". Do not let him nurse anymore. Don't offer it, and if he asks say no. It will be hard at first, and he'll probably cry, but stand your ground. You are the mommy, and you make the decisions!!

Good luck. I know it will not be easy to do!

Answer 5

I nursed my son for 12 months. When I was ready to stop, I would start to give him a bottle as I was laying next to him until he fell asleep. After a few days I would stop laying next to him. He got used to the bottle first, then got used to me not laying next him. It worked really well for us. Every child is different. If you are still having problems with getting him to sleep you need to come up with a new bedtime routine that works for him. Just remember what ever you do keep it the same every night and sooner or later he WILL get used to it and stop protesting. You have to stay consistent. Good Luck.

Answer 6

The best method is called don't offer, don't refuse. It's self explanatory. I'm not afraid to refuse (and I'm not actively weaning) if I'm cooking, eating, getting dressed, or doing anything. You can cut back on nightime nursing in bed like this:
baby: Nurse
you: No
baby: Nurse
you: Night-night time. Mama is night-night. Nummies (pet name for breasts) go night-night. Baby go night-night too. Nurse in the morning.
Next, pretend to be asleep. It's really hard to pretend to sleep with a 25 pound baby climbing on you and yanking your t shirt, LOL!

It won't go over well at first, but in time he will accept the new rules and you can keep co-sleeping and breastfeeding on mutual terms, rather than on just his terms. This can also be the first step toward gradual weaning. Good luck, and remember to take time for yourself!

Babyontheway: Not natural!?! I'm laughing! Sippy cups are not natural! That's silly!

Answer 7

That's fantastic that you've nursed your baby to this point! My experience with my 6 nurslings (all singletons) was that there are "windows of opportunity" for weaning that come around at fairly predictable stages. The first one usually happens between 10-12 months, when baby is becoming so distracted and interested in the world around him that he can't be bothered to sit still long enough to nurse. Many moms actually mistake this for disinterest and go ahead and wean then.

But I found that, once they made it through that stage, nursing became a lot more of a comfort behavior than it was before. The attachment to breastfeeding just got much stronger as they entered toddlerhood. I didn't find much success in trying to convince a toddler that they were ready to wean, until sometime closer to 20-24 months. This was the average age of weaning for most of my little ones. At that age, they were able to understand simple things like "we'll nurse when I finish " or "milkies went night-night; you can nurse when the sun shines again". I could reason with them, and they could be patient enough to accept my delay tactics-- but I *always* followed through after delaying. If I told the child we'd nurse after I folded a load of laundry, we sat down and nursed when I was done. They already had a level of trust that I would meet their needs, so continuing that trust through the weaning process was essential.

I would suggest a tactic I used on my nursing toddlers when I was pregnant with a new baby and nursing was uncomfortable-- I would tell the child they could nurse while I sang a particular song, or counted to a given number, or until the end of Blue's Clues, or some other limit that made sense to them. At bedtime I would wear a bra & shirt (I didn't always when they were nursing full-tilt through the night) and tell them that the milk was tucked in and couldn't come out. We had our children in bed with us still (usually up until about age 2) and didn't want to do weaning *and* booting them out of our bed simultaneously. So I was right there next to them all night, and I know it was a frustrating temptation for the milk-deprived child. The middle-of-the-night feeding was always the last to go for us.

You may find that if you place some limits on nursing, you can get back to enjoying it a bit more like you used to. It doesn't have to be an all-or-nothing event!

Best of luck!

Answer 8

Try moving him next to your bed (to his crib or a blanky on the floor) after he is asleep. He will probably wake up, just get him back to sleep and move him again. Keep progressing to moving him to another room slowly. It will take time, just be consistent.

Answer 9

break one habit at a time.
i suggest feeding him more nutritious solids so that he will fill up on food more and want the breast less. replace the feedings with sippy cups.

in a few weeks put him in his crib in your room and slowly move the crib out of your room.

u need to do this slowly and in stages.

Answer 10

hi if you really want to know what to do is keep it like that as long as possible cause my son is 2 years old now and i really misses that mouments of sleeping with me and drinking on me. keep it there for as long as you can please believe my if i say you'll miss that if the time is over.