I think babies are so different that is hard to write general rules that will apply to all. I prefer to tell you how we did it, and maybe you can find something to apply to your situation! If there is a general message that I would like to pass to you is that: Weaning is a process and, to make it gentle, it needs a lot of patience to complete it.
At some point of our breastfeeding journey, I started wondering if it ever stop. My daughter seemed so attached and me saying "no" to a breastfeeding session seemed the hardest thing to do! Honestly, I do not even know if I was totally in sink with my "weaning from breastfeeding feelings", but either way, I felt that I should be the one to initiate this process.
There were some steps that we took to slowly introduce some changes that would not be traumatic for either of us. My goal was to make the transition easy and I knew that I wanted her not to cry because that (in my mind) felt as if she was not ready.
Finally, our breastfeeding journey ended at 34 month old. Here are some steps that we took as time went by:
- We introduced solids at 5 months and a half. She started with a solid feed around 4 pm. She was drinking milk every 3- 4 hours by then.
- At 8 months old she had two solid foods, one at 12 and one at 4 pm. I switched into giving first the food and then offering breast milk. At that point she started drinking less breast-milk, however, we did nothing to discourage her from breastfeeding until she turned 18 months old.
- At 18 months old she had two feeds that seemed just for comfort. One was in the afternoon feed. At that time of the day she was either hungry or, she had not seen me much during the day (because she goes to day-care 3 days a week). We removed this feed easily by having her dinner plate ready and slightly early. The second one was the morning feed. She resisted this a bit, but our yummy breakfast and me being in another room when she woke up did the trick. If she fuzzed I had no problem to go back, but at some point she forgot about it and she went straight to our sugary breakfast (since we eat Italian for us is fruit, biscuits and milk so probably her favorite meal of the day).
- Night feeds were the difficult ones. I started offering water during these feeds and that helped because she started slowly drinking less. But that was not replacing the nursing sessions. She had a nursing to sleep habit which I had no idea how to break. I was told to find something else to sooth her like rocking or back rubbing. I welcomed the suggestion but nothing that I was trying seemed to work. I did however noticed that when she woke up in the night, in some occasions, she would be fine with drinking only some water and placing a hand into my breast. That soothed her to sleep without the need to breastfeed again. At some point I also google-d how to break the nursing to sleep habit. I read about this method which should be described in the "No cry sleep solution" book. The idea behind was to unlatch the baby before it falls asleep, if they cry you offer again for a minute or so. By then my daughter was 2+. Try and unlatch a 2 years old that if fully aware of what you are doing. I could unlatch when I was she was almost asleep, but what did the trick was to turn to my back. If she was tiered enough, she did not have the energy to lift her body to find the breast again. So, she started to place a hand on my breast and fall asleep like that.
- At 2 and a half she finally started drinking caws milk (our magical drink :)). We had tried for such a long time to have her drink it, but, she refused it with the same effort. Finally we put cocoa and sugar and made it into something she loved. That helped us get started and then slowly she got used into drinking just milk. As she started drinking milk before bed, she also started sleeping all night long. So any in the night feed was removed (by two and a half we were left with just one...just before sleeping session).
- Finally I was left only with the fall asleep sessions that she desperately needed to fall asleep (for 60 s) but she needed them. One was for the day nap and the other one before going to sleep at night. Reading books and her being very tiered when it was time to sleep helped a little, but these alone did not break the nursing to sleep habit. The same goes for me talking her into the fact that she was a big girl now and that she did not needed milk. She agreed with the statement up until she felt the need to fall asleep. Finally, over a weekend, her dad took over. He read some books and then asked her to sleep and she did. He did it 4 times in a row (2 days). Then he returned to work and I was with her again. She asked but I said that there was no more need for it and that she can place her hand instead. It worked! She was done!
With love Sara!
PS: You will find a lot of people ready to advice you on parenting! Remember this is not advice, its just one experience.
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