QOTW: QOTW: What did the weaning process look like for you and child?
Are you a helicopter parent?, perfume for your baby(?), and to wean or not to wean. It’s episode 76 of the MNS.
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{ 56 comments… read them below or add one }
At 6 months she was weaned. Used up all the frozen milk and that was that. I was working, pumping at work, and baby was eating solids. I am not ashamed AT ALL to say I was very happy about this decision, and boy what a relief!
Crystal, I am just curious, at 6 months she weaned, does that mean you gave her formula, or nothing past 6 months?
So wild how each babe is so different. Some will hold on till 4, others aren’t that into it.
My most recent baby decided to wean at 11 months old. Okay..we both decided LOL. At that point she was loving baby lead weaning and just didn’t want to nurse as often
I was really heartbroken at first until I realized that she liked to bite….me….a lot. Yikes! So I quit pushing her to nurse, if she acted like she wanted to I’d let her, if not I didn’t force her to. A couple of weeks later she was in sippy cup heaven and my poor body was getting a brake from the constant nibbling. Worked out okay, I found out about 6 weeks later that we are expecting baby #4.
Wow, congrats!!!
I don’t know when my baby girl will be ready. She is 17 months and going strong… Hopefully I don’t want to stop before she does. We will see!
still nursing my youngest nervous about weaning not sure how to do it but she is only 10m so no rush.
My daughter weaned days before she turned 15-months old. She bit me- hard- one night at bedtime and refused to nurse from that point forward. I went through all the typical emotions- feelings of rejection, sorrow mixed with relief that it was so simple- but we found other ways to spend quality time together.
Next topic: orgasmic nursing; the truth about extended breastfeeding
LOL! Totally!
It’s going to be a long time before my babies ween! They’re 9 MO twins, and one is showing absolutely NO interesting in food! I think we have a year or so left, and I am fine with that! Another great episode and great giveaway, thanks Genevieve!
Aw, thanks Emily! And WOO HOO!!!!! You’re a super mama… nursing twins. You go girl! Be sure to eat and drink A LOT
My son weaned at 11 mos
hopefully next baby will nurse for at least 2 years. 
Baby perfume I’ve heard of from Brazil, I think its ridiculous
I won’t buy any, I love the way my 3year old smells
My twins self-weaned at 16 months. I was pregnant and they both weaned themselves within 2 weeks of each other. I tried to keep them going but they would have none of it! I’m pretty sure it was b/c of the pregnancy – I’ve heard the milk changes taste. Whatever it was they were great nursers until then.
Baby girl is still nursing at 19 months, but as soon as this teething episode is over, we are going to do a restart on night weaning. Yay for sleep!
My daughter just weaned at 20 months. I am saddened by it but nursing started becoming painful again now that I’m 16 weeks pregnant. One night I hand-pumped and my milk was creamy so we went cold turkey and she’s been doing well.
Hi Mama Natural, could you please make a video about infant eczema (atopic dermatitis) it is every mother’s nightmare. My son has eczema since he was 3 months old and now he is 18 months it became worse. i just don’t have any idea what to do we went to allergologist he prescribed antihistamine and to his pediatrician she gave antihistamine as well. i’m just sick of giving him medicine for his rashes because it doesn’t seem to get any better and i know it is bad for his development. please suggest a natural way of preventing or even possible healing it? i’m just so sad looking at my baby’s skin even he’s sleeping pattern is disturbed for the itchiness. Thanks.
My little girl loves to nurse. She just started giggling when I unlatch my bra and she squeals and smacks her lips!! I LOVE it. I hope we will be able to nurse until she is 2 at least. We are starting selective vaccinations then and it’s best to breastfeed until and while they get them according to dr. Sears. But honestly we both love nursing so much that is going To be hard for either of us to quit. Especially at night. It’s such a comfort for me and her:).
My little guy is only 8 mos and we’re nowhere near weaning yet, so my comment is along different lines. I just wanted to let you know that in spite of cloth diapering, babywearing, baby-led solids, midwife-assisted natural birth, bed sharing, making my own toothpaste and deodorant, and hoping to extended breastfeed I didn’t think of myself as a crunchy mama. Until I watched Sh*t Crunchy Mamas Say and I found that I have said (or at least thought) almost everything in that video! Thanks for making Crunchiness look cool and not hippie-ish! And now I’d like to acknowledge my membership in the Crunchy Mama Club!
My little girl was 13 months, it was my fault. The hubby and I went on a honey moon, we were gone for 9 days and when we came back she wanted nothing to do with it. She started to get really sick afterwards, if I could do it all over again I would let them lead me to it.
Just had my 6 week postpartum appointment. My midwife informed me that the longer and more a nurse the longer it will be before I get my first menstrual cycle. I knew breast milk had tons of benefits for my son and I both. But no periods?? Just another reason not to wean. Bonus!
I nursed a lot and still got my first period at 8 weeks, and have had them regularly since then. You can also sometimes get pregnant even though you haven’t had a period yet. Just consider it a gift if you have no period, and know that YMMV with that and pregnancy. (Still nursing quite frequently at two and beginning night weaning – still get a period like clockwork.)
My son turned 2 in October and still nurses once or twice a day (usually when he wakes up and right before bed). He is occasionally frustrated by the decreasing supply, but seems to use the occasions as soothers. Sometimes I can deter him with other things, but I’m surprised that I really don’t mind that much.
I weaned my son at 22 months, because nursing him was giving me major braxton hicks contractions. Now that I’m pregnant with my third I hope I can keep nursing my 14 month old daughter a while longer.
My daughter is 14 mos and we are still happily nursing
My daughter quit nursing very abruptly at 13 months, a stressful month during which we both moved and went on two trips, so circumstances definitely played a role. I pumped and offered for weeks, but she never took it up again. She was eating loads of solids and it was past 12 months, so that helped me feel okay about it, but I definitely wished it could have lasted awhile longer. I’m looking forward to nursing baby #2 this spring!
I have 5 and each one was different. My oldest stopped nursing one day after I was pregnant with his little sister. He asked for a banana and never nursed again. I was very sad as I was unprepared for it. My 3rd nursed the longest and I had to encourage her to quit because I was 8 months prego with #4 and was SO SORE! Last one I just let him go till he just wasn’t interested anymore. He was about 2 1/2.
I always loved breast feeding, but am now enjoying the older stages of my children.
Alisha Hauser recently posted Spring Is Around the Corner!
I am still nursing my 23 month old boy. People ask me all the time when I am going to wean him and the honest answer is I don’t know. Nursing works well for us right now. I only nurse him at night when he is sick. When I work he nurses twice a day for about 20 minutes each time.
When we are together all day he will nurse like he is still a baby at 8+ times a day. I feel it’s his way to make up for our time apart. I had such a difficult time nursing in the beginning and my goal was to go 6 months. Here we are a year and a half later and if I had to guess we could go another year. It has been one of the best things I have ever done in my life and I am glad to have other moms out there that share their stories so I can find the strength to continue.
I nursed my youngest (he is now 4) for 13 months, I would have loved to longer but unfortunately I was having trouble making enough milk I had to suppliment with formula from about 6 months on, it didn’t help not having a descent place to pump at work but that is a whole other story.
My 26mo is still nursing. He did get a major case of holiday weaning that decreased both daytime and nighttime nursing (which kicked my hormones and my cycles back in line), but for the past couple of nights has gone back to waking me several times a night to nurse. I will let him nurse as much as he likes during the day, but with potty training on the horizon I will try to discourage too much nursing at night.
So funny because we just cut out my daughter’s morning feed this morning, and I’ve been on that roller coaster. We’re doing a bit of both — mother-led and baby-led. My daughter doesn’t have much interest anymore, so if there’s no struggle, I’ve been taking a feed off the chart every month since she turned one (she’s 15 months). We’re planning to do the bedtime feed for a while more, though, because she IS very attached to that one. I can’t lie — it’s been liberating, as you said in the video, because I feel like I can do ANYTHING now without being tethered to the couch. And I definitely missed wearing turtlenecks in these chilly months.
Ashley M. [at] (never home)maker recently posted Weekend Things
We are at 10 months and still nursing strong. I travel to children’s homes and provide them with occupational therapy. So, I am one of those crazy moms who literally drives around Miami in the afternoon/early evening pumping while I am driving. I will say that I won’t miss it (the driving and pumping of course). I am looking forward to a time when nursing isn’t the main source of nutrition and I don’t have to be crazy, driving, pumping lady!
That’s My wife who wrote Daily Dose of Sanity for New Moms! Thanks Mama Natural! Here’s the link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Daily-Dose-Sanity-Mommies-ebook/dp/B009Z6DDYK/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1360429117&sr=8-2-fkmr2&keywords=daily+dose+of+sanity+for+new+moms
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Man, the first six months were so hard, but I set my teeth and tried to make it to a year, which was my initial goal. As we approached my son’s first birthday and I thought about how heartbreaking it would be to wean, I discovered that nursing had become such a normal part of life that I could handle baby-led weaning. We’re still going strong at almost 16 months!
My daughter self weaned at 11.5 months. She kicked, and screamed when trying to nurse, and was all around not happy. I gave her a bottle, and she was happy as a clam. She now is 15 months and just drinks out of a straw sippy cup.
Heartbreaking, but at least SHE made the decision, and not me.
My little 12.5 month old is a nursing champ! Almost to the point that he doesn’t eat much table foods. It can be frustrating at times because I feel like he should be eating more solids, but I am glad we have the breast milk to fall back on since it really is one of the best foods out there for him. Breastfeeding has given me a lot of joy and a lot of stress. I’ve worked full time since my baby was 9 weeks old and struggled with pumping and keeping up with him. Fortunately I was able to and I was able to stop pumping at work (I still go home at lunch to feed him) when he was about 11 months old and still have enough frozen milk to get him to his 1st birthday. Unfortunately, our weaning is probably going to be more circumstantial. I have a big work trip out of state at the end of June and unless he weans himself before then I think that trip will be the deciding factor. I plan on pumping while away but I am so nervous that I will loose my milk and… that he will be used to NOT having it after I come home. We will see when the time comes.
My oldest child weaned the week she turned 2yo. She had been slowly cutting down the number of nursing sessions anyways, and I chose to encourage the weaning process further due to misinformation. I had been told by my then Ob that I had caused the 3 miscarriages I’d experienced over the course of a year because I was still nursing my daughter. I had done plenty of research and knew better, but I was at the point of grasping for straws to find a reason. FWIW, we never did get any answers despite a whole battery of recurrent loss testing.
. He has started saying he will wean at 5yrs. I’m not sure either of us will make it that long, but I’m here as long as he needs.
My other 3 children are all still nursing. The oldest nursling will be 4 in June. He’s down to twice a day, but still very attached to his “milkies”. I have started to have gentle discussions with him about weaning, but can tell he’s not ready yet. While I know some may think it’s extreme, I’m doing my best to meet him where he’s at now. I don’t think most mothers set out to nurse an older child…it just evolves over time. My goal had been 2yrs, and now we just take each day as it comes
My younger son is 2yrs and baby sister is 6mo. I suspect they will both be nursing for quite a while still. Weaning for our family so far has been a gradual and gentle process.
Could not have imagined I would have had two babies that were so different. My first was very fussy and we had several speed bumps to get over in our nursing relationship; latching on at birth, turnning her head around to get a better view while latched on, on and off the breast because she was distracted, ect. First child weaned at 22mos when I simply said “here is a cup of rice milk, enjoy” and that literally was it. Second child was a total mush and was very happy to stay latched on all day and all night snuggled in my bussem. I started nudging the “weaning issue” at 40 months and she is still trying to “help herself” at 48 months, although I haven’t let her nurse now for the last 4 months. I think I have officially put the grils “out to pasture”.
My son weaned at 18 months. They keep an eye on him cause he has a hole in his ear. They say the ear and kidneys form at the same time so they fear he has something wrong with them. So to be extra safe, I nursed him till I couldn’t anymore!
My first child was weaned at 3.5 months because the military doctor I saw told me that standard birth control pills would not affect my milk supply. A complete lie. I had to go back to work when she was six weeks old, and not nursing enough with the baby dwindled my milk supply. My second child weaned at about 6 months for the same reason. I was a stay at home mom by then, so being able to do more “in-person” nursing helped me make it that far, but if I had only been able to read the literature on the pill-pak, I would have stopped taking them and nursed him longer.
After that child, we exited the military, I started receiving the literature, read it and realized what happened. So when I had my third baby, I went on the mini pill. My milk supply was SO much better! And I nursed him until he was 15 months old. I weaned him at that time, because he had come to view my breasts as his toys, and that made me uncomfortable. I wish now I had handled that differently and continued to nurse him and just set better boundaries, but maybe that wouldn’t have worked anyway. He wound up with both an autism diagnosis (now fully recovered), and he had a unnatural focus on my breasts until he finally became taller than me. He used them for “deep pressure”, and was constantly pressing his head onto my breasts, which made for some pretty awkward social moments.
Now, those children are grown and gone, they all survived our parenting mistakes and turned out great! And I have a 7 month old. I plan to nurse her for as long as she wants. My husband sometimes presses me for when I am going to stop. I think he was traumatized by that Adam Sandler movie with the breastfeeding six year old. But she has gained Thirteen pounds since her birth, and grown 8 or 9 inches, clearly, there is nothing wrong with whatever we are doing. She likes solid food, too, and really likes to be in charge of putting it in her mouth!
My 20 month oldis still nursing alot. So i dont see the weaning process coming anytime soon for us. But when it does happen I hope we can do it baby led and it will go smoothly for us both. I love reading othe rpeoples weaning storys , helps alot
My little nursling is 13 months and we havent seen any signs that he may be ready to wean. Our main nursing sessions are evenings and through the night. I hope he will want to continue at least another year and that I can continue to nurse him as long as he wishes.
My son is 6 months old and I have no plans to wean him any time soon. Whenever he self weans is fine by me! Hopefully not too soon though.. I do enjoy making silly faces that make him smile while nursing, too cute. Not to mention the endless benefits of bfing.
i could only BF for 2 months, it was a hard and emotional adventure. i had planned to BF until my little one decided he wanted to stop WHENEVER that may have been.
i noticed an increase after eating certain foods but then it slowly declined. found out the BC i was on, made my milk dry up. the dr misinformed me and i was very hurt, and emotional.
all i wanted was to have a vag birth and breast feed, i looked forward to it, and was elated at the thought of these 2 things. unfortunately i didn’t get neither of them…. it still makes me sad somedays especially since my son is 8mon tomorrow. i only wanted to give him the best and it feels like i failed sometimes cause of this!
My little guy loved the bottles! So the last 4 months I spent a lot of quality time with the pump. I’ve got to figure out how I can get the next baby to like me more! At 20 months old, I still give him some frozen milk 2-3 times/week. But that should only last another month… tear.
My daughter was fully weaned at 3 months or so. It was heartbreaking. I had a very difficult time from day one because I lost so much blood and my body when it goes through something the least distressing tries to shut down and sleep for days on end to repair it. My husband, my parents, and the nurses all took the “Lets just give baby a bottle and let Liz get some rest” route when that was the last thing I wanted. My parents decided to take us on a 12 hour trip to see my sisters at the 3 month mark and that trip was the final blow to my nursing relationship. I came home and cried for hours and had the hardest time getting up to even care for myself. But they wouldn’t let me back out of the trip. It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever gone through. I wish I was still breastfeeding her and she’s 3 years old. If I had, had the resources and the privacy I would have re-lactated at the time but it just wasn’t possible with the way things were.
I don’t know you so I hope I am not speaking out of turn BUT there should be NO “my parents wouldn’t let me” when you’re a grown woman with a baby. Not trying to make you feel worse – sounds like you just got totally bossed around. Next time you stand up for yourself and what YOU want.
I don’t know you so I hope I am not speaking out of turn BUT there should be NO “my parents wouldn’t let me” when you’re a grown woman with a baby. Not trying to make you feel worse – sounds like you just got totally bossed around. Next time you stand up for yourself and what YOU want. I am not referring to your nursing your baby – don’t know all the details – just the family thing.
Our son is still nursing at 22 months and we are going to let him self ween. As much as he nurses now i would say that would be when hes 30! Lol! He nurses more than he did when he was 13 months old :/. The baby perfume creeps me out. I don’t even like to wear perfume on myself for fear it will affect him.
@15 months…still going. I don’t mind except for the night nursing. Mama needs to sleep more!
I am convinced my oldest son would have nursed until he was three, but because of pressure from my family I stopped at 14 months. My oldest daughter self weaned at 8 months. I was a little disappointed she was so quick to give up the breast milk.
I breastfed 2 kids for a year each. I started to wean around 11 1/2 months and I would pump and bottle feed so by 12 months they were weaned, and I had enough frozen milk to add another 3-4 weeks.
It was harder for me than them to wean
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My little one is still nursing at 2 years of age, but he drastically cut down the amount of feeding that he does on his own. Now we’re down to 2 nursing sessions during the day, and none at night
I only wean at 2.5 when pregnant with the next. I’d like a miminum of five kids (3 so far) so I am always pregnant or nursing or both. Not that this is relevant…
I hear ya! The thought of being pregnant and nursing isn’t the greatest right now. We’ll see when I get there