Weaning from the Breast.

Hello how are you all?
Im 24, married and just had our first little girl on the 19th August.
My question today is....... how long did you breast feed for? and how did you wean yourself off it?
Thanks Charmaine.

Ive just realised that Ive put this under the wrong heading! Should have been under Feeding your newborn! Whoops!! Not to worry! ( laughs )!
Charmaine.

Hi,

Hey, feeding, caring, whats the difference, thats what us mums do 24hr!!! LOL

My son is 15wks and i am still exclusively breastfeeding him. My choice for his total well-being and practicality. I can't think of anything worse than sterilizing bottles and making up formular!

I have just started back at work and have been expressing and hubby giving him the bottles. Only 2 days a week and 4hrs each day!

Breastfeeding is an indervidual matter, but i just think its the best and easiest!

Sorry i havn't helped much,
Tepe

Hi Charmaine,
My daughter is now 6 months and is still breastfed. I always planned to wean her once she started solids (which she did a while ago) but when she was 7 weeks I expressed milk and gave her a bottle which she refused. She will only take small amounts from a sipper cup and is just beginning to drink from a straw. As you can see, it is sometimes up to the baby! Babies sometimes self wean before their mothers decide to stop breastfeeding. Now that my daughter is on 3 solid meals a day she only has 4 breastfeeds a day so it gets easier. I think I will breastfeed up to 12 months but by then it will only be early morning and night feeds. You can breastfeed for several years if you wish - it really is up to you and your baby and what works best.

If weaning is mother led you replace one feed each second day with a bottle and after a week replace the same feed with a bottle every day. then you can slowly work up to 2 bottle feeds a day and so on until your baby is solely bottle fed.

Hope this helps a bit.

hey charmaine,

i stopped breast feeding when my little boy was 4 weeks old.. he is now 9weeks and happily bottle fed.. i wanted to bottle feed longer but was not able to produce enough milk for him..

i weaned him but slowly bringing in bottle instead of milk, and when breast feeding instead of going for an hour to hour and a half i would lessen that to half hour on each boob than top up with formula, do that for a couple of days than take it down to 15 mins on each boob and so on... i also found this helped with not getting the rock hard boobs full of mild from not feeding.. so in the end was a pleasant way to wean as no pain.

hope this makes sense.. talk again soon, hope all goes well..

Thanks for responding to my question!
Its been very helpful!
Charmaine.