My daughter will turn one next Wednesday and I've been solely breastfeeding until the last couple of weeks in which we've been reducing one breastfeeding session a week and supplementing with formula/whole milk combo. I just dropped the morning feeding and am now just nursing at the bedtime feeding. She is doing great and hasn't really seemed to mind the transition.
But my question is this: When we drop the bedtime feeding, do I have to supplement with milk? When does the bedtime milk/feeding drop completely?
She is currently taking her milk out of a sippy so the bottle isn't an issue. I'm just trying to figure out how the transition fully works. Do we do a bedtime snack in its place? She eats 3 meals a day currently.
Thanks.
We found we had to put a bedtime snack in place of that feeding. We usually give the snack at the start of bedtime routine so about 20-30 min before bed. otherwise she was waking up too early and hungry. Give a high calorie, high nutrition food.
I don't specifically how to answer your question but check out kellymom, there's a lot of helpful info on there:
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/index.html
My son's six, and he still usually has milk/warm milk/hot chocolate, before bed.
We laid off for a while he was potty training (for about a week, until he got getting up to pee down). Aside from that...it's part of our ritual. He drinks his warm milk and we talk and he goes to sleep.
Remember, you never HAVE to do anything (transition-wise). It's all about what works best with your family. We never tried to discourage it, because we don't feel there's anything wrong with it...but to each their own. We also don't have any dental problems...if we did we might have traded the milk for water.
:)
Z
Hi L.. Good for you, first, for breastfeeding until your daughter is one!! That is a big kudos.
When I weaned my kids (3) from their night nursing, I did not supplement with anything. If you supplement with a snack then that is probably something you'll have to break down the road. Maybe try giving her a sippy, only half full and then less and less each night.
In my experience, it was harder for me then it was for my kids. :-)
When I weaned my 1 yr. old son, we were down to the once a day at bed time schedule too. We decided not to supplement the evening "snack" with a sippy cup or anything. Instead he sat on his dad's lap and cuddled and rocked. It only took a couple days before he seemed to completely forget our old bed time routine of nursing. So I would say, try not to supplement with other food/beverages if possible. Why encourage the habit, if you don't have to?
My older boy was a formula baby and starting at 6 months I gave him a bottle right before bed because I felt bad when he cried at night. I wanted to make sure I was feeding him enough and that he didn't need to eat at night. At any rate, he was almost 3 before we got rid of the cup of milk before bed routine.
I am definitely not the person to answer your question about the transition since I nursed my son beyond a year so he had different issues/needs when he quit. I do however, understand your concerns about the routine and just wanted to say that my son is 3 and eats a bed-time snack, its just part of his routine. I am 35 and still eat a bedtime snack - always have. When I was growing up we always had low-fat yogurt before bed (incidentally, I was the only one I knew in college who had never had a yeast infection). However, if she was just nursing for comfort and not for food then she probably doesn't need the snack/milk to take its place. Good luck with dropping the last nursing, don't be surprised if it upsets you more than her (and be prepared for a pretty major hormone shift - again).
The first night of no boob.. my hubby read our son stories and put him down. i think it was harder on me than him. we did give him a bit of cheese as a snack while reading stories. sometimes i gave him yogurt before stories, but it was messy and i just gave him a bath! the cheese works still at 3 yrs!
Before I weaned the nighttime feeding, I got my son used to having it a little earlier, rather than right at bedtime. Then, when I switched that to milk, it was easier than I ever thought possible! Now he just has milk at dinner, and maybe some water a little later (sometimes not), and seems to do just fine until morning. He is almost 14 months now and we've been doing it that way since the beginning of September with no problems. Good luck!
oh- he gets milk 3 times (maybe 4? not sure if it's 2 or 3 times at daycare) a day.
When I weaned my son, I started by giving him warm milk at night rather than nursing. Over time we stopped the milk at bedtime, but it made the transition very easy.
