10.5 month old trying to self wean

[scoobydrlp]

My LO is breast fed and we've been doing BLW since 6 months. She LOVES real people food!! I've had to be careful with how much normal food I feed her because she will always choose food over milk if given the option, but for the past week or so she has drastically decreased the amount of breast milk she's taking in. I've tried skipping solid food meals to encourage her to drink more, but she'd rather go hungry it seems. I haven't had any trouble with getting her to nurse first thing in the morning and then right before bed, but anything in between is a crap shoot (both from a bottle at daycare and from the breast at home). She will wake once or twice a night most nights and will nurse back to sleep, so she's getting some extra calories that way.

So my question is, do I just let it happen? When we talked to the pediatrician at her 9 month visit (before she was refusing feeds) we were told that we could start offering cows milk to replace breast milk as early as 11 months. We're *almost* there, but not quite. I have offered her a small amount of cows milk in a sippy cup just to see if she would take it, and she will take a few swigs but she's certainly not downing it. What if she never wants to drink it, but stops taking breast milk too? Can she get enough nutrition from solid food alone? I've seen the toddler formula options and have considered them, but who's to say she would want to drink that either? She does great drinking water so I'm not worried about hydration, it's more the nutrition itself I'm concerned about.

In a perfect world I had planned on breast feeding until she was a year, then dropping the day feeds and giving cows milk, but still nursing in the morning and at night. Looks like LO has her own ideas!

 

[sillysapling]

Does she take expressed breast milk in a sippy cup? One mom I saw faced a 40 day nursing strike with a 2 year old and kept expressing breast milk into sippy cups to keep up her supply and keep him getting as much breast milk. (her baby was also eating solid food, of course)

 

[Rachel_C]

Have you had a read of this? https://kellymom.com/bf/normal/babyselfwean/

 

[scoobydrlp]

After reading the kellymom link I feel comfortable saying that perhaps she's just slowing down on her intake. She still nurses just fine between the hours of 9pm and 9am, so I do think there's some reverse cycling going on. I'm going to keep doing what we're doing and just learn to be ok with her taking what she needs and not what I think she "should" need.

As for the sippy cup idea, I have tried putting expressed milk in one, she will take some here and there, but will not drink a bottles worth. I think I will offer it to her at least at table meals though.

Thanks for your help!

 

[tristansmum]

I didn't breast feed but my first totally went off milk once we started weaning. And I mean by 8-9 months he was only taking a bottle once at night. Hv said babies are like people and some just don't like milk. I basically had to give him a calcium rich diet and mix as much formula into food as possible ie on cereal and in mash potato. He is a totally healthy 3 year old so did him no harm but caused me plenty of worry and stress lol