Hi
Just wondering when and how other people's babies self-weaned. My DD is almost 10 months old and has 3 b/f per day. She has always loved breastfeeding, and is a big solids eater too.

In the last month her attitude to b/f has changed - she latches on and sucks well for the morning and afternoon feeds, but at the end of the feed she is just giggling and smiling as if b/f is the funniest thing in the world. For the just-before-bed-feed she only takes a bit of milk and then just grins at me. Very cute, but I don't know if it means she is on her way to self-weaning? Maybe I am reading too much into it?
If anyone could share their experiences it would be great.

Also, if she does drop that night feed soon am I supposed to offer her a bottle? I think the fact that she doesn't have a full b/f means that she isn't very hungry.

Many thanks
Emma

Hi Emma

My DD weaned herself at 13 months. One day she just refused to suck, I was devastated She would never take a bottle or a cup with a teat so from 6 months old onwards when I gave her water it was in a sipper cup.

After she weaned herself I made sure she drank full cream milk frequently throughout the day.

Good luck

My Ds has just self-weaned at 16 mos. He just began to show no interest in bfing (we were only at one feed at bedtime), but did want "ju", AKA cows milk... So he did want milk, just not mine anymore.

The one thing that stand out to me as different is that my DS dropped one feed at a time, so maybe she is only dropping the bedtime feed? I would continue to offer it throughout the day if she will feed, and offer lots of dairy otherwise. Personally, I would not go the bottle route unless she seems hungry at bedtime and will not bf.

At about 11m DS weaned himself down to 2 feeds and then at 14m stopped the AM feed and a few weeks later we dropped the PM feed.
He was wasn't interested anymore and was drinking cows milk/water from a cup and having a great diet, so for him I gues he felt as though he didn't need it..

Actually, it was good, I felt it was time to let go too (although i LOVED every day of B/feeding).. so it was smiles all around. I think I was more upset at dropping the midday feed at 11 months LOL

One morning DS1 just decided he didn't want it. I offered him the breast & he blew a raspberry on my boob.

He was 16mths. I thought it was quite strange because up until that morning he was having a wake-up feed & a night-time bed feed.

I really wasn't ready!!

DS2 is not yet 12mths but he has been losing interest since he started solids but I've been forcing it on him. If I hadn't been making him have any breastfeeds I'm sure he would have weaned himself at 8mths.

But again, I'm not ready!!

DD sort of half-weaned around the 6 month mark, she would drink fine all feeds except the before bed one. She would scream and pull away and cause all sorts of ruckus, so I ended up just giving her a bottle of EBM for that feed.

That continued until around the 12 month mark when I decided to replace her day feed with a bottle of EBM too (she was still having her morning one). Then I replaced it with milk.

But then bang on 13 months she decided she didnt want the first morning one anymore so that was it!

To be honest I wasnt upset by it, she had a decent amount of time having breastmilk, and to be really honest I was getting sick of expressing milk every night!

Amanda