Easiest way to wean

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think you should at least give a solid try to the eat-awake-sleep method. We used Taking Cara Babies. It’s maybe harder in the beginning but much easier later on and you only nurse to sleep at night so it’s not as much of a thing.

Thank you good suggestion. I’ve always wondered what do you do if they just fall asleep when nursing regardless of wake window? How many weeks do you try this to see if it will work?

It worked well for us, but I know so much is baby personality and other factors so I’m not at all saying it’s easy peasy. But because you feed right when they wake up, they might doze but it’s easier imo to wake them up and have them keep feeding. At night, I mean, it’s whatever works in the beginning.

This is in Taking Cara Babies but you’re basically relying on the 5Ses (Karp, basically) to help them sleep since you’re not feeding and can’t put them on their bellies. Focus on the morning nap. By 4pm, all bets are off. I also used baby wearing and the car to get naps, especially in the afternoons. I wasn’t at all religious about it. But I always did eat-awake-sleep. It wasn’t a schedule, but it was a routine that worked for me. It was easier for me to see wake windows and sleepy signals than hunger cues.

[Anonymous]

I think going straight to formula is absolutely fine. I'll also say, though, that the difference in my kids' personalities around eating and sleeping was really obvious really early. So, I think you could introduce a bottle from the beginning, to avoid bottle refusal later, and then make a decision about nursing at 4 or 6 or 8 weeks, and wean then if you see it heading the same way as it did your older kid. I think both of these choices are equally fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My first nursed until 2 years, 5 months and my second for 2 years, 7 months and both didn’t stop night nursing for years (probably nearly 2 for both) so I get it. Really, I do. Honestly? I wish I had formula fed my second child from day one and never nursed him. We did combo feeding for him but I still went through all the tongue tie, nipple shield, mastitis, latch hell, baby still didn’t sleep well, husband still thought nursing was “easier” than him getting up to fix a bottle, baby still preferred breast milk - always, I still couldn’t get him down without nursing, etc. I am honestly still not recovered from 4 years of sleep deprivation, and it damaged my marriage and made me resentful of my husband to have been so physically attached and tethered to the kids.

A friend of mine refused to nurse her kids because she felt it furthered inequality and she wanted to force her husband to be just as responsible for feeding the kids as she was and just as capable in the exact same way so she wasn’t always responsible. She also didn’t want the physical responsibility - after pregnancy and birth, she said, it’s his turn to step up to the plate - I’m not sacrificing my body any more. At the time? I thought she was being selfish. In hindsight? I regret not making a similar choice.

Here’s the truth - for a lot of women, breastfeeding does limit your freedom. It can make you more housebound if your kids don’t nurse discretely and well in public (mine didn’t). It can further, in my opinion, inequality between partners because feeding solely becomes one person’s responsibility. It limits your ability to do anything - because you are tethered to a baby or pump every X hours, so yes, your freedom and agency become stifled. For me, it killed my sex drive for many years, on top of my sleep, and I dealt with so many issues, oversupply, undersupply, mastitis multiple times, dysmorphic ejection reflex, etc. that any health or bonding benefits were outweighed by my resentment, and by the time I realized the nursing wasn’t going to easily and nearly conclude at 12 months like I planned, the babies had such a strong preference for it and refused formula, and since both my kids took slowly to solids (and one had eating issues and the other bad allergies and both had some weight issues) was forced to continue being their food source long past the time I wanted. I also had to stop traveling for work, which was my choice, but then never got back to it because everyone sort of “mommy tracked” me. Also, I pumped 2-3x a day at work for over a year for both, which killed my productivity and was just a tremendous time suck and PITA, and source of daily scheduling stress at work. And also nursing gave me looser joints and ligaments and made me exhausted so I did not get back any semblance of energy for fitness or ability to really build muscle and lose weight until I weaned the kids each time, so that was a lot of years I was fat and soft and stuck in saggy nursing bras and ugly clothing.

Now that they are older, while I do recall the snuggles and some of our nursing sessions with fondness, the main feeling I’m left with is still regret for breastfeeding. I can never forget the husband who just wanted to roll over - for literal years - while I was the one who had to get up at night. And I will never forget being so ill with mastitis - multiple times - that I wanted to die. Reducing me to my biological function to be a food source for my kids when we have wonderful alternatives, and there’s not such great evidence for breast milk over formula past the first few weeks, was
In hindsight the wrong decision for me. It felt so important at the time and I felt so much pressure to do it, but on reflection now years later I feel like a sucker and often wish I had never done it.

I’m the OP. YOU GET IT. Wow, you get it. All of it. This is exactly what happened with my first. I feel it ruined my life. It took us years to even consider a second because our first still does not sleep through the night and has severe, severe sleep issues that all medical tests and sleep studies have determined are purely behavioral and not medical. I think it was the breastfeeding. She never learned to self soothe or sleep any other way even after weaning. The sleep deprivation and bring always tired and short due to it and the guilt from being that way with my toddler are horrible. If I could go back in time with this particular kid, knowing her temperament, I would never have breastfed at all.

So I’m trying to figure out if there’s a better way to breastfeed like weaning super early or something that doesn’t result in the insanity or whether I should just not do it at all. After reading your post I’m strongly leaning towards not doing it at all.

PP back again. I’ll add that my kids don’t sleep well and I agree it’s that they never learned to self soothe at night. They are horrible sleepers and still dependent on a parent to go to sleep and for night wakings and it sucks. I strongly believe it’s because of nursing/night nursing and also their temperaments. We tried Ferber and Taking Cara Babies and failed with both. The kids both have special needs diagnoses (ADHD and anxiety) as older kids and sleep issues are super common in neurodivergent kids. So in hindsight, knowing how much I still suffer from sleep issues with them and how hard they are to parent, I wish I had formula fed both and sleep trained ruthlessly instead of being such a softie about it. Because it’s so hard now, still. Two cents though, YMMV.

[Anonymous]

I weaned at about 18 months. He was showing a dip in interest and I rode it down. He was at 3/day, then 2/day. I made sure to nurse before the bedtime routine so there wasn't an eat sleep association and I dropped the night nurse last

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pregnant with my second and trying to plan ahead. My first baby was phenomenally difficulty in many ways. I wasn’t able to wean her fully until 27 months, and I didn’t night wean until 20 (!) months. I wanted to stop much, MUCH sooner, but she was a terrible sleeper both naps and nighttime so I grudgingly kept going. She was so difficult to wean. I feel traumatized by breastfeeding her and feeling no control over my body, and I’m desperate to avoid that experience again.

If you had an easy time weaning (meaning your kid wasn’t dependent on nursing to soothe or sleep and they didn’t cry endlessly for weeks when you weaned), at what age did you wean? How did you do it? Did you combo feed from the start or did you go cold turkey breast to bottle?

Or should I just not breastfeed at all this time?

Why not wait until you have the second child and see? You are literally planning ahead for problems when your second kid is entirely different person!

Because if you wait to see how hard it is to transition the second one off breastfeeding, it might be too late. I took the wait and see approach with my first and by the time I wanted to stop, it was too late and it was impossible for her to learn to sleep or soothe any other way. You don’t know how a baby will respond. So I need a plan to avoid that this time.

So introduce a bottle earlier? I don't get the 'it was hard the first time so it is going to be harder with the second kid?" My first kid was harder but, my second kid was easier

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am pregnant with my second and trying to plan ahead. My first baby was phenomenally difficulty in many ways. I wasn’t able to wean her fully until 27 months, and I didn’t night wean until 20 (!) months. I wanted to stop much, MUCH sooner, but she was a terrible sleeper both naps and nighttime so I grudgingly kept going. She was so difficult to wean. I feel traumatized by breastfeeding her and feeling no control over my body, and I’m desperate to avoid that experience again.

If you had an easy time weaning (meaning your kid wasn’t dependent on nursing to soothe or sleep and they didn’t cry endlessly for weeks when you weaned), at what age did you wean? How did you do it? Did you combo feed from the start or did you go cold turkey breast to bottle?

Or should I just not breastfeed at all this time?

Why not wait until you have the second child and see? You are literally planning ahead for problems when your second kid is entirely different person!

Because if you wait to see how hard it is to transition the second one off breastfeeding, it might be too late. I took the wait and see approach with my first and by the time I wanted to stop, it was too late and it was impossible for her to learn to sleep or soothe any other way. You don’t know how a baby will respond. So I need a plan to avoid that this time.

So introduce a bottle earlier? I don't get the 'it was hard the first time so it is going to be harder with the second kid?" My first kid was harder but, my second kid was easier

Just go away. I introduced a bottle on day 1 in the hospital with my first. She was combo fed from birth and this still happened. She would not go to sleep without the breast. We could rock, bounce, 5S for hours and she wouldn’t sleep. From months 4-6 I did not give the breast at night to try to break the feed to sleep association, and she basically didn’t sleep at all and woke 20-40 times a night, usually every 9 minutes. I cracked after 2 months of that torture. I’m pretty sure 2 months should have been enough to get her used to other soothing methods, but apparently it was not. Thus, my panic. I’m really, really, really scared of this happening again.

[Anonymous]

I 100% understand- mine literally didn't sleep at all for first 7 months at night and would scream all night if not on boob ( I wrote above that we nick named her boobie). Our pediatrician told us to try ferber at 4 months and was giant fail. The big thing was loading her up with lots of milk during day ( eg bottles of pumped milk). I believe this is the 12 hours by 12 weeks method too. I feel guilty bc I think I made my kid overly big ( she struggled on growth chart for many months with frequent weight checks and after was super heavy). I assume this is why formula kids sleep better too- they typically have larger portions during day then you'd get at boob.

Thinking of those nights where mine didn't sleep for months still brings me trauma and I definitely wanted to divorce my husband during that time

[Anonymous]

#2 landed in the NICU after a traumatic birth so I had no choice she was mostly bottle fed but we did nurse. She was the opposite of #1. Slept through the night a weaned to the bottle at 3 months. I did nothing differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I 100% understand- mine literally didn't sleep at all for first 7 months at night and would scream all night if not on boob ( I wrote above that we nick named her boobie). Our pediatrician told us to try ferber at 4 months and was giant fail. The big thing was loading her up with lots of milk during day ( eg bottles of pumped milk). I believe this is the 12 hours by 12 weeks method too. I feel guilty bc I think I made my kid overly big ( she struggled on growth chart for many months with frequent weight checks and after was super heavy). I assume this is why formula kids sleep better too- they typically have larger portions during day then you'd get at boob.

Thinking of those nights where mine didn't sleep for months still brings me trauma and I definitely wanted to divorce my husband during that time

I’m sorry this happened to you too. No one believes you sleep training can fail. These threads attract all the parents of easy babies who want to glibly tell you how easy it all was and how weak and incompetent you are. I am not weak. I’d like to see anyone else survive 2.5 years of being woken up 10-40 times a night.

[Anonymous]

I nursed my daughter until almost 3 and weaned her by going on an 8 day vacation 😎 I left her with her dad/family came to help and visit!

I’m sure it kinda sucked for them but they figured it out and when I got back she tried once or twice more but my supply was gone.

So maybe just plan a vacation around the time you want to stop?? I’d try to make it for the first year if you can! I know it is miserable but there are so many health benefits — and as a formerly formula fed baby/current asthmatic, overweight, and borderline diabetic adult I think there are so many important reasons to BF which make your sacrifice now worth it later on. ❤️

Will just add that I triple fed at the beginning bc of tongue ties (first 6 months) so wonder if that helped lighten the load — though I still pumped/nurses most feeds. But I wonder if that helped with sleep later on…

We also coslept starting around age 2 — not ideal, but we started solidly sleeping 12 hours.

[Anonymous]

My older kid showed us her personality so clearly as a baby but we were so clueless about parenting we didn’t get it. We joke that if she was our third kid we’d have parented her so differently.

Anyway sleep was hard, weaning was hard and it took much longer than I wanted. When she was almost 2 I got a book about weaning for toddlers and she took it out of my hand and threw it across the room.

Our second kid we parented basically the same as we did with the first, because we were trying all the things the books tell you to do anyway, and it all worked wonderfully! I joke that that kid also read the books and knew just what to do. Sleep was easy. Weaning was easy.

Point is, kids are different. No reason to expect the same set of problems with each kid.

Another thing is, I physically couldn't do as much for kid 2 as for kid 1 (because 2 kids) and I do think that helped.

Good luck! Trust yourself!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I 100% understand- mine literally didn't sleep at all for first 7 months at night and would scream all night if not on boob ( I wrote above that we nick named her boobie). Our pediatrician told us to try ferber at 4 months and was giant fail. The big thing was loading her up with lots of milk during day ( eg bottles of pumped milk). I believe this is the 12 hours by 12 weeks method too. I feel guilty bc I think I made my kid overly big ( she struggled on growth chart for many months with frequent weight checks and after was super heavy). I assume this is why formula kids sleep better too- they typically have larger portions during day then you'd get at boob.

Thinking of those nights where mine didn't sleep for months still brings me trauma and I definitely wanted to divorce my husband during that time

I’m sorry this happened to you too. No one believes you sleep training can fail. These threads attract all the parents of easy babies who want to glibly tell you how easy it all was and how weak and incompetent you are. I am not weak. I’d like to see anyone else survive 2.5 years of being woken up 10-40 times a night.

I’m the PP whose kids nursed forever, and who were crappy sleepers as babies and now as older children. I agree with this 100 percent. We sleep trained the oldest one with Ferber and she screamed and cried til she puked and almost choked on it. The whole, they eventually wind down and learn to self-soothe literally never happened for this child. She would get more, and more, and more upset until she was absolutely hysterical and screaming her head off. We lived in a condo building and had neighbors who complained about the crying and it just did not work for her. She has anxiety now as an older kid and still needs a parent and can’t self-soothe to sleep. It’s horrible.

With the second one I was determined to get them to be a good sleeper so we did Taking Cara Babies religiously. I had them sleeping 11-12 hours at one point and thought we had finally figured it out! But then they learned to roll and we had to stop swaddling and my life went to hell. The child would wake up 27-29 minutes after falling asleep every single time - nap, bedtime, etc. I could set a clock by it, and the only way we could get this kid to sleep was by holding them, so it was even worse than the older one.

None of this made sense to me at the time - other parents reported getting sleep, their kids sleep training well, their kids weaning at a year easily, etc. and I felt like I was on Mars and was just the world’s worst mother. Well, my kids are older now and both now have special needs diagnoses. When I met other special needs parents, they all had similar experiences with their neurodivergent children with issues with difficult births, nursing, sleeping, etc. I guess this is common. But of course, it doesn’t make sense until later.

I will say, that having older kids who have never slept well has resulted in a level of sleep deprivation that had really morphed my personality and my husband’s. It’s been so bad for our marriage, and had I known how bad it was going to continue to be, I wish we would have done formula always (because kids do sleep better with formula - breastmilk gets burned off quickly and they have to eat more often and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) and hired a professional sleep trainer to help us do it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I nursed my daughter until almost 3 and weaned her by going on an 8 day vacation 😎 I left her with her dad/family came to help and visit!

I’m sure it kinda sucked for them but they figured it out and when I got back she tried once or twice more but my supply was gone.

So maybe just plan a vacation around the time you want to stop?? I’d try to make it for the first year if you can! I know it is miserable but there are so many health benefits — and as a formerly formula fed baby/current asthmatic, overweight, and borderline diabetic adult I think there are so many important reasons to BF which make your sacrifice now worth it later on. ❤️

Will just add that I triple fed at the beginning bc of tongue ties (first 6 months) so wonder if that helped lighten the load — though I still pumped/nurses most feeds. But I wonder if that helped with sleep later on…

We also coslept starting around age 2 — not ideal, but we started solidly sleeping 12 hours.

Please, stop with the association with your health issues and formula. That stuff has been disproven! I was nursed and born vaginally and had gestational diabetes, food allergies, and am pre diabetic (and am fit and exercise). My older child was born vaginally and was exclusively nursed for 2.5 years and has food allergies and asthma. My C-section baby has no allergies and was combo fed with formula and doesn’t have asthma.

No - if your mental and physical health suffer - the sacrifice isn’t worth it! Most women don’t want to not be able to leave their kids for 3 years, and they shouldn’t have to. Emily Oster’s book has a great chapter on feeding and you should read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I 100% understand- mine literally didn't sleep at all for first 7 months at night and would scream all night if not on boob ( I wrote above that we nick named her boobie). Our pediatrician told us to try ferber at 4 months and was giant fail. The big thing was loading her up with lots of milk during day ( eg bottles of pumped milk). I believe this is the 12 hours by 12 weeks method too. I feel guilty bc I think I made my kid overly big ( she struggled on growth chart for many months with frequent weight checks and after was super heavy). I assume this is why formula kids sleep better too- they typically have larger portions during day then you'd get at boob.

Thinking of those nights where mine didn't sleep for months still brings me trauma and I definitely wanted to divorce my husband during that time

I’m sorry this happened to you too. No one believes you sleep training can fail. These threads attract all the parents of easy babies who want to glibly tell you how easy it all was and how weak and incompetent you are. I am not weak. I’d like to see anyone else survive 2.5 years of being woken up 10-40 times a night.

I’m the PP whose kids nursed forever, and who were crappy sleepers as babies and now as older children. I agree with this 100 percent. We sleep trained the oldest one with Ferber and she screamed and cried til she puked and almost choked on it. The whole, they eventually wind down and learn to self-soothe literally never happened for this child. She would get more, and more, and more upset until she was absolutely hysterical and screaming her head off. We lived in a condo building and had neighbors who complained about the crying and it just did not work for her. She has anxiety now as an older kid and still needs a parent and can’t self-soothe to sleep. It’s horrible.

With the second one I was determined to get them to be a good sleeper so we did Taking Cara Babies religiously. I had them sleeping 11-12 hours at one point and thought we had finally figured it out! But then they learned to roll and we had to stop swaddling and my life went to hell. The child would wake up 27-29 minutes after falling asleep every single time - nap, bedtime, etc. I could set a clock by it, and the only way we could get this kid to sleep was by holding them, so it was even worse than the older one.

None of this made sense to me at the time - other parents reported getting sleep, their kids sleep training well, their kids weaning at a year easily, etc. and I felt like I was on Mars and was just the world’s worst mother. Well, my kids are older now and both now have special needs diagnoses. When I met other special needs parents, they all had similar experiences with their neurodivergent children with issues with difficult births, nursing, sleeping, etc. I guess this is common. But of course, it doesn’t make sense until later.

I will say, that having older kids who have never slept well has resulted in a level of sleep deprivation that had really morphed my personality and my husband’s. It’s been so bad for our marriage, and had I known how bad it was going to continue to be, I wish we would have done formula always (because kids do sleep better with formula - breastmilk gets burned off quickly and they have to eat more often and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise) and hired a professional sleep trainer to help us do it.

I’m the OP. Our children must be long lost cousins because that is exactly how it went with my first. She has never fallen asleep independently even ONCE in her whole life. She contact napped until 20 months (I tried every single day to get her to nap alone), woke at 27 minutes on the dot just like yours, the whole thing. But she’s 3, so it does make me sad to hear we’re probably headed for some sort of diagnosis later on. Wouldn’t surprise me but makes me sad.

I agree that this level of sleep deprivation has changed me forever for the worse. I’m just…duller. Miraculously our marriage has not been effected because we are in total agreement that this is hell, we’re isolated because everyone else has it easier, and we just need to get through it.

I am desperate to try anything I can with #2 that might make the slightest bit of difference to avoid this. I CANNOT do this again.

[Anonymous]

Each kid is different. My first basically weaned himself. My second nursed longer because she woke up every 3-4 hours despite all attempts to sleep train.
Going longer without nursing and having the non nursing parent play an equal role with bedtime (leaning into not having to nurse to fall asleep) are the best strategies for weaning older baby.