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Weaning Your Breastfed Baby

Breastfeeding is a special time for both mother and baby. Breastfeeding is an excellent way to feed your baby in the early months and breastmilk continues to be the best food for baby's first year.

Each breastfeeding family has different needs. Many women continue to breastfeed until baby shows an interest in weaning. Others choose to begin weaning earlier.

It is important to know that illness, medications, surgery, or returning to work do not necessarily mean you must wean before you and your baby are ready.

It is important that you wean your baby in a way that works best for you both.

What Does Weaning Really Mean?

How to Wean

What does “weaning” really mean?

Weaning is not a negative term. Weaning does not mean a loss, but rather a change from one relationship to another. Weaning means growing from one form of nourishment to another when the child is fulfilled and ready for the transition. Basically, weaning occurs by substituting other kinds of loving care for nursing.

When to Wean

Timely weaning occurs when the baby’s need to suck lessens. This typically occurs sometime between nine months and three and a half years of age. Health Canada advises exclusively breastfeeding for the first six months, then breastfeeding with the introduction of solid foods until at least your child’s first birthday. The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding for at least two years. If given the chance, many babies would breastfeed beyond their first year. Weaning is a personal decision. In short, when one or both members of the mother-baby relationship are ready, it’s time to wean.

Weaning Before Baby’s First Birthday

There may be lifestyle choices, medical situations, or things beyond your control that may require early weaning. Also, there are some babies that will be fulfilled and ready to wean before a year, although this is not the norm.

Breastfeeding After the First Year

If you breastfeed longer than a year, good for you! You are not spoiling your child or making her too dependent. Some babies need to suck longer than others. Research has shown that breastfeeding does not cause dependency. In fact, breastfeeding helps your baby’s attachment to you as caregiver, making your baby grow to be more independent and secure.

How to Wean

Weaning can be baby-led or mother-led. Baby-led weaning occurs when babies wean themselves from the breast by becoming less interested in feedings over time; your breast milk supply slowly decreases over time.

Weaning can also be mother-led. It is easier to wean when you are not under a lot of stress. Gradual weaning is easier for mom and baby.

There are two phases in weaning: withholding and substituting or replacing. As you gradually withhold your milk, you substitute solid foods, other types of milks, and other forms of emotional nourishment.

Wean from Person to Person, Not from Person to Thing

Try to comfort your child by giving extra hugs and cuddles as she weans instead of breastfeeding. As baby begins to wean from comfort at mother’s breast, you begin to substitute other forms of emotional nourishment. For example, continue to hold your baby and speak to her when you are beginning to feed her solids. Also, another person, ideally the father, takes on a larger role in comforting baby.

Wean Gradually

Try to avoid weaning baby by physically separating yourself from your baby (for example, by going away on vacation). Sudden separation from mother’s breast and from mother all at once may cause extra stress for your baby.

The key to healthy weaning is that it must be gradual:

● Replace one feeding at a time.

● It is easiest to begin by stopping the feeding your baby wants the least, or seems

most distracted or least interested in. For example, instead of breastfeeding mid-

morning, take baby to the park, read a book, or have a snack or drink from a spoon or

cup.

● Gradually, feedings can be replaced one at a time. Wait between a few days and two

weeks before replacing another nursing time to allow your baby to get used to this

change and to prevent yourself from having overfull breasts.

● The weaning method of “don’t offer, don’t refuse” often works best for most mothers

and babies. Basically, this means that you do not offer your baby your breast for one

feeding at a time. However, if your baby is interested in breastfeeding at the feeding

you are trying to replace, you do not refuse him the feeding. Weaning does not

mean refusing to let baby nurse, it means gradually releasing your baby from

breastfeeding.

● Try to limit situations that encourage breastfeeding (for example, avoid sitting in the

rocking chair you always sit in to nurse), but be open to breastfeeding during baby’s

needful periods of the day.

● Expect nap nursing and night nursing sessions to be the last to end.

● When one of you is ready to end breastfeeding before bedtime, you should already

have a bedtime routine or nap routine which includes quieting activities such as:

reading bedtime stories; a back rub and a lullaby; or a healthy snack, bath, and

pajamas. Lots of exercise earlier in the day helps your little one prepare for rest.

● It is often helpful to have dad or another caregiver fulfill these evening routines so

baby does not think of breastfeeding; this also allows important contact time between

father and child.

● If your baby is upset, it is helpful to increasingly offer other sources of comfort other

than the breast such as stories, toys, games, songs, outings, and projects. As you

develop playful interactions instead of breastfeeding, your child will slowly learn to be

content with them and prefer them as a substitute to breastfeeding.

Be prepared to breastfeed more often again if you see behaviours such as tantrums, anger, or sadness in your baby. These behaviours may occur if you are weaning too quickly. Also, babies may have occasional spurts of breastfeeding more often again if they are ill, upset, or experiencing new situations. At these times, your baby is most likely breastfeeding for comfort.

References:

Breastfeeding and Work. Net. (2003). Tips for breastfeeding while working. [Online].

Accessed: August 9, 2004. Available at:

http://www.breastfeedingandworking.net/moms/tips_bfaw.html

La Leche League. (1997). The womanly art of breastfeeding (6^th ed.). New

York, NY: Penguin Putnam Inc.

La Leche League. (2002). Frequently asked questions: How can I make my return to

work easier? [Online]. Accessed: August 9, 2004. Available at:

http://www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/returnwork.html

La Leche League. (2002). Frequently asked questions: How do I wean by baby?

[Online]. Accessed: August 9, 2004. Available at:

http://www.lalecheleague.org/FAQ/weanhowto.html