Hello lovelies!

Since I got A LOT of questions on this topic on my Instagram when I posted all about my breastfeeding journey, I wanted to do a detailed post on how I weaned my baby so effortlessly. I am really glad that some of you are finding my posts useful and well, that's the whole point of me taking the time out to document my experience. I couldn't come up with a better title for the post, so please bear with me but just to make this fun, I have added images from his monthly photoshoots. As always, I'd like to put it out there everybody has a different experience and every baby is different, so please don't hold me accountable if this doesn't work but I sincerely hope everything I share here is helpful!

Personally, to me, weaning off has always been something I've wanted to do gradually, but I've also wanted to do it by the time my child was 12 months or so. I had already seen/heard of a lot of mums who have really struggled with this, who end up feeding their bubs for 3-4 years and not because they want to and I didn't want to/could not afford to be in that position. I was really lucky that I had all the information I needed, the right kind of authorities who could guide me and no interference from anybody whatsoever. There's a lot of scientifically proven information on breastfeeding out there that we just aren't aware of. For instance, when I found out that babies can be night weaned as early as 4 months if they're feeding well through the day, just blew my mind! On that note, night weaning or even weaning off in general or reducing a feed can be super confusing! We often wonder if our bubs have had enough to eat or not, whether it's okay to let them sleep 12+ hours without eating or not and so on. So I spoke to my pediatrician, GPs, lactation and sleep consultants, nutritionists and what not and have noticed that these are the questions I need to be asking myself -

1) Is my child gaining enough weight? Since Neel was always off the charts with his height and weight, this was no brainer for me! Also, sharing his weight and height chart of his first year below just so you guys have an idea!

2) Is he feeding well during daytime? Neel has always been big on feeds or solids and will make sure he's full or will definitely make sure the entire building knows when he's not!

3) Is he peeing enough? A decent number of wet nappies (at least 5-6 for newborns) is an indication that your child is eating enough. If not, they might be dehydrated and might need more feeds.

4) Is my bub actually drinking and not dozing off? I was told by a lactation consultant at the hospital to notice if Neel is chuckling the milk and to check whether he's just sucking, I was asked to lift his hand. If the hand was all floppy and he was drowsy, then I would wake him up straight away to get him back on track with the feeding, make sure that he's had a full feed and then unlatch him.

5) Is he getting enough milk? Babies unlatch when they're full, but mine never did and he could go on for hours! I made it a point to give 15 ish mins from each boob and unlatch him myself when I felt that my boob was a lot lighter.

6) Is he active? Babies are generally very active and if your baby tends to be lethargic or not very responsive, then it's time to intervene and check what's happening. Neel has always been super active and hit all of his physical milestones on/before time which meant he was getting enough nutrition.

Birth to 6 weeks

Let me go back in time to April 2020 when my little one was born. I already told you guys how hard it was for me in the first week to get my milk come in and how I was basically pumping and feeding pretty much the entire week! In the meantime, my bubba survived on colostrum and 30 ml formula after each feed. My little boy was about 3.4 kilos at birth and when we left the hospital, he had come down to 3.2 kilos, which is hardly 5% and that gave a good indication to my pediatrician on how well my little one was doing. So he suggested that we feed him every 2 hours during the day, do the night feeds on demand and now that I was producing enough milk, there was no need to top him up with formula. That was also, more or less, the only time Neel was bottle-fed and since I was home on mat leave/locked down/WFH anyway, it was very convenient to just breastfeed him. The initial few weeks, as expected, were quite chaotic and I ended up feeding my baby a lot more than necessary. There were days when he'd feed every 30 min and I was a huge mess! Because he was so well fed during the day, he never got hungry at night and would sleep 4 to 8 hour stretches as a newborn! Unfortunately, due to the excess feeds he got during the day, he also developed reflux and had to go on Omeprazole.  

6 weeks to 4 months

After a while, mommy couldn't take it anymore and we just had to figure a way out of this cluster feeding madness! "Feed-on-demand" was definitely not an option for me or for the baby. We decided to go to a Mothercraft nurse when Neel was about 6 weeks old who suggested we space out the feeds by 2-3 hours and gave us, basically, a schedule to follow. We sort of combined it with what we were already doing and it was magic! By the time he was 2-3 months old, he would wake up once in a 12 hour stretch for a feed. He could easily go from 7-7:30 pm to 4 am or so without a feed and that was such a blessing for us! We literally never woke him up for feeds except the first week because he had gotten used to that schedule or probably already had implemented it himself. I started following the "Feed-Play-Sleep" cycle where I'd feed him when he woke up (about 10 min on each side with a nappy change in between), play for the rest of the duration of his wake window (wake windows are the time between 2 sleeps a baby can stay awake) and put him to sleep once the wake window has passed. When he wakes up from his nap again, I would repeat the cycle. Before bedtime, the routine is slightly different, wherein I would feed, massage, bathe, feed again and put him to sleep. Also, as he got older, I would do his last feed in the living room with plenty of light coming in so that he doesn't develop a "feed-to-sleep" association.

Schedule

7 am Breastfeed

9:30 am Breastfeed

12:00 pm Breastfeed

2:30 pm Breastfeed

5:00 pm Breastfeed

7:30 pm Breastfeed

4:00 am Breastfeed

4 months

When bub turned 4 months, we were asked by our pediatrician to wean him off the meds by starting solids. During the first week, I introduced lunch in place of his regular feed and topped him up with the same amount of breastmilk he would have had otherwise. During the second week, he was on two meals and by the third week, he was on three solid meals. After each meal I'd top him up with breastmilk so that he was getting all the nutrients as well as digesting the solids well. In addition to these three feeds, he was also having breastmilk three more times. We continued this pattern for a month or so and it worked out extremely well for us.

Schedule

7 am Breastfeed

9:30 am Breakfast + Breastfeed

12 pm Lunch + Breastfeed

3 pm Breastfeed

5 pm Dinner + Breastfeed

7 pm Breastfeed

4:00 am Breastfeed

5 months to 9 months

At around 5.5 months, we got a sleep consultant on board since he would spend all his naps sleeping on me and the nights had gotten rough too as we were slapped in the face by the infamous 4th month regression. (I will talk all about regressions and baby sleep in another VERY LONG sleep related post!) So she altered our schedule a bit to make room for sleep and we followed it till bub was about 9 months old. And since my boy was old enough to drink water to digest solids, I didn't need to top him up with feeds anymore. Also, something that my pediatrician always encouraged me to do is get my boy excited about solids and offer "as much as he wants" because after 6 months, breastmilk does not contain all the nutrients a baby needs.

Schedule

6 am Breastfeed

8 am Breakfast

10 am Breastfeed

11:00 am Lunch

2:30 pm Breastfeed

3:30 pm Snack

5:00 pm Dinner

6:30 pm Breastfeed

4:00 am Breastfeed

9 months to 11 months

When bub was 9 months old, I also introduced him to finger foods and enabled him to start self-feeding. So he was not only fully established on solids, he was also feeding himself a whole bunch of things! At around the same time, we also fully night weaned him. Since he was on just one night feed, it wasn't all that challenging! I just kept reducing the duration of his night feed until it was down to a minute or so and for a couple of days, my partner would settle him if he woke up in the middle of the night. Just so my anxiety wouldn't give in, I spent a few nights sleeping in another room and pretty soon both of us got used to not feeding at 4 am!

Schedule

6 am Breastfeed

8 am Breakfast

11:00 am Lunch

2:30 pm Breastfeed

3:30 pm Snack

5:00 pm Dinner

6:30 pm Breastfeed

11 to 12 months

My little one started daycare at around 10-11 months and initially, I had planned to go to the center to feed him at 2:30 pm because, well, lets be honest, I would get an opportunity to see him! But that would get in the way of him settling there, so I had to drop that feed. My next goal was to introduce him to cow's milk after he turned one so that he could slowly move on to cow's milk.

Schedule

6 am Breastfeed

8 am Breakfast

9:30 am Morning Tea

11:00 am Lunch

2:30 pm Afternoon Tea

5:00 pm Dinner

6:30 pm Breastfeed

12 months to 15 months

When Neel turned one, we made our first attempt to fully wean him off by letting daddy settle him for the night. There were a few tears and I personally wasn't ready either, so we decided to put it off for a while until both me and bubba were a hundred percent ready! I also wanted Neel to switch over to cow's milk. After multiple attempts of getting my bubba to drink and digest it, I was finally successful one day, when he was about 12-13 months old! This made me more confident about weaning him off because I knew that he was/is getting milk in some form which he seemed to love instantly! However, I still wanted to continue with that one feed at the end of the day because I was due to get my Covid vaccine soon and wanted to pass on the antibodies to Neel. But our GP advised that if I have plans of weaning off, I should not count on the vaccine because the antibodies last as long as I would be feeding him, which meant no end to the feeding and I'd heard it gets harder to wean them off as they get older.

Schedule

6 am Cow's Milk

8 am Breakfast

9:30 am Morning Tea

11:00 am Lunch

2:30 pm Afternoon Tea + Cow's Milk

5:00 pm Dinner

5:30 pm Cow's Milk

6:30 pm Breastfeed

15 months onwards

Finally, at around 15 months, I stopped that last bedtime feed as it was about time! Neel was not really interested in breastfeeding but just wanted it to fall asleep/get drowsy, which I soon realized that it was actually skin-to-skin that soothed him and not so much the feed. So I'd just place his palm on my belly or hip and that would do the trick. We followed the same routine we would the day I weaned him off, which is basically bath, moisturizer, PJs, sleeping bag, cuddle with daddy, turn white noise on, feed, hold mommy's belly/hip and pat to sleep. Only this time, we did not do a feed and it made no difference to him at all! At this point (17 months) I don't think he even remembers anything about breastfeeding! :D

Schedule

6 am Cow's Milk

7 am - 8 am Breakfast

9:30 am Morning Tea + Cow's Milk

11:00 am Lunch

2:30 pm Afternoon Tea + Cow's Milk

5:00 pm Dinner

5:30 pm Cow's Milk

So, in conclusion, here's what you'll need for a happy and pleasant wean off -

And that, my dear friends, is how I weaned off my little one. Since my approach was gradual and I did my research well in advance or before it was too late, I had no trouble with the process or even had any engorgement every time I dropped a feed. I stuck to a feeding schedule almost right from the beginning and that helped heaps! That being said, I did bend the rules when my baby went through sleep regressions, developmental leaps, teething and sickness. I did give him extra feeds and cuddles when we flew to Melbourne or visited new places. I did feed him to sleep a few times here and there when we were at a friend's place and there was no other way to make him go down for his naps. I did take out the boob on those nights when my partner and I were both too tired to figure out any other way to put him to sleep. I still do miss the closeness and still wish I could feed him, but it was just coming in the way of me moving forward. My baby did not really need it anymore and could be comforted by just being held, so I figured it was time to let go.