DD is 8 months now, she has 4 feeds a day, first thing, mid morning, mid afternoon and bedtime, her first and last feed are fab but she faffs at the other two and has started to grab at my nipple and it really hurts, i say no sternly and if she carrys on i put it away but it hasnt changed anything, DS has milk for ages, is it too early to drop them or might it just be a phase?

Phoebe is bottle-fed but is doing the same. She is 7 1/2 months and I was wondering if I should stop offering her milk. Yesterday I waited until got really restless and tetchy before I offered her the bottle (rather than stick to our four hour schedule) and she took a fairly decent amount. Its really hard to know what to do for the best!

When my daughter (also called Phoebe lol) was 8 months I spoke to the health visitor about the same thing, she is breastfed and didn't seem bothered in the day. She advised me that a morning and night feed will be enough alongside balanced diet, I also give her vitamin drops. My daughter is now 10 months and is doing great with just morning and night feed. It is really hard to get it right and I suppose it depends on the child but this has worked for us x

S started to faff with her day time feeds at about 9 months and had dropped them one by one by about 11 months, along with her early morning feed. I just replaced them with snacks like cheese and yoghurt to make sure she was getting enough calcium. She finally dropped her pre-bedtime feed at about 13.5 months.

my son is 7 and a half months and i only bf morning, mid morning and bedtime now. also working on dropping night feed but he is cutting tooth 6 now and bf helps soothe him so its been tough going. id say its fine to drop. i also mix his porridge with formula (dont want to express) so he has milk there too. x

I have moved my dd onto follow on milk and dropped a feed - and she slept through last night!! Only the second time she has done this (the first being 10 days ago) but im hopeful that it is the right thing to do. She is now having a morning bottle, a bottle about 11-12ish and then a bedtime bottle. I gave her finger foods as a snack yesterday to make sure she didn't get too hungry. xx

hi piggypops

my LO is bf and exactly the same as yours at 7 months - morning feed, mid morn, mid afternoon and bedtime. The mid afternoon one can be really short - often only 5 mins - so i think that will be first to go. Mid morn is still a good feed.

The problem with dropping bfs i think wont be the loss of milk but the comfort that he gets from it. If he sleeps at all its after his mid morn or mid afternoon feeds and i dont think he'd rest if he didnt have them. He gets so tetchy these days now hes moving around more.


Im back to work in 7 weeks and it would make life easier if he did drop a feed but i hadnt thought to actually have a go at holding it back. One day he got to half an hour from his tea time without having it and i put him on anyway - perhaps i shouldnt have done.x

thanx ladies, i am still offering but shes not that fussed and has started to push me away in the afternoon so i think i am jusat going to follow her lead i think, offer it and if she refuses just give her a drink instead x

sounds a good idea - if she's pushing away then its coming from her, maybe give her a drink and a little snack. I can't imagine my DS ever pushing me away! ha ha. My mum keeps looking concerned when i tell her im going to follow his lead - she keeps saying you wouldnt want him to get teased for still being breast fed would you?

I'm NOT planning on doing it that long! ha ha x

:lol:

piggypops my LO has not asked for his mid afternoon feed for the last 3 days so i think at 7.5 months he is probably now permanently on 3 feeds at 0600 ish, 0930/1000 ish and 1900. We are going out after his 0930 feed this weekend and its lovely to know i havent got to express any milk for the afternoon!

Ive started encouraging him to have sips of water in the afternoon from a cup, as its a long time to go without a drink if he has no milk, and i give him a little snack at 1400 ish when he would have breast fed. The last 3 days ive gone somewhere so he's had his little nap in the car rather than post bf. I think he might struggle when its just us at home though and may ask for it to help him sleep, i hope not though as when i go back to work life will be easier if he's only feeding three times x

glad its going well, she wont have the afternoon feed anymore and is hit and miss in a morning, she likes water though so i am happy with that i think, shes still putting weight on and loves dairy so that might be us down to two feeds very shortly x

sounds great piggypops, you've done a fab job, life must feel a bit easier now. When i think of the hourly onslaught many months ago! would do it all again though.

I go from feeling very confident ill make it to a year to feeling anxious i won't. I dont know why it cant be enough to have done what i have, the further i get the more i want to do it! 2 of my colleagues who have returned to work following mat leave intended to keep it up. One of them went back when her LO was 11 months and didnt get much pumping so gave up, plus had soreness issues due to her daughter teething (i think id be happy with 11 months). My other colleague has a 9 month old but also found she couldnt get much at work and she is running her freezer supply down, then going onto apitmal and hopes to maintain a bedtime feed. I just felt a bit down hearing their stories - they've done amazing, and i know im being silly. Just have never given formula and really want to get to the year where he can have cows milk for day feeds (if he still needs them) and i can either BF morning and night or give up completely. i just don't want to be forcing LO out of feeds if he needs them and i can't manage to keep up though. I've bought a good pump and was getting good amounts, but of course now im bf less, i get less on it and am uncertain as to how it will work out. I have a good 15 feeds frozen ready. Can only see how it goes.

do you know how long you will feed for, if things carry on going well? I'd be happy with the year but can't see the time yet where id want to give the snuggles up! i guess in the end it will take something i really want to do, like a weekend away, to stop x