Weaning My 12 Month Old

I was in exactly the same situation as you. My son hated bottles and sippy cups. Then one day I tried him with one of his big sisters straw cups and he took to it immediately! We used straw cups from then on and he has also since learned to use regular sippy cups. Good luck, I know how frustrating it can be!

You don't have to wean her just because you're going back to work, or because she's turning one. They continue to get benefit from breast milk, getting sick MUCH less, and many of the benefits they receive are a 'dose response' which means the longer they are breastfed, the greater the benefit (higher IQ is a dose response)

You can still nurse her in the mornings, when you come home from work, and before bed. She still may need it emotionally, since right now it meets both nutritional and emotional needs.

If you do wean, do it slowly, replacing one feeding at a time for a period of time, and usually leaving morning and night feedings until last.

Try different sippy cups, try them often. Let her experiment and play. Let her get wet. She will catch on.

Also, some children at this age will only eat solids during the day and wait for mom to get home to nurse a bunch. This is fine, and nutritionally sound. She may feed again before bed and in the morning. She can get breastmilk smoothies at her daycare provider (scrape frozen breasmilk much like an italian icee) so it can be spoonfed.

It doesn't have to be all or nothing. She can still continue to benefit from your milk. Your milk continues to be an excellent source of nutrition for years, it doesn't magically change at 12 months (other than the typical changing to meet your baby's needs).

Take your time with weaning. Contact your local La Leche League. They likely have books you can borrow from them that are all about the weaning process. www.llli.org

Good luck!

Hello!

I had to wean my eleven month old rather suddenly due to my health issues. He wouldn't take bottles or formula, both were an insult to him. Fortunately, after going through no less than a dozen different bottles/nipples, we stumbled across this feeding system at Babies-R-Us for six bucks: www.podee.com . Just like one of the other responses, my son would not tip his head back for a regular bottle and/or sippy cup. This system saved us a lot of misery. And, he likes the ready-to-feed formula, cold from the refrigerator. (Took us a long time to figure out that trying to trick him into thinking it was breastmilk was not going to work.)

Good Luck!
D.

My daughter is 14 month. I wanted to wean her and get her off the bottle too. She does okay with sippy cups, but doesn't like to tip it back. I got her a Nuby No-Leak Straw Sippy cup and she LOVES it. It's a pain to clean and put together, but the fact that it works great for her is worth it for me. They sell them at Target and BabiesRus. I would recommend trying it. Also, she still hates cows milk. I've tried everything and finally gave up. She eats lots of cheese so she's getting calcium. I make sure that when I give her juice (which I water down a lot) that it has vitamins in it too. As far as weaning, I decided not to cold-turkey her after reading reviews on here. I weaned her off the middle of the night feeds first and then the daytime feeds. I got her down to the following times: 6am, 10am, 6pm, and 10pm. Over the last month, I've been able to cut out the 10am and 10pm fed. So now it's basically once in the morning and once in the evening. I haven't been engorged at all. She hasn't complained too much. She'll cry a little bit when she asks for breast milk and I tell her "not now." Over the last month, she's switched from asking for breast milk all the time to asking for juice. Also, she's been sick twice since I started weaning, so I'm thankful that she was still able to get some breast milk to help her fight the illness. If your daughter is going to a daycare when you're going back to work, be prepared for her to get sick.

Good luck.

I weaned my son at 14 months and he had never had a bottle more than a few times, and that was from someone other than me. He refused the bottle when I offered it and I didn't push the matter. I figured it was one less thing to have to take away from him later.
We went straight to sippy cups and yes it took forever for him to drink milk from one! I don't think he had more than a few ounces of milk a day for about 2 months. I supplemented with yogurt and cheese and other calcium rich foods.
The cup he liked most was one of the straw cups. It had handles on both sides so was very easy for him to hold. My daughter - 11 months - has now claimed that cup as hers!!!
Good luck and remember that once your milk is gone she will be more willing to drink from that cup.

Neither of my boys would ever take a bottle. We moved from nursing right to the straw cups...I love the Playtex Sport kind. I took away one feeding per week, until it was done. They both loved nursing, and I was worried, but tired! So, I stuck to it, and it was fine for both boys. They both began to eat much more "real" food. Neither really drink too much milk. Good Luck! It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

Hi there,

I did the same thing, exclusively BF without bottles, my baby girl did take a sippy cup, but not often and wasn't such a great thing for her. I started weaning her at 11 months so that I could be done nursing on her 1st bday. I slowly replaced a nursing a week or something to that effect. I had bought some straw cups, My First Straw Cup, search it online, is great for lil ones. I had her using those since about 9 months. I started giving her whole milk at 11 mo as well, so the transition would be that much easier.
Hold one end of the straw with your finger once you get milk in it, then let her suck out the milk from the other end. Doing that a couple times gives her the idea...then she should suck on the straw herself. They are also better for speech, muscle development.
The sooner you cut out a nursing and replace it woth milk or a different drinking source and cup, the easier it will be to get her weaned completely. My last nursing time was the morning, that was the one she drank more from anyhow. On the day that I was finished and wouldn't nurse her in the morning, Daddy took her and fed her milk to her in her cup, she expected to get nursed from me. So that made the morning transition easier as well. You may want to try it on the weekends so that Daddy can help out!

Send me a mssg if you would like any other advice that I did to wean my daughter if you would like!
Good luck and CONGRATZ to you for nursing for 1 year! Way to be selfless!!! :-)

Hi C.,

My son (15mo) is also exclusively breastfed but I did manage to get him to take a cup when he was about 9mo. The way I figured it was that he didn't like tilting his head back to drink since he wasn't used to that posture. So what I did was I got him one of those cups with a straw built in. I showed him how to use it and I put cool water in it (it was summer) and he really took to it. Maybe you could try one of those cups with some warmed breastmilk in it and see how she does. Once she's comfortable with the cup, you can change liquids. My son now drinks water (his fav), juice and whole milk out of one of these straw cups.

Good luck!