Transitioning from Breastfeeding to Homogenized Milk

I thought I would write about how I weaned my daughter from breastfeeding.

Here is a little background…  At around 11 months, I had to go back to work, and transition my little to daycare.  I was also in a situation where I couldn’t really pump (I always got plugged ducts) so I couldn’t do that in the daytime.  I also have the protein where my milk doesn’t freeze without the bitter taste (very annoying).  I should  mention that starting around 6-8weeks we did introduce a breastmilk bottle and whenever I needed hubby to put her to bed she would take the bottle, but it was occasional.  So mostly breastfed up until then.  We also used the Avent natural bottles.
I had done a bit of research and didn’t find much on weaning from breastfeeding to homogenized milk, only to formula or bottles in general so it was a bit of trial and error.  I first thought I’d try to get her onto milk, and gave her a 75%breastmilk bottle with 25% homogenized.  She wouldn’t have any of it.   We tried a few times, hubby, me, no go.  So then I said well lets get her to just like milk, and started to put it into the sippy cup (she had been having sippy cup with water since around 6 months). And I was a little nervous about this because I was told to introduce it at 12 months (this was almost 11), but when I spoke to a nutritionist, she said that until 9-12 months they can have a hard time breaking down the proteins, and that as long as she does ok that was it’s close enough and fine, definitely not worth trying to get her onto formula for a month.   She didn’t take to the milk right away and I was worried.  A sip here and there, but after a week a little more, and another week she was drinking it well, so basically, get them to like the milk first.

Once she was onto that I eventually tried a 100% milk bottle first (I figured well, its better than throwing out breastmilk!) and she slowly took to it.   I eventually switched to milk bottles for naps in the day, and nursing at bedtime and overnight.   This I could easily continue when she was at daycare, and wouldn’t have engorgement on Mondays!

Now… a little aside about warming vs. cold bottle of milk.  When she was struggling with the milk bottle, I said well I might as well get her used to a cold bottle so I’m not into warming up bottles in the middle of the night.  Good idea right?  Well for about 2 weeks, when we started switching to a milk bottle for bedtime, I did the cold bottle, and she would drink a few sips/half an ounce to maybe 2 on a good night. And she might fuss a few times and need to be resettled before she went to sleep.   And at this time she also got a bad cold and I attributed her fussiness to that.  Well one day the lightbulb went on and I was like, let’s try a warm bottle – pow!  She loves it, drank 2-3 ounces.  SO much better.  So sure, try a cold one and you might get lucky but if your babe likes hot milk, then a warm bottle before bed is totally worth it.  She is now up to 4-5oz and sleeps through the night most nights, well if you count 5am through the night…

Around warm up time I also cut out the night nursing feed and fully weaned.  I bought a Munchkin quick warmer (before bed we use a cup of hot water for about 20 minutes) and always had a bottle in the fridge ready to go.  At the same time daycare started cutting out one of her naps.  All this combined to she hasn’t woken up at night in 2 weeks!  Some/all may be coincidence, as we all know there is no science in parenting… but maybe this will help give you some ideas to try!