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Weaning :(


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This post can be moved if it's in the wrong category. I'm not currently doing a Whole30, but still practicing most of the principles.

For health reasons, I might have to wean my 12 mo old daughter soon. I may need to start a medication that would be passed through my milk. I am seeing my doctor again in January to discuss, but should I need this medication, I'd get the Rx then and have to start it relatively shortly afterward. So she'd be 13.5 months old.

I'm pretty sad, and I'm afraid this is going to be really hard for both of us. I'm already practicing "don't offer, don't refuse," just in case. So far, she still nurses 3x per day during the work week with one bottle of expressed milk, and 4x on the weekends. Basically 4 feedings per day of milk. So I guess I have two questions:

1) If I do have to wean her, does she really NEED some sort of milk (cow or formula) at this age, or can I just put her fully on solids?

2) How much water should a ~13 month old be drinking? I imagine she gets much of her hydration from breastmilk now. I personally sip water throughout the day, but my daughter is delightfully messy and likes to spit water all over herself, so we don't really give it to her when she's not in the high chair with a bib on. We give a sippy cup of water with solid food meals, but she never drinks much of it.

Thanks!

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I weaned my oldest at 13 months and she just upped her regular food intake when the BM stopped...there is no NEED for cows milk, neither of my kids have drank that. I gave them homemade almond milk for awhile but the more read and learn the more I realize they don't need that nutritionally considering their very very awesome diet.

You are correct that most of her hydration now comes from BM. What we do for our girls is they have a sippy of water available to them at all times so whenever they want a sip they take one. She might not be interested in the sippy now but when that is her only source of hydration my guess is that she will be much more interested in it. We have some good straw sippies with tight lids (neither could ever get the hang of the tilt to drink cups). Just make sure the cup is always full and she will know how much to drink (I would guess they drink about 2 cups of water over the course of an average day).

Good luck, I know how hard weaning can be on mama and baby.

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Have you checked the medication guides the doctor/pharmacist who works with La Leche League puts out? It's been so long since I did this that I forget his name. But if you call your local LLL leader you should be able to get the link to his info. And your LLL library might have the most recent edition of his book. Basically, I would suggest researching the medication thoroughly to determine if it is truly necessary to wean due to taking it. Almost nobody does the proper kind of research to make these determinations, and LLL is the way to go to find out.

If you do truly need to wean, then LLL is also a great resource - and Mjam has great ideas too.

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Thanks ladies. Amy, thanks for that suggestion. I looked the book up on Amazon and searched for the medication and it is listed as L4, which is "Possibly Hazardous: There is positive evidence of risk to a breastfed infant or to breastmilk production, but the benefits of use in breastfeeding mothers may be acceptable despite the risk to the infant." :( Since she's over a year old, I'd rather just wean her than take any risks, I think.

I'm glad to hear someone say that they didn't give their baby cow's milk or formula after weaning at this age. I'm thinking I will go the same route, straight to 100% solids. We're going to try to get some practice with the sippy cup here in the next few weeks, too.

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

UPDATE: I called the Infant Risk center directly and spoke to someone there. As it turns out, the medication is listed as L4 because of a risk to milk supply, NOT risk to the nursing baby. So I didn't have to wean her! She did seem frustrated while nursing when I first started the meds, which is how she would act while going through a growth spurt before my supply caught up. But everything seems fine now!

Thanks for all the advice!

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