Q&A on weaning

My new book, ‘Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding: a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents’, is out today! 

To celebrate, in this episode I’ll be answering more of your weaning questions from Instagram. 

And exclusively for this episode, you can get 25% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com. Add the code STBPR25 at checkout to get 25% off.

Follow me on Twitter @MakesMilk and on Instagram  @emmapickettibclc or find out more on my website www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com

Questions answered in this episode - 

02:59 How do I handle my emotions when I'm so scared to try and wean, but I'm so desperate? 

07:01 What are typical weaning symptoms for a parent?

11:04 Please cover stopping feeding to sleep as part of the weaning process.

23:45 More booby monster weaning please! How do you stop when the language skills and all the communication isn't there?

34:48 Talk about the impact of weaning on the emotional health of the child.

41:09 Is there any evidence that night weaning will promote babies sleeping through the night?

46:46 How do you occasionally stop the older toddler from nursing to sleep when it's all they've ever known? And how do you involve the non -breastfeeding partner in making the child fall asleep?

49:10 I've noticed a correlation between the moments when I tried to hold a breastfeeding boundary with my two year old and her rejecting me in favour of her dad. On reflection, this seems logical, she feels rejected in some way. But she's rejecting me and I wondered if this was common?

52:00 How do I encourage my toddler to drink water or milk from a cup, not from me?

54:28 Advice for weaning the feed before their nap due to returning to work because I'm not going to be there to feed them to sleep?

59:21 How do you stop breastfeeding a baby if they're 11 months old, and they don't have any other comforter or dummy and they've refused a bottle?

1:01:40 Is it possible, is it fair, to keep feeding to sleep and feeding for certain day feeds, and to stop feeding overnight?

1:05:12 Do you have any advice on avoiding mastitis or painfully full breasts? I find that I'm quite uncomfortable on the few occasions we've been apart for 24 hours, so not sure how I'll go on once I start weaning.

1:06:55 I'd love to hear about weaning and timing with the transition of moving their child to their own bed.

1:09:08 Is there an ideal order when it comes to potty training and weaning?

Resources mentioned - 

Guided meditation for bedtime - https://www.emmapickettbreastfeedingsupport.com/guided-visualisation

Effect of Current Breastfeeding on Sleep Patterns in Infants from Asia Pacific Region study

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22616943/

Sleep study - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36265054/

This podcast is presented by Emma Pickett IBCLC, and produced by Emily Crosby Media.

Transcript

Hi. I'm Emma Pickett, and I'm a lactation consultant from London. When I first started calling myself Makes Milk, that was my superpower at the time, because I was breastfeeding my own two children. And now I'm helping families on their journey. I want your feeding journey to work for you from the very beginning to the very end. And I'm big on making sure parents get support at the end to join me for conversations on how breastfeeding is amazing. And also, sometimes really, really hard. We'll look honestly and openly about that process of making milk. And of course, breastfeeding and chest feeding are a lot more than just making milk.  

00:48

Do do do! That's my little fanfare noise, which is to celebrate the fact that today on the 21st of February 2024, my new book is released. That's a book called Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding, a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents. I genuinely have written all for those all those audiences, and I think I've pulled it off. Hopefully, it's going to help you think about whether weaning is right for you, and how to go about it on a practical level, and also how to support somebody else to go about it. You can get 25% off the purchase price with a code that I'm only going to share in this episode. It's valid for one month from today. Go to the Jessica Kingsley press UK website, which is uk.jkp.com. You can search for my name Emma Pickett with two T's and use the code STBPR25. So Silly Tigers Burp Pretty Regularly 25. And if you put in STBPR25, you'll get 25% of the purchase price just for today. And if you do buy the book, I am very grateful. Come and join me on Instagram as well. Let's continue the conversation. Let's get you ending breastfeeding in a way that feels right for you. And support your journey as a professional if you're working families to do that. 

02:14

So to celebrate my book coming out today, we're going to do another episode on weaning. And I'm going to answer some of your questions that have come up through Instagram that have come up as a response to some of my previous episodes, I'm never going to stop talking about weaning, as a lactation consultant, it is always going to be a big part of my practice, I will never stop talking about it in my podcasts. And on my Instagram and in social media. It's a big part of my private practice with clients, I have a lot of clients that I'm working with to help them bring their breastfeeding journeys to a close. So we've got lots more episodes on weaning to come. But today I'm going to cover a few different topics because these are the questions in the front of your mind. And thank you very much to those of you who did submit them when I put out that request on Instagram. 

02:55

Okay, I love this first question. How do I handle my emotions when I'm so scared to try and wean, but I'm so desperate? You can just feel the emotion in that question. It is really scary to imagine weaning when breastfeeding your child has been at the heart of your parenting experience for so long. It is genuinely terrifying to imagine removing that tool and having to support them to sleep without it having to support them when they're dysregulated. Without it, what do you do when they're ill? What do you do if they've got a virus and a high temperature and it's two o'clock in the morning and they're beside themselves and you're breastfeeding any more to imagine what that world looks like, is really scary. And you have my full empathy and feeling that way whoever this question was, it is frightening. And even though around you in the world, there are 1000s and millions of people parenting without breastfeeding, it can be very hard to imagine that you will one day parent without breastfeeding. If you're doing parent led weaning, you're essentially taking out a tool from your toolbox, the most valuable multi tool and you were putting it away forever. And that's pretty frightening. So I would just say if you're very overwhelmed by feeling scared, you really do need to take care to make sure you're making this decision for the right reasons. So I would signpost you back to my episode on making the decision to win. Let's really check that when you say you're desperate. That is actually coming from a place where weaning from breastfeeding is going to solve those issues and help you to get to a better place. Because if you are struggling, it could be that you're overwhelmed because you're trying to work full time and care for a very needy toddler. You might have a high needs toddler or preschooler on older nursling is there something else going on with your child's sleep? Is there something else going on with your child's feelings around solid food? Has someone told you you have to wean? Have you got pressure from other people? You know, the whole checklist? Let's just really really go through that because whoever you work with cannot take away that fear, nobody can give you guarantees that life without breastfeeding is going to be super easy and all your problems are going to be solved. So you really do ideally want to enter the weaning relationship and the weaning phase with a sense of excited anticipation, you should have that feeling of, I'm really looking forward to not breastfeeding anymore. I'm really looking forward to that. So there's not to say that we completely eliminate the fear, there's always going to be a little bit of fear there. But if you don't have any of that excitement and anticipation, maybe you do need to check your decision to wane a little bit more carefully. I would say that things that are the things that matter to us are scary things that are important or frightening. So if you're going into weaning feeling a bit nervous and a bit scared, that doesn't necessarily mean that this is the wrong decision. It's normal to be worried about an unknown future, and normal to be worried about what life looks like without breastfeeding. I would suggest that you work with somebody I'm not saying it has to be me. There are lots of lactation consultants out there who will sit alongside you during your breastfeeding journey, you need some emotional support. It may be that it isn't a paid professional, it may be that you can find a volunteer in your local area. It may be that calling a helpline and having one really meaty conversation helps give you some tools and some confidence to enter this waiting process. It may be that you find a friend, it may be that you find an online friend who's also in the same phase themselves. How do you handle your emotions? You don't go through this alone, you find support. You give yourself space, you move slowly. weaning is not a click your fingers, you're done. You're weaned. It's a step by step gradual journey in one direction, you can pause at any point in that journey. Get yourself informed. Obviously, I've been banging on about my book in the last five minutes, my book will hopefully help you feel informed my Instagram account hopefully will help you as well. Get informed, find support. Take your time, those are my messages to answer that question. 

07:01

Next question says, what are typical weaning symptoms for a parent? This particular person says, I was shocked at how terrible I felt emotionally. I also had other symptoms like insomnia and feeling very wired. So what are typical winning symptoms as is so often the case, when we're talking about infant feeding, there is a lot of normal, there's a big range, I have worked with many parents who have experienced absolutely no weaning symptoms at all. Zero, nothing. They have ended breastfeeding, and they have not had any effects. And they are completely as normal, they feel like themselves, there has been no issue at all. So when we talk about winning blues or the effects of winning, I don't want you to think that this is absolutely universal, and is 100% guaranteed that you are going to struggle because that is not actually the case. In some ways, it would be easier if we could make guarantees that everybody reacted the same way. But we can't. Having said that there are a group of people who do find that when they end breastfeeding, they are hit by what we could call the weaning blues is that word blues a little bit dismissive. Sometimes it may be it is a bit lightening and suggesting it's not a serious thing. It is effectively a weaning depression, for some people, it can feel tough. And chances are that something to do with the hormonal shift, you're used to getting those surges of oxytocin regularly, every time you fed, that oxytocin is now not happening. And it's very likely that the body is missing that. So there's something going on hormonally, very likely. I think we should also also have to acknowledge that for some people, we're saying goodbye to a phase of parenting, we're saying goodbye to a phase of parenting that really mattered a lot. It might have been very much wrapped up in your definition of who you are, as a parent, to say goodbye to that. To see your child not needing you as much, can also feel tough. So there's some hormonal stuff, and there's some situational stuff that are coming together. In terms of physical symptoms, I have come across people who as well as feeling quite low, also feel feelings of rage and anger, they may feel angry towards partners, they may feel they don't have as much patience as they were expecting, once they've ended breastfeeding, insomnia, not uncommon. So oxytocin, which is also helping you to feel that sense of bliss and calm and pleasure during the day. It's also a sedative. So when we are regularly feeding at night, when we feed our child, they're getting oxytocin and we are also getting oxytocin in our bloodstream as well. So when we wake to feed the oxytocin helps us to get back to sleep quickly. So what we find when we wean, is that sometimes parents are waking and then struggling to get back to sleep again, because they're missing out on that shot of oxytocin. So a phase of disrupted sleep for you ironically, because you might have even weaned to try and get more sleep. A phase of disrupted sleep on weaning is not unusual. Feeling very wired. Yeah, wired is a word I probably don't have a definition for but for It's not unusual just to feel a bit weird and a bit strange, you know, your hormones are settling, you've got a different life ahead of you a different relationship with your child. This is a period of adjustment. And if you are feeling the impact of weaning, and it's really getting tough, do reach out for help. Obviously, in the extreme end, you perhaps do need to speak to a mental health professional will check in with your GP. But certainly to be prepared for some impacts of weaning a sensible physical symptoms, I have worked with people that have felt nauseous, I worked with one mum who actually felt quite sick during the day and that we, you know, we can't necessarily say 100% That was to do with weaning, but she felt that was an impact. Things like hair loss and stuff. We don't have evidence around that. So I'm, I'm quite nervous when people talk about other physical issues, because there's so many different things that can be causing physical symptoms, we have to be a bit careful about labelling it and putting it on weaning. But certainly the the weaning depression, the winning blues, I think university we're accepting that that is an experience for many parents. 

11:04

Next question says, Please cover stopping feeding to sleep as part of the weaning process. I would refer you back to my episode on night weaning, where I sort of took you through a strategy, I am not saying that the descriptions that I give all the suggestions I give are necessarily the only way to do this. But let's imagine I'm talking to you, you're a new client, you are currently feeding your three year old to sleep. And you would like to stop doing that and eventually move towards night weaning. So in that situation, it's going to be different for every child. Let's imagine we're talking about a three year old who is fairly verbal, and is able to understand concepts like sleeping, and nighttime and daytime. So in that situation, I would want to be explicit and explain that things are going to be changing because let's say you're you're call yourself mummy. Mummy's body is tired at nighttime, and babies are tired, and babies need a bit more sleep at nighttime. So Mummy's going to help you to have sleep at nighttime without always having boobie to help you get to sleep now boobie will still be there. And we can hold boobie, and we can say hello to baby. And sometimes we might be able to have some milk, but we're not going to have milk, every time we fall asleep, we're going to let milk have a little bit of a rest sometimes. So you would be explicit about that, and you'd explain that that's going to be happening and changing, then you would go to habit stacking. So habit stacking my favourite word, I'd signpost you to Lindsay hook ways resources, her books and her Instagram. So habit stacking essentially means that if your child has been dependent on one sleep association, they've always historically fed on the breast to get to sleep, we want them to have a slightly more diversified familiarity, and some other associations with the process of falling asleep. So we don't want them to think breastfeeding is the only way I can get to sleep. I literally can't do it any other way. I need this, I have to have this. We want them to think, Oh, when I go to sleep, yes, I have some milk. But then milk stops, and Mummy cuddles me. You know, daddy tells me a story, whatever is going to be happening. We want them to have a sense that the breastfeeding is not absolutely vital for them to be able to fall asleep because if they fall asleep on the breast, at the beginning of the night, they're much more likely to have that desperate desire to want to feed to sleep throughout the night. And we'll talk about that in a minute. And one of the other questions. So habit stacking means picking a method that you like, that you can see yourself doing for an extended period of time because you could be doing this other habit for several weeks or several months, once breastfeeding has gone away and initially layered on top of the breastfeeding. So first step then is to make it clear to your child that you're going to help them fall asleep without boobie being in their mouth. And you're going to maybe together choose what will help them to fall asleep at bedtime. So it's not inappropriate for a child who's verbal and three, to say, what would you like to do? Would you like me to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star which I've been singing when you were a little baby? Would you like me to tell a story about your favourite animals or your favourite characters? Would you like us to listen to some music together? Do you want some cuddles? Do you want me to pat you on your back like people do at nursery? This isn't all by a massive list. By the way, you're breaking this up in a slightly more age appropriate, simplified conversation. But essentially you may find that they've got some ideas and roleplay during the day is a great way to explore some of these ideas. So let's play bedtimes let's pretend that Barbie is going to sleep now. What shall we do after booby to help you get to sleep?. Let's practice some different things. Let's have these other teddies. What does this teddy want to help them get to sleep? Does this teddy like it when we pat their back, maybe we can tell this teddy a story about animals in the jungle falling asleep. So hopefully together, you're gonna come up with some sort of ideas around what other habit stacking techniques you could use at bedtime. And then while you are breastfeeding, you're going to begin to layer on this other habit that you've chosen. Now, when I say it's something that you need to not mind doing, I'm really serious because if you loathe singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star 20 times in a row, that is not the method you should be pushing for. I'm quite a fan at this age group of the guided meditation type model. So using your voice to be purposely soporific. gently, slowly, you're not telling an exciting story with cool sound effects. You're telling a gentle, slow story about we're walking through the jungle, and Hazel is walking with mommy, and we're looking at all the animals and the animals are starting to fall asleep. And look, there's a tiger falling asleep, and there's a tiger baby falling asleep. And there's a giraffe beginning to fall asleep and curling their neck up. And I'm not gonna do the whole story, but you get the idea. So your voice is slow and gentle. They're part of the story, their favourite animals are part of the story. And so you might even say at bath time, you know, who should we have in the story tonight? Who should we have at sleepy story? Should we have a story about the animals that live in the jungle? Should we have a story about the animals that live on the farm? Or should we have a story about flying in the sky and you know, flying over the beach, whatever it is that you think they might be into. So getting their their input in this process is going to help a little bit as well. And you're making it clear to them at the beginning that boob is not going anywhere. We're not losing boobie, we're just practising falling asleep at the end without baby. And you do that habit stacking, you layer it on top of the breastfeeding. And then you're going to be eventually after at least a couple of weeks of embedding this new habit, you're going to be taking them off. Now. I'm not advocating taking them off when they're drowsy and hoping they won't notice. So there are practitioners that talk about that I'm fairly sure historically, I've talked about that in the past, at this age group, I just don't think it's going to work. The chances are that if you do that they're not actually part of this process. And they're not understanding what's happening, we actually want them to be a partner in this process. So you would be saying to your three year old, okay, babies are sleeping now. Let's just do cuddle time now. And then you continue the story while you're cuddling them. So the habit, the new habit that you've established over the last couple of weeks, is layered on top of the breastfeeding and then it continues into the knock breastfeeding. On your child's had those hormones they've had that feed. You know, you're there now cuddling alongside them continuing the habit that you've been establishing for at least a couple of weeks, ideally even longer than that. If you want an example of a guided meditation on the resources page, on my website, I have a guided meditation recorded by somebody called Nehanda Truscott-Reid for this exact purpose, she's got a gorgeous voice. And she gives a model of how you can use your voice to help your child fall asleep. And you could take that example and create your own in your own language, literally and metaphorically. And you may even want to record it. So I am quite a fan of recording different stories. Because sometimes you've had a really rough day at work, you do not have the energy to tell a superduper wonderful story about visiting polar bears on the North Pole. So in on your phone, I would have four or five recorded files. And you can say, What should we listen to tonight, while we have baby? What should we listen to for our sleepy story? So the getting used to your voice? Now I'm talking about your voice? Because I do think we have to acknowledge here that this is this is still co regulation. So if you come to me and say, oh, yeah, I've been doing habit stacking forever, you know, we've always got the white noise machine. You know, we listened to a CD of lullabies. That's not you, that's not co regulation. If we're going to take breastfeeding away, I think we need to acknowledge that your child still wants some co regulation from you. And to be honest, if you've had white noise since the beginning, it's sort of faded into the background. It's the equivalent of wallpaper at this point. And we're asking the child to be consciously aware that things are changing, and they're part of that process. This can also be a time to introduce a transitional object. Most breastfeeding three year olds don't give a flying hoot about a cuddly toy. They're not particularly attached to a teddy or anything else. But you might for the first time start to introduce somebody and explicitly say, let's get you a cuddly toy, a friend to help you when babies are sleeping. Let's choose a bunny. Maybe it's milk coloured, let's call it milky bunny. Let's explicitly have a toy to help you in this process. So you are habit stacking, you're creating that new method that they have ideally become part of. And they've chosen as well, you are explicitly talking about the fact that you are going to teach them to fall asleep without the breast, and they are left awake at the end of the breastfeed, they know they're awake, they know that breastfeeding is finished, and then you're moving on to the different settling. So that's how I would break feeding to sleep for a three year old, for a much younger child, who perhaps isn't able to be part of that process, and certainly isn't able to participate in a discussion about what methods they might like, I would still be using habit stacking. So you're not going to be able to sit down and say, Hey, Bob, let's talk about what methods might work, you're going to have to choose something yourself, choose something that you think will appeal to them. And again, it still could be your voice, it still could be you telling a story or telling a guided meditation, you're not going to explicitly say to them, I am trying to teach you to fall asleep without the breast because that has no meaning to a 14 month old. But you are going to instead embed this new habit stacking method, you're going to embed it probably going to take longer than two weeks, you want it to be for them, the new way they fall asleep, they know that they fall asleep to this particular habit that you're going to have established, then at that point, I would have a go at detaching them. It's still not the drowsy business, because I still think that's going to be a battle, you're still taking them off when they're relatively awake. But hopefully, and I believe this is the case, because you have embedded that new habit, they are going to tolerate being taken off, because they feel safe in that moment with that continuation of the habit that you've established. And you will then if they get very distressed and dysregulated, you might allow them to attach again, you might then have another note taking them off, you might possibly even as young as 14 months use language like sleeping time now you'd be sleeping, mommy's here, cuddle time, and see if you can use their voice to regulate them and settle them. So they're awake at the point of coming off the breast. And you are settling them with that habit stacking method that you have established over time. And I do advocate that it is the breastfeeding parent or the chest feeding parent that takes the lead on this. If you've listened to my materials before, you'll know that I don't believe that we win by removing ourselves entirely and getting another adult to do this. Because if that's what we do, we're not becoming upskilled ourselves, we're not learning how to parent our children without breastfeeding. And they're feeling that sense of entire loss. I'm not saying it's never appropriate for another parent to do bedtimes. I'm a big fan of actually, in breastfeeding families, the non breastfeeding parent should be able to also do bedtimes with their own set of skills. But I don't think the moment of weaning is the moment to introduce that for the first time, we want your child to know that they are not losing you entirely. So you are going to be practising this habit stacking method. If your child gets dysregulated, you're going to work on your skills to be able to settle them in different ways. And it's going to take a bit of time, it's going to take some time to for your child to feel safe with that new habit stacking method. And if it doesn't work, if they get really dysregulated. And they really don't seem to be settling. Let's just take a moment to think about okay, what's happening with sleep pressure. If this child is taking 40 minutes to fall asleep, if they're not drifting off to the sound of your voice. Is it possible that maybe you need to have a think about what's happening with nap time? What's happening with bedtime? Could there be something going on with sleep pressure? And actually the answer is about adjusting sleep pressure rather than thinking you've done something wrong with the habit stacking. I will keep coming back to the subject. We'll do more talking about night weaning, and I'll do another whole episode on night winning in the future. 

23:45

Okay, so this next question, I've sort of combined three questions into one. I love this first one. This one just says more booby monster suggestions, please! So I did my episode on weaning a booby monster. And this person just says gonna have some more. I will try and do that for you for sure. Next question says how do you stop when the language skills and all the communication isn't there? I'm particularly thinking about night weaning, my 17 month old would not understand a book or language around baby sleeping, the strategy of rubbing their back was working, but now results in a screaming meltdown. And the next person says how do you gently when a 13 month old when the advice is about preparing them and using explanations in using books etc. This won't work as she doesn't yet have the language to understand. So let's just do a little bit of a drill down on on weaning booby monsters that are pre verbal and not speaking and maybe don't have the communication skills to fully understand what's going on. So in this population, I'm talking about children who are you know, maybe between 12 and 18 months. I sometimes use the term love bombing now I know love bombing is often used in a toxic way and refers to toxic relationship But there is actually a book called love bombing that refers to it in a parenting context in a in a positive way. So we want to make sure that our child's love cup is completely filled. We also want to look at what's happening in day to day life and make sure that they have what I call communication opportunities. So you may have heard me talking about this before, if you are 14 months old, and you cannot speak, and you really can't get a lot understood beyond simple pointing. If you have nailed, making a request for breastfeeding, and having that request met, it feels amazing. You know, you might have a little milk sign language, or your little word that means milk, you look your parent in the eye, you request milk, they know what you mean, they lift up your top, you get to breastfeed, that is amazing. And to lose that is potentially devastating. Because that's the one thing that you knew you could make happen, and you felt really empowered, and you had agency over your world. And it felt superduper. Amazing. So if we're going to take that out of our child's life, we have got to first add in some other ways for them to feel powerful, and specifically, give them some other opportunities to feel that buzz of communication success. So you want to make sure that in the day, they can ask for other things. And I'm talking about, you know, 14 1516 month olds here rather than the the 11 month old situation. In these episodes, I don't often talk about weaning under 12 months, because there are a huge, there's a huge range of experience at that age. And we've got to be a lot more careful about nutritional responsibilities. So I haven't specifically addressed that in many of my winning episodes, not to say I won't come to it at some point. But I do acknowledge that a lot of the information I'm giving here is not for you, if you're winning below 12 months, but I'm talking here about nonverbal, early toddlers 14 1516 months, we want to make sure that they can ask for other things. So I would be literally looking around your day to day life and saying, what are their favourite games? What are their favourite toys? What lights them up? How can I make sure they can ask for those things. So if we're in the in the sitting room at three o'clock in the afternoon, and I'm on my phone for a couple of minutes, and they want my attention, and they want to do something with me, and they want to feel connected to me, what are the alternatives, other than asking for a breastfeed? So it may be for example, that you need to get some Polaroid pictures and take Polaroids of their favourite games, their favourite snacks, their favourite cup, and physically put them on the wall, you know, print out some pictures from your phone, make a display on the wall, which is the display for pointing. So literally, this is where your kid can come up and point at the book that they want you to read. They can point at the game they want you to play. And they'll get that communication buzz because you'll say, Oh, you're pointing it at the tower, you want us to go and build a cup tower. Let's go and do it. They'll get that rush of Whoo, my communication works, I can make this happen. Now we're gonna go and play with our tower or now we're gonna go and play with the little cars that I love to play with. Because how else can your 14 year old say, hey, I want you, I need you and I want you. If all they've got at their disposal as a request for breastfeeding, the request for breastfeeding is going to become more and more significant to them. And if you want to eventually win that child, you've got to give them those other asks. So we also want to make sure that they feel powerful over their world, they have agency you're giving them choices. Now um, have a listen to my episode where I interview Shelly Clark, when we talked about breastfeeding boundaries. We talked there about different ways to connect with play. And power reversal play is really useful at this point. So before we even talk about the weaning, we've got to add in all this other stuff. First, we want the child to feel they can ask for you they can have that communication buzz, they can specifically ask for a drink of water. I have sometimes work with clients where the only time a child gets a drink is when they will want to breastfeed or at mealtime. So check, there's a cup around check the child can use it independently. So they're not simply asking for breastfeeds because they're thirsty. So you've done all that work to add in all these extra offers, then I would just double check that you're there with offering snacks and drinks during the day. So you want to pre offer rather than wait for someone to be hungry. So if you're not someone who's been scheduling in snacks, because Breastfeeding has been on the table, you may have to the first time say right, an hour and a half after every meal. I'm going to sit down and we're going to have some snacks I'm going to model eating too. I want to reduce breastfeeding in the day. So before I can do that, I've got to make sure that I'm definitely filling up their not just their love cup but their nutrition and thirst cup as well. So you're scheduling in some snacks, you're scheduling in new forms of connective play. You're giving them opportunities to ask to connect with you You're giving them ways to feel powerful. If all that happens, I promise that the requests to breastfeed will diminish naturally. If you have filled up your child's connection with you and some of those play offers specifically are about touch, and physical contact, it is likely that the requests to breastfeed are going to naturally diminish. So this is the one age group, we're actually I am sort of talking about breastfeeding. By stealth, I am sort of talking about breastfeeding without communication. Now, crucially, I'm not saying that we're waiting by stealth by leaving the house, I'm not saying we spend all day in the park. I'm not saying the answer to this is to spend the whole time and soft play for five days. And then you're weaned, because if you do that, you're not practising, meeting the needs at home. And you're also not giving them that chance to get that communication buzz, and you aren't giving them that chance to have agency, you want to practice this in the living room with their favourite toys around them. That's how we're going to practice filling their cup in other ways. You can't necessarily read books and expect them to fully understand, but we mustn't assume that a child of 17 months can't understand some of the concepts they're absorbing through a book. So I would still be reading some books for 17 month olds, there's a book called A time to wean some of the really good breastfeeding and weaning books, unfortunately, we're out of print and a time to wean is out of print as well. But you can see copies of it around for sale secondhand. A time to weigh in is good for the younger weaning toddler. So it's about different animals. Here's a little kitten. And when the kitten was a tiny baby, it just nursed and now it's an older kitten. It connects with mommy in other ways, and can play and run and jump and play all these other games. Here's a little polar bear, when polar bear was a tiny bear cub, they nursed all day long. Now they do X Y Zed with mommy polar bear. So you go through all these different animals. And it essentially says, we diversify what we do with our mommies and our breastfeeding parents as we get older, and it ends with a human. When human baby was tiny, they just breastfed. Now they get older we do we run and jump and we play. And these are all the ways we connect with mommy. So that book is sort of going alongside what you are literally doing, which is diversifying your the way you play with your child. And it's not unusual to get to sort of 15/16 months and realise, actually hang on, I'm probably doing what we were doing at 10 months, we've got pretty much the same toys, we're doing roughly the same things, you just want a bit of a refresh, you want to just check that you're beginning to offer some role play, you're beginning to offer them the opportunity to have more agency of what they choose. And it's worth at this stage, especially if you want to win, just sitting down and really thinking about your play at home and what's happening with play at home. It's not unusual for parents that work part time to find that when they're home with their child breastfeeding massively escalates. And that's because your if your child's been in daycare, or a nursery, they are used to high levels of stimulation, they're used to a lot of different toys, structured play sessions being directed and supported by adults who are trained to support them on to the next play activity. It's a very different structure. And when they're home with you, first of all, they might actually just be a bit tired. But also, they may not literally know how to move from one activity to the next. And that transition between activities can be quite tough for them. And they may ask for breastfeed, because they're just a bit discombobulated. They don't know quite what to do. I'd also suggest that you have some TV habits, so it's not unusual with a young toddler, for them to associate watching TV with breastfeeding. That's what we always do when we breastfeed, try and introduce some alternatives so they can sit on your lap, for example, facing the TV, they might even sit on your shoulders and sit on the back of the sofa and have their legs over your shoulders while you watch TV. What other physical touching opportunities can you give them that are a bit fun, a bit fresh and a bit different as an alternative to breastfeeding because you may need to break some of these habits that you've always had night weaning a 17 month old, I refer to that last question, habit stacking, habit stacking, habit stacking, they won't be able to have much input on what you choose, pick a method really embed a new way to fall asleep. And then you're going to gently pull the breastfeeding out. But it's going to be easier to pull the breastfeeding out if they are absolutely feeling on top of the world because they've just had a lovely play session with you. They've just been able to communicate to you what they've wanted. They've had a great day of doing different activities and getting your focus and your attention. If you fill up their mummy cup and their parent cup, they're going to be more open to breastfeeding being removed. 

34:48

Okay, next question says talk about the impact of weaning on the emotional health of the child. Now I'm not sure why that person wants to ask that question. I'm guessing behind there may Be there's some worries that we may be impacted on the emotional health of a child negatively. Which I think is fair enough. I think we do have to acknowledge that for some children, the loss of breastfeeding is going to be the first significant loss in their life, the first time they've really lost something that's mattered to them. Which is why I'm never going to talk about winning by putting plasters on nipples or weaning by putting chilli oil or nipples or weaning by leaving a child for a weekend. I will not ever talk about that as a valid choice, because that is not acknowledging the emotional impact of the loss of breastfeeding on a child. That's why do we have to add in all these other things. First, I'm always banging on about this. The weaning is not the loss of breastfeeding. It's the transformation of your parenting relationship with your child, making sure all the other needs are being met in different ways before the breastfeeding has been taken out. So we do know that if weaning is abrupt or or not done in a way that has catered for all those other needs in different ways, your child is going to experience a sense of rupture. They may even go through phases of being angry with you, you may find them more dysregulated, they may be losing the oxytocin and possibly you're seeing behaviours like you know what we culturally label a tantrum, you might be seeing that for the first time when you've never really seen it before. We don't necessarily know whether it would have developed anyway because your child is of a certain age, but I do meet parents that feel that after weaning, their child has been more dysregulated. So I don't think we have the research to be able to pull out weaning as the variable, I don't think we have researchers who unnecessarily focused on weaning that around the natural term age or weaning toddlers or preschoolers. So I don't think we can say for certain what the impact of weaning will be on the emotional health of the child. But it is my professional experience that it can be very distressing if it's not handled carefully. So just as we experienced weaning blues from that loss of oxytocin, why would our little person not be experiencing weaning blues, they're also losing their oxytocin. That is also scary for them, too. So I think it's very likely that the same sorts of feelings that we're seeing in parents at the end of weaning, we could be finding a happening and toddlers as well. So we need to be very sensitive about the fact that weaning from breastfeeding is not the removal of a milk delivery system. It is not let's substitute human milk for cow milk. It's not let's get a bottle instead, or let's get a cup instead. It's so much more than that, we're acknowledging that breastfeeding is really about connection and communication. And it says it's love. It's a transfer of love for that child. So we're going to have to do a lot of work to make sure we can do that transfer of love in other ways before the breastfeeding goes. Talking about weaning blues, by the way, this is perhaps weaning blues for both the child and the parent, it does seem that if you move more slowly, your body is going to adjust. So I think therefore, it's probably likely that taking a bit more time over the waiting process is going to make it easier for both parties. Someone says here, how do you change your mind? If it's not going to plan? How do you manage changing your mind? I'm glad somebody's raised this because you know what weaning is a long journey. It's a spectrum. And it's absolutely fine to pause. It's absolutely fine to say at the beginning, I am going to wean by Easter. And then you get to the two weeks before and you think you know what, I'm fine. I'm fine. You know, we're down to these two or three feeds. Yes, he's still waking up once at night, but I'm okay. You know, we dropped those grizzly feeds at five o'clock in the morning, we've dropped that cluster feeding when we were watching telly. I'm actually okay where we are now. I'm okay to stop. And if you've been expressing with your child, and you've been very explicit with your child that you know, we're weaning now we're ending breastfeeding. Let's read Boobie Moon, let's read this book. Let's read that book. Breastfeeding is ending. I don't see why you can't say to your child. Actually, I wanted to stop boobie because mommy's body was tired, and I needed a rest. And that's why we were going to stop baby. But actually, I think mommy's body is okay just to have these these two feeds and just to feed at bedtime. Is it okay with you if we stop here, and you might feel a bit cross with me because we're not doing baby all the time. But mommy's okay to stop here. Now. Now, one day when you're a bit older, we might finish booby completely. But right now booby is going to stop with just two boobies. You're gonna use age appropriate language that's right for your child. But that's the gist of it. I don't see why you can't communicate to that child, your child, and I don't see why you can't stop in that moment. I would just say if you're in the middle of night weaning, and you think, nah, this is too hard. This doesn't feel right. My child is not happy to accept other co regulation methods. They're really getting very distressed. This isn't working for me. I want to pause. If you've got to change your mind at that point. I don't think it's fair to just two nights later go back to trying it And I think you do need to have a period of consolidation and reflection. Think about why things have gone pear shaped think about what's particularly hard to think about what other strategies you might need. And you're going to be looking at returning tonight, weaning, you know, in a couple of weeks, we're not a couple of days. But generally absolutely everyone has the right to change their mind, everyone has the right to pause. Multiple times, I have worked with people who have said, you know, when I first came to you, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I thought I needed to end breastfeeding entirely. You know, I've taken on board some of your suggestions, we're doing more play, we're doing other kinds of connection. I don't feel I need to wait any more. I'm okay. I'm okay to carry on. I do sometimes do groups where I have little zoom sessions. And we meet every week and we have Whatsapp group conversation alongside that. I've had an entire group where every single person was breastfeeding at the end of the of the six weeks programme. And again, through choice not necessarily because of they fail dismally, because I've had other other groups where everyone has waned. But sometimes people just go, You know what, I'm okay. I should have realised I'm okay. And this is where I'm going to be I know what I would do if I am going to win. I know where I'm going. But I'm actually fine. 

41:09

Okay, next question says, Is there any evidence that night weaning will promote babies sleeping through the night? So lots of people want an answer to that, because if I'm going to do this night weaning, which is going to potentially be quite grim, and in the short term is going to mean less sleep, not more. If I'm going to do this, I really would like some guarantees that I'm going to get more sleep at the end of it, please. very human, completely understandable. And I wish I could say certainly, please look at this research study and this research study. And this is what we know. And this is what's likely, and this is what you can expect at the end. Unfortunately, that's not necessarily the reality, children wake for comfort, and reassurance. We all rouse between sleep cycles, but when we fully wake between a sleep cycle, because we're too, we're looking to check in with our adult to feel safe. It's not often just about milk or nutrition, it's often just about that emotional reassurance. Like most lactation consultants, I will tell you that night feeds and that nutritional need for milk is completely normal for both breastfeeding and bottle feeding babies. Beyond 12 months, you  are not going to meet an IBCLC that tells you Oh, that eight month old baby doesn't need milk at night anymore. Oh, that 11 month old baby doesn't need milk at night anymore. We know that children of that age and even older will have a genuine need for milk. So when clients come to me, and they want to weaned from breastfeeding under 18 months, I will say absolutely happy to support you. But I will say that I'd like you to be open to the possibility of giving other kinds of milk at night, if that appears to be necessary. If we've tried some strategies, and that doesn't seem to be helping. It may be that your child genuinely has a need for some nutrition and some milk overnight. So it is normal for children to still need milk overnight. Now we have got some research studies that help us answer this question of whether night weaning helps children to settle. There is a study from 2012, if you look for it online, its title is Effect of Current Breastfeeding on Sleep Patterns in Infants from Asia Pacific Region. And that's from 2012. And what that study, that study, I would say is looking at younger children. It's looking at children under 12 months. But I think we could perhaps extrapolate some stuff from this study. So this study seems to show that feeding to sleep, possibly is causing more wakings at night. So not breastfeeding. Because actually, the research studies show that whether a child was breastfed or not breastfed, they had the same number of night wakings. But it showed that if children were feeding to sleep and feeding to deep sleep on the breast, then they were waking more. And that does fit with my experience with clients. So I tend to find that the clients who are getting the most wakings at night are the ones that are feeding back to sleep. So they're feeding to sleep at bedtime, into a deep sleep state. They may be then lifting their child you know into a court or sneaking away from a floor bed. And then they're feeding back to sleep back to a deep sleep state all through the night. Now the groups of parents that I work with who are getting five wakings a night or more than five wakings at night are universally in that group. They are the ones that are feeding back to sleep. And it does seem to be that the parents that don't feed to sleep. Instead, they miss may still breastfeed on rousing and they may still breastfeed but then the child is detached and helped to fall asleep another way. They are the ones that seem to be having two or three wakings at night which which would fit with this research from from 2012. We know that waking at night continues to be normal and to the second In the third year of life, so there's another study from 2019. If you want to look at this online look for the lead researcher who is Caroline Hoyniak. That's HOYNIAK. In this study, which looked at children around two and a half to three and a half years old, that age group was waking on average four times a night. Now, that may be not what you want to hear. And the wakings were encountered as a waking if it was five minutes or more, and some of those wakings were 30 minutes. So the idea that when we night, when we're suddenly going to get a three year old that sleeps 12 hours, it's just not truthful. That's not realistic. That's not how many, many three year olds sleep, it is super normal to rouse between sleep cycles, there are plenty of three year olds who don't even sleep 12 hours at night anyway, even if it's broken. So we wouldn't expect a child to sleep through the night in response to night weaning in this age group. But it could be that if you are feeding to sleep, that reducing that habit and breaking that pattern could reduce night wakings. And I do have clients that say, when I broke that pattern, and I did reduce my breastfeeding at night, I did get less waking at night. I think for some, there is a calorie element here. I think the children who are used to taking a lot of their calories at night, are waking and they are genuinely hungry at night. And I think if you do sort of write that seesaw a little bit and get a bit more of the daytime calories happening, then they are potentially going to wake less at night for nutritional reasons as well. So so my gut feeling is no don't expect sleeping through. But I don't think it's unrealistic to expect a reduction in night wakings if you are not feeding to sleep. 

46:46

Okay, so next question says, How do you occasionally stop the older toddler from nursing to sleep when it's all they've ever known? And how do you involve the non breastfeeding partner in making the child fall asleep. So involving the non breastfeeding partner, I talked about this a little bit in my episode on breastfeeding boundaries with Shelly Clark. So have a listen to that she's got some really good ideas about that. Essentially, we want the child to feel loved and wanted. And we want the other parent to have no hesitation in saying it's my turn. And I'm really excited. And I'm really looking forward to taking you to bed tonight, you know, what should we do? Let's have roleplay on the day. With a bedtime when it's with the other parent, let's talk about what methods that they can use to help you get to sleep. I'm also a big fan of doing joint bedtimes. So if your child is really rejecting the other parent, I say bring them into the room as well. And by degree get them closer and closer get the more and more involved in the process. If you're doing that habit stacking and you're doing stuff with your voice, they can participate in that too. They can be a joint partner in that process, it comes down to familiarity, the more familiar they are with your partner in the room, then you can say one day, I'm just going to go and get a drink of water. I'll be right back. I'm just going to go to the toilet, I'll be right back. He leaves them for five minutes, you extend that time, mommy's just gonna go and get a snack from downstairs back in a minute. And it's not just about your child feeling familiar. It's also about your partner feeling upskilled because it's a real knock to the confidence if they've been rejected for so long. Any human being even if they're adult is it's really hard to stay regulated. When someone is saying get out. I don't want you I want mommy get out. anyone's going to feel difficult in that moment. So, so we want the parent to feel relaxed, the parent that's previously felt rejected to feel relaxed. And with a two year old, I wouldn't hesitate to say mommy's body is tired. Boobies are tired. I need to have a rest now so so you know other mommy other daddy is going to have a chance to help you get to sleep now. And I'm going to have a rest now. I'm going to lie here, I'm still here. But other mommy or daddy is going to help you to get to sleep. And actually explicitly explain why you want things to change. Because if you can ever connect with a child and give them a reason, you're 90% of the way there to help them except. 

49:10

Next question is really similar. It says, I've noticed a correlation between the moments when I tried to hold a breastfeeding boundary with my two year old and her rejecting me in favour of her dad. On reflection, this seems logical, she feels rejected in some way. But he's rejecting me and I wondered if this was common? Yeah, absolutely. This child is desperately looking for agency. They've asked for a breastfeed. You have said no. That loss of agency that loss of faith that sense of disempowerment, that that loss of communication buzz I was talking about before can feel super scary. So she's going to look for ways to feel powerful, and rejecting you is the most extreme version of that. So I often say try and avoid saying no now that doesn't mean you're not literally going to be giving the impression of a no I'm not into a don't offer Don't refuse thing. I'm saying let's just call it something else. So when they say, Can I have a breastfeed and you do not want to breastfeed in that moment, rather than say, No, we're not going to breastfeed right now. You're going to say, I can see what some boobie the next boobie is going to be at this time? What should we do now? Instead? It's difficult to Wait, isn't it and you might get some dysregulation, so we're going to validate those feelings. I know you want Goobie right now, boobies having a rest? What can we do instead? And would you like to do a? Or would you like to do B? Now a and b are things that you've been working on, you develop these new types of connection play, you've got the Polaroid pictures on the toy boxes, you've got the new roleplay resources, I'm not talking about money, I'm talking about going to a charity shop and buying a new dressing up box, you've put some thought into making the other alternatives exciting and special. You've got the den with the fairy lights, you've got the new box with the books in that they have more agency over and can select books more easily. You want them to be, I'm a bit bummed that I'm not going to have breastfeeding. But actually a and b are pretty cool. I like a and b, a and b are a chances chance to connect. We're going to do silly dancing, I get to play hairdressers, we're gonna play with our vehicles on the new cardboard ramp. I'm up for it. So if you've done some work, preparing the alternatives, they're going to accept the alternatives. So we're never just saying No, sweetie, not right now, vacuum, we're never leaving that brick wall. We're always giving them a choice, alongside validation where we say, yep, your cross on you, your cross. And if you've got that choice there, it's really unlikely that they're going to feel that anger, which will lead them to them reject you, because you're leaning in, you're not saying no go away. You're saying this one little bit of me is not available, but I am here, I am going to play with you. I'm going to connect with you. You're offering yourself which hopefully will mean that they won't have that feeling of you having rejected them.

52:00

Next question says, how do I encourage my toddler to drink water or milk from a cup not from me? He'll currently dehydrate himself all day at nursery until I'm home to feed him. And it makes me worry how I could ever stop. Okay, so as a slightly different the two elements to this. So what's happening at nursery is about nursery strategies so that you can't really control what's happening day to day nursery, I would hope that the nursery workers would have some ideas around this. And it could be for example, that the type of cup isn't something that he likes, it could be that you need to think about what's in the cup, and who wouldn't be wanting to give a toddler juice. But it may be that he really doesn't want to drink milk, but he doesn't want to drink cow's milk. So allow him to have water, just check that what's in the cup isn't switching because that can be really confusing. And again, disempowering. I keep using that word, if sometimes it's milk, and sometimes it's water, you're not going to risk it. So let the children water in the day, fruit, a massive percentage of fruit is water. There's nothing wrong with a child eating fruit to hydrate themselves during the day, if that's on offer. When you're at home, modelling is really important. So you've got your cup, they've got their cup, you're modelling drinking, and we're also giving them choices. So when it's time to drink, what they like this couple that cup, so you're not saying would you like water? Because no is a really powerful, great response to that. If you're, you know, 19 months old, you're saying instead, would you like this cup or that cup. So they've still got a sense of control and a sense of agency. And hopefully, by modelling you drinking water as well, they're going to go down that road. Truthfully, human beings do not dehydrate themselves, it doesn't happen. I know, we might fear that. But it is incredibly unlikely. They may not drink milk when they're away from you. But we have an instinctive natural urge to keep ourselves alive. And that means hydrating ourselves to a safe level. If you are worried that there's something medically is going on and you genuinely don't trust your child to drink, then it's time to chat to your doctor. But it could be that offering fruit or other kinds of wet food is going to fill some of that gap. It could be that they don't want to bottle. So if you're battling with bottles, from even from as young as four or five months, you can drop those and start thinking about moving to cups, open cups, straw cups, these are all other options under 12 months. 

54:28

Okay, so next question says, advice for weaning the feed before their nap due to returning to work because I'm not going to be there to comfort them to assist them to sleep. So anyone who's listened to any of my other episodes, you can guess what I'm going to say here. Don't when the nap pre nap feed because you're going back to work. You do not have to do that. I can give you the names right now. 300 people who are breastfeeding when they're with their child, breastfeeding them for naps when they're with their child. And then when their child is at daycare, they're falling asleep another way. That is the common experience for breastfeeding older children, when they're with you, they can still breastfeed to sleep. And when they're not with you, they will adapt, they will be with professionals that have helped dozens and dozens and dozens and little people get to sleep, they will be surrounded by a whole room full of other little people falling asleep on their dinky little mattresses, the key worker will be patting their back, there will be some special set music on they are going to be tired because they've had a overwhelming stimulation that morning doing loads of new activities and new games. If you win prior to going to work, not only are you missing out on some lovely breastfeeds. But you're not necessarily going to help anyway. Because when you when you're still going to be there at naptime, you're going to use your own co regulation methods, you're going to use your own support methods. So they're still going to miss you, you're still gonna be the one that would be supporting them at home. You can't practice for not being there when you're there. Don't feel that you have to diminish what you do as a parent. To make daycares life easier. I promise you don't need to, you can absolutely still feed to sleep for naps, if that's what you want to do. Next question says how do I manage a screaming meltdown when I'm trying to hold a boundary with breastfeeding my 18 month old, I'd love to slowly reduce the amount of feeds during the day, but it seems impossible. She feeds like a newborn advice is normally to offer an alternative snack or water. But she's not having it and will cry and scream. Cuddles or involving a partner in this moment don't help either. So if you've listened to my previous answers, you'll know what I'm going to say here. It's not about offering a snack or water. If an 18 month old asks you to breastfeed and you give them a snack in that moment. It's still a rejection. I think in my first article on weaning that I wrote more than 10 years ago, I said it's like, you know, you are searching for a cuddle and they give you a sausage roll. That doesn't have any meaning for a child. So in the in the whole day, you're looking at food intake, liquid intake, but in that moment of a request for breastfeed. Remember, it's about empowerment, it's about that communication buzz. It's about connection with you. So if you want to win an 18 month old, if you've got to the screaming meltdowns, when you're holding a boundary, take a step back, do some more work before you get to that point. So before you're declining, what else are you offering, you need to give them the other ways to feel powerful, you need to give them the power of virtual play, you need to give them the communication buzz opportunities, you need to give them other things they can ask for you need to fill up their love cup, you need to think about the types of play you're doing with them the connective play the play, which gives them a chance for physical touch, when they can ask for other things when they're excited about the other offers and ways to connect with you, then you can have a go at putting some of those boundaries in place. And when you putting a boundary in place, sometimes it might be yes, we can have booby, but just for count to 10. So that's okay. You don't necessarily have to decline a feed in its entirety. It can be valid to say, Yep, let's just do a quick movie. And then let's do the next thing. So while you're doing the booby trail, the next game, I mean, literally, when they're attached, you look down at them and say, you know, when we finished doing this, shall we go and play with your little cars? Shall we? Should we go and get the waterbath and do splashy cars? You know, shall we go and cook some dinner? Should we go and do you know you're trailing the next thing because sometimes the request for breastfeed is is a struggle with the transition. They're asking for some help, because they don't quite know what to do next. So fill up their communication, cut the communication bars, the empowerment, all that other stuff, then have a go at trying to hold some boundaries again. And when you are holding a boundary, even at 18 months, I would start with a very short delay. So actually, right now, mommy's boobies need a rest. We'll do booby in five minutes. He doesn't know what five minutes means, of course, but you're just beginning to give them a sense that a delay is safe is going to be okay. And that delay, we're going to do something else first, and then we'll do BB. So filling up the cup, getting used to short delays, getting these to shorter time to feeds. And then sensing where we are, if you're still struggling with lots of screaming meltdowns, I would recommend getting some support to have someone work alongside you in this winning process and have a look at Shelley Clark's resources as well. The Parenting mentor who I spoke to in that episode about boundaries. 

59:21

Next question says, how do you stop breastfeeding a baby if they're 11 months old, and they don't have any other comforter or dummy and they've refused a bottle? So as I said I don't talk to these episodes so much about under 12 months but I will just touch on this question briefly. I wouldn't be giving a bottle to less than a month old NHS recommendation is to be moving away from bottles by 12 months. So it's if you're getting bottle refusal at this age, I wouldn't worry at all cups, cups, cups cups, so you want open cups. You want open cups like like a DOI D cup or you can get lots of little plastic cups that have valves in them. sort of mushroom valves that mean if they knocked over, it's not every single thing that's going to flood out, you can get cups that just have little gaps. So it looks like they're drinking from an adult cup, but there's this little valve in top on the top. And it's okay if they don't drink any other alternative milk. So lots of people a bit shocked to hear that because they're thinking Hang on milk is the main source of nutrition up until 12 months. Yes, that is true. But some people who are breastfeeding 11 months old, may be struggling with mental health issues may desperately be needing to start medical treatment may genuinely have to win. So as long as that child is able to eat solids, and eat a good range of solids, including sources of the things that you would get from milk, so in most cases that is going to be sources of dairy to get those macronutrients and micronutrients. As long as they can drink water alongside eating solids effectively. And you're really putting a lot of conscious thought into what's happening in their solids intake, it could be okay to begin to when you can possibly have a go at offering milk and a cup from 12 months NHS recommendations or full fat cow's milk is fine. But if they don't drink a lot of milk, it doesn't mean you can't win, as long as the solids intake is okay, so you might want to have a chat to a dietician, or someone about what's happening with solids intake. But don't feel that you have to give them an enormous amount of other milk. They don't take a comforter, they don't take a dummy. That's not unusual at this age, either. We wouldn't necessarily suggest introducing a dummy at 11 months. You are the coregulation technique you're cuddling you're rocking, holding them close using your voice. That's what will settle them and help them to feel safe. 

1:01:40

Next question says, Is it possible, is it fair, to keep feeding to sleep and feeding for certain day feeds, and to stop feeding overnight? I would be happy to continue the other feeds. But my daughter basically wants to just feed or comfort suck anytime from 5am onwards. I've made a start and can settle her in other ways. But it takes strength and perseverance which I don't always have at 5am cases to sort of separate sections to that question. So first of all, I just start by saying yes, you can partially when 99% of people partially wean, most people who are doing parent led weaning will go through a process of of sometimes partially weaning. Can you feed to sleep at night, when sometimes that is true? Yes, you can. If your child's really good at transitioning between sleep cycles overnight, they're not rousing and looking for help. They're pretty good at sorting themselves out overnight, it might be that they actually are able to feed to sleep at bedtime, and then do that transition by themselves overnight. If they're feeding to sleep at night, and waking up frequently through the night, I refer back to that research from 2012. It may be that actually you do need to break that feed into sleep habit at bedtime to improve what's happening at nighttime. Now, the 5am onwards question, I have touched on this before, if a child is let's say they're two and a half or three, and they're waking up at 5am, and they're coming to the breast, and they're grazing on the breast, dozing for another hour or so. And you're finally getting up at six. And your dream is I want to get up at six, I don't want to do the dosing on the breast, I don't want to do that feed, I just want to get up at six and I'd like them to wake up at six. The bad news is I don't think that's often achievable, I'm not going to lie to you. Your child's sleep pressure has reduced to such an extent they're essentially awake. If they have the oxytocin and the calluses declining, and the sedatives of breast milk, they are probably going to be able to do a bit of dozing. Without that they're going to wake up the day is going to start at 5am. So if you want to not wake up at 5am, you're going to need to change bedtimes and you're going to need to look at what's happening with naps and the whole 24 hour subsystem of sleep, you're not simply going to be able to get them to sleep another hour without the sedatives and breast milk. So if you are trying to get a later wake up, you're going to need to probably have a later bedtime and I'd recommend speaking to somebody like an holistic sleep coach to help you look at the whole picture or read some read Lindsey hook Facebook's and get some ideas from that as well. If you refuse to feed at 5am, the dream that they're going to go back to sleep and you're just gonna be able to snooze next to them is not entirely realistic. Now I have had some clients who continue to get that dozing by offering something else and that might be a musical box, you know, these these two new player type things Yoto player type things then your child might be interested in doing that for a bit of time. I have also worked with clients who say mate I cannot get up at 5am You're just going to sit and watch something on my phone. You might feel terrible about that concept. You might think oh my god, I'm not gonna win any parenting awards, letting my child watch something on my phone, that I'm a human being I cannot get up at 5am I don't want to breastfeed right now. This is what I'm going to do in the short term. If you've got another adult around and they can take your child to do some reading a book or does it do something else brilliant, but realistically, they may not go back to sleep. So late to wake up probably means a change to bedtimes. 

1:05:12

Okay, so next question says, Do you have any advice on avoiding mastitis or painfully full breasts, I find that I'm quite uncomfortable. On the few occasions, we've been apart for 24 hours. So not sure how I'll go on once I start weaning. If you are regularly breastfeeding, and you leave a child who's nursing for 24 hours, your breasts are going to struggle, that's going to be intense, you are going to need to do some expressing to remove milk and help your supply gets sorted. Truthfully, once you start weaning, once you start reducing the length of feeds, once you've got bigger intervals, you don't get mastitis. If you move gradually, it doesn't happen, your body will adjust. The people who are getting mastitis are the people who are winning abruptly or dropping several feeds in one go, or weaning cold turkey. If you're going nice and slow, you're gradually reducing the demand over 24 hours by reducing frequency and length of feeds, your body is genuinely going to adjust. Now you can read some stuff online about Auntie galactagogue. There are some herbs like sage, for example, which you'll you'll do some reading around. And you can find that sometimes that will reduce milk production. Sometimes people are using that if they're really worried about mastitis, you may find that if you do want to reduce breastfeeding, and you're worried about your mastitis risk, you might nip off and do some expressing rather than worry about what's happening with your child, you may feel that you'd prefer to just do some hand expressing so if you've not weaned for example, you might still do some expressing at one o'clock in the morning for a few days to just help your body adjust to that reduction in demand. So you may find that you do expressing alongside reducing their feeding, if that helps you to feel more confident about reducing your risk of, of painful breasts. 

1:06:55

Okay, so next question says I'd love to hear about weaning and timing with the transition of moving their child to their own bed. So mine is 27 months, and we're coming in to what I expect is going to be a big growth phase and my partner and I would like our bed back. How do we move to their move them to their own bed. So I'm a big fan of floor beds. I think that truthfully, if a child's been co sleeping, we probably can't jump straight away to expecting them to be in an independent bed with no adult anywhere near them. So I normally say that, you probably would want to think about a floor bed as a transitional tool. So that might mean that their first bed is actually a floor bed. Or it might be that they've got the little toddler bed that you've already bought. And there's a mattress on the floor next to it, that's your floor bed temporarily. And they know that that floor bed is where you can lie next to them, they know it's where you can physically connect to them. They know that when you do withdraw, if they call for you, you're going to come back. And by using a floor bed as a transitional tool, you can spend less and less time in the room, you can start to remove yourself in between feeds. And as long as they feel safe in that space. And they know that that's a space where their emotional needs are going to be met, the chances are, they're not going to reject it. And if you've done some work around making it special, and Lindsay Hookway in her book, still awake has a lovely section on floor beds. And she talks about how you know if you tuck the floor bed into the corner of the room, which is appropriate for an older child where we don't have the risk of them being in the gap between the wall and the mattress, tuck it into the corner of the room so they feel secure, maybe make a canopy, maybe put some lights around it, make it a special space. And again, it's a space where you can come into that room with them and be with them. So it might be for a few weeks, it's both of your rooms, that becomes where you sleep for a while. And then you will start to withdraw yourself after a feed. And gradually, hopefully, they're going to be asking you to come in less and less. And you can then move into your own room. With an older child, you might be more explicit about this process, you might be explaining what's changing and why it changes. But for most children, you don't necessarily need to go through that phase, you can just gradually withdraw yourself and move into sleeping in the other room. 

1:09:08

This question also asks about potty training and says is there an ideal order when it comes to potty training and weaning? There are no rules about this, you could do them both at the same time. If you want to, I really would caution you against thinking you've got to do one thing before the other, I would just say if potty training is is very difficult. And your child is really struggling with holding and you know, again, agency over the whole process. Maybe hold off on waiting until you've had some more support with that. Because weaning is also about agency and loss of control. But regular potty training where things are not particularly challenging, and it's just a case of getting on with it. That can absolutely happen alongside reducing breastfeeding if that's what you want to do. We're coming up to one hour 10 minutes, which is getting a long time. 

1:09:54

So I think what I'm going to do is pause at this point. I've got a couple of questions that I haven't answered I'm gonna make a new episode to answer the remaining questions. And I'm going to do a shout out for some some remaining questions for another episode. If you stuck with me, thank you very much. I'm never going to stop talking about weaning. I am not saying I'm the person who's got all the answers. There are other approaches to this. But my main message is acknowledging that breastfeeding is about communication and about emotional connection. And we've got to have that in the front of our minds if we're going to support our children through this process. So if you want that 25% off my book that's come out today. Go to the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com. And Silly Tigers Burp Pretty Regularly 25, STBPR25 will get you 25% off. And that's just going to be mentioned in this episode. So that's just a secret for you guys. Thank you, to those of you who have already ordered my book, I really hope you like it. I'd love to hear any feedback if you found it useful. Or if you have any questions about it, come and find me on Instagram. And yeah, I'm really excited to share it with you. This has been a book that's been a long time coming. It's based on a lot of work working with families around weaning. And I really think it's important that we talk about the ending of breastfeeding, it is so important to get this right. If we don't get this right. We're going to be leaving parents in crisis and the beautiful breastfeeding experience that they've had is going to be entering ending on a sour note. And I've even worked with families that say, you know, weaning was I'm so scared of weaning. I'm not sure I'm even going to breastfeed for this long next time. If we're in that place. We desperately know that people need more weaning out, it's absolutely possible to wean lovingly and gently and the happiest messages I get from clients that say, our relationship is so much stronger now. Thank you. I've we've got so many other ways to connect, it feels great. I'm really excited about the future. You can get to that place if you win in that emotionally sensitive, healthy way. So yeah, my book has all the ideas to help you do that. And thank you for listening today. And I will be back with another episode with some more winning questions very soon. 

1:12:08

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett IBCLC and on Twitter @MakesMilk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist. And leaving a review would be great as well. Get in touch if you would like to join me to share your feeding or weaning journey, or if you have any ideas for topics to include in the podcast. This podcast is produced by the lovely Emily Crosby Media.