Summer holiday replay - Weaning a booby monster

This summer bonus episode is a replay of episode 5, where I explore your motivations for weaning, and whether a refresh on nursing manners could help. I talk about ways you can upskill to meet your child’s needs without the breast, how to cut down on the number of feeds and how you can talk with your child to wean with kindness and authenticity.

I’m taking a break over the summer holidays, and replaying a few of my most popular episodes. I’ll be back with a brand new episode on 3rd September 2024.

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

You can get 10% off the book at the Jessica Kingsley press website, that's uk.jkp.com using the code MMPE10 at checkout.

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

Resources mentioned in this episode - 

Nursies When the Sun Shines: A Little Book on Nightweaning, by Katherine C Havener

Booby Moon: A weaning book for toddlers, by Yvette Reid

Goodbye Mummy's Milk! by Mariapaola Weeks

The Aware Parenting Institute

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

Transcript

I hope you are out there having a very lovely August wherever you are. I'm taking three weeks off from producing new episodes to give myself a little bit of a break and to give my lovely producer Emily a break as well. I will be back in September with brand new episodes that are already being prepared. Until then please enjoy one of my most popular episodes from the last few months.

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, will 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. 

Okay, so in this episode, we're going to talk about weaning an older child. And I'm talking probably about 18 months plus, I'm going to describe them as a boobie monster. Now when I say Booby Monster, I mean a child for whom breastfeeding is the centre of their world. So essentially, if somebody said, What is your child's hobby? The answer would be breastfeeding. They are not simply feeding morning and evening, they want to breastfeed to meet a whole range of their needs. They're probably still using the breasts to fall asleep and to transition between sleep cycles at night. If you're home, they're going to need to breastfeed to be able to nap. They use the breasts to connect with you to ask for your focus and your attention. They're probably using the breast a bit like a biscuit tin. Sometimes that concept was introduced to me by the lovely Rachel who said that during the pandemic, she'd had a realisation that her son was getting a bit bored and just like adults reach for a biscuit or a snack when they're bored. Her breast was her son's biscuit tin. Not every desire for breastfeed is sacred and deeply meaningful and connecting us to the universe. When your child hurts themselves, it's the first thing they ask for. When you're reunited. After a period of separation, it's the first thing they asked for, in imagining removing the breast in this situation is really hard to get your head around. If this is something that you are considering, I'm guessing that you are in a pretty desperate place. This is a tool that's absolutely working for your child, but it's absolutely not working for you. And the idea of weaning in this situation is one that can bring you to your very limits of parental guilt and shame. Even outside the world of natural turn breastfeeding parents are not encouraged to put their own needs first. We are bombarded with spoken and unspoken messages about perfect parenting and good parenting we're expected to sacrifice our own needs. And even if our logical brain knows that that is unreasonable, the messages about what we expect from mothering and parenting are in us deep. So you need to be rock solid in your motivation. That weaning is what you need to do. And I'd signpost you back to the my first episode on winning when I talked about making the decision to win. It sounds really obvious, but this may be the hardest thing you've ever done. And if you are wavering at all, you are going to leave your child in a space that will feel unsafe and confusing, and your relationship could be impacted. This is possibly going to be a rupture in your relationship with your child. As you relearn the kind of parent you want to be and then you will regain their trust, you will get upskilled you will learn a new set of parenting skills and your relationship will be repaired after ruptures. Relationships can be repaired and come back stronger. Through this weaning process, you're going to get upskilled you're going to develop a whole new range of techniques that you've not needed up until now because you've had the breast to do at all. Your child is going to perceive your parenting in a different way. Life is very likely to be different. I know it sounds like I'm laying this all on a bit sick. But this is important to appreciate that weaning is not simply the act of removing breastfeeding. This is about reconfiguring how you parent your child. And you know up until now your breastfeeding has been your Swiss Army pen knife of parenting. It has done so many different things. You've got a multi tool, you know opportunity there it does so many different jobs. You know, when you take away that Swiss Army pen knife, your child may still get ill, they may still have a high fever, they may get dehydrated, they may go completely off their food, they may have an ear infection, they may be in pain. They may still get tired and grumpy at family events. They may still struggle to sleep in unfamiliar environments, they may still fall over in the playground, you're still going to go on international flights, you know all these things are potentially going to be happening without breastfeeding at your fingertips. It is a new world. So it is not the case that your child is the only one who's losing something you are going to be losing something too. So it is worth taking a moment to think you know is it the breastfeeding itself? That is the The actual problem? Or maybe is it parenting? A very intense little toddler with high needs? That's the challenge. Maybe you need some support more support from people around you. Do you have enough support? Is there a way you could possibly ask for some more support and have some readjusting the parenting balance in your home? Would that make things easier for you? Are you trying to work full time alongside a child who is booby obsessed? Or did you go back to work outside the home? And meanwhile, your workload inside the home didn't really change at all? Is it possibly that you're feeling washed out and desperate, because you're being very stretched? Not necessarily, that breastfeeding itself is the problem, you know, you come to the front door now and someone leaps onto you to breastfeed, they may still leap on you. Even if you are not breastfeeding, they may still depend on you to get to sleep at night. Even if you are not, they may still leap on you when you come through the front door, even if you're not the one who's breastfeeding. So it's important to make sure that you've thought about whether there are other changes that need to be made, you might want to make changes, because you want to be able to go out in the evening, you want to be able to go out with your friends, and at the moment, you're the only one who can do bedtimes or overnight parenting. But if you remove breastfeeding, you may still be the only person who they will accept to help them transition between sleep cycles or at bedtime. 

So again, this is not just a story of removing the breastfeeding, maybe other things need to change. And maybe taking away the breastfeeding is not necessarily what's going to solve all your issues. Sometimes I support people who are struggling, because the power balance has been lost in their home and in their breastfeeding relationship. That is the balance in the relationship between you and your nursing. You know, it may be that there's a little person who's completely in charge, and you don't feel that you've got the power in your relationship with your child. Now that word power sounds a bit negative. It's like I'm suggesting your child is Lex Luthor from Superman or something, I'm implying that this little person has power over you. But sometimes we do get into a place where the little person can perceive the breasts to be their domain, you may feel as though you have lost control over your own body. It just doesn't feel comfortable. This doesn't feel right, you're tired of battles and negotiations. And it may feel the ending breastfeeding is the only thing you can do to regain the power in your relationship. But it's possible that you could do some partial weaning and put some boundaries in place and still have some breastfeeding and then see how you feel you can recalibrate the power imbalance and not you lose breastfeeding entirely. I'm not saying all this to try and convince you not to win, I just want you to make sure that you realise that breastfeeding itself may not necessarily be what you're struggling with. And there may be other changes that you can make that may resolve your issues. I sometimes ask the magic wand question. If you had a magic wand right now, that removed breastfeeding, and you never had to breastfeed ever again. Would you take that magic wand? Would it bring you a sense of relief? And few fun? Thank goodness that's all done? Or do you have this pang of thinking, oh my god, I'd never breastfeed again. I actually don't know if I could, I'm ready for that, you know, does the idea of that magic won't bring you a wave of joy, or maybe tears or something else come to your eyes.

There are lots of different ways to approach weaning a boobie monster. And I'm not suggesting that my ideas in this episode are the only ways by any means. You need to listen to your instincts. You need to gather information from other places. Obviously every child is different, every individual situation is different. And I would urge you to get individualised support if that's what you think you'd benefit from. But I'm going to make some broad suggestions that I have from focusing on weaning in the last few years in my practice and working with clients around the world who are weaning children from breastfeeding, and practising parent led weaning. So as I said, first step is to really sit down with yourself and focus on where your motivations are coming from. It's not about improving your child's sleep. Because actually little people can do very well with broken sleep and if they're getting help to transition between sleep cycles, they're completely fine. It's not about making their life easier. It's not about making other caregivers lives easier. This has got to be about you. This has got to be about your feelings and your motivation and your body and what you want for yourself because you are going to be the one at 3am who is dealing with a very angry and confused little person. And you need to have your own self care rock solid in the heart of what you are doing and what you are saying to yourself. And what you're saying to them, and in the way that you authentically communicate with them. This is not weaning because somebody else thinks you should. This is a decision that needs to be future proofed, you need to be able to look back decades from now, you know, you might be a grandparent watching someone else breastfeed, you've got to be able to look back right now and know that you've made the right decision for yourself in this moment. And the time is right for you. If you are having to win, and you don't want to just a few words to you, I know that some people do have to win for health reasons, and they might be miserable about having to do so do check in with the folks from the drugs and breast milk team from the breastfeeding network, make sure that you really do need to wean, in order to start the treatment that you need. Do talk to experts in your field before you make a decision that you could potentially look back on differently. For the purposes of the rest of this discussion, I'm going to assume that most of you do want to end breastfeeding. And if but if you are in that group who doesn't want to and you still have to move forward with the weaning? Please don't think that I don't know that you're out there, because I do. So let's assume that you do want to end breastfeeding. 

So we're starting by reflecting on your motivation, making sure that you're ready and your motivation is rock solid, then I normally suggest the first step is actually to look at the situation around nursing manners. So when I say nursing manners, I'm talking about grabby pinchy hands, I'm talking about people grabbing a clothing, I'm talking about things that don't feel entirely socially comfortable or maybe sometimes physically painful. If there is a power balance that is slightly off kilter in the breastfeeding relationship, quite often, your child perceives the breasts to be theirs. And nursing manners are quite often an issue. No child who perceives the breast to be theirs doesn't necessarily think that you have any needs in this situation, they're more likely to be pinchy and grabby, they're more likely to stand on one leg when they're breastfeeding, they're more likely to try to do a somersault, they're not really getting it when you ask them nicely to stop, because as far as they're concerned, this is their object, this is their possession, they might even get quite aggressive when you ask them to stop or you move their hand away, they really don't seem to get it. So the area of nursing manners is a sort of practice space for full weaning. It's a rehearsal room for full weaning, it's a space for you to say, actually hang on, I have some needs here. This is my body, I do get to decide my feelings do matter. And it's also a space where your child may get angry and disappointed. And you are going to sit alongside those feelings, you are going to hear them. But acknowledge that your feelings still matter. So you are going to validate their emotions, we're not ignoring them. But you are still going to give yourself permission to protect yourself, and to have your boundaries around nursing manners. And to say that I'm not comfortable with you touching me like that. I don't like it. When you do that. I like it better when your hands are here. I'm not comfortable when you touch me in this particular way. In age appropriate language, you're going to explain where your boundaries are. Sometimes when people talk to me about winning older children, they quite often use the phrase gentle weaning, I would like to be able to do gentle weaning. And what they often mean by that is, I really hope my child doesn't have any negative emotional reaction. And, of course, the dream is that your child has no distress or anger or disappointment. You know, wouldn't that be great? Obviously, we wouldn't want to think of our child going through a moment of distress and being upset and affected by this negatively. But we're talking about boobie monsters here. They would not choose this, they would not choose to end breastfeeding. This is not their first choice. We cannot take away their desire to want to breastfeed, the best we can hope for is to support them through that loss and to give them some alternatives. So they feel that loss slightly less poignantly. So gentle weaning in this situation is going to be about validating their feelings, supporting the word, their feelings, but not expecting them to be able to switch their feelings off. So in that context of nursing manners, we're going to be rehearsing some of the bigger conversations that come later. We want to use authentic communication. So we're saying you know, I don't like it when you do that. I would like if we did this, instead, you might not go straight to no stop. You're going to give them alternatives and you're gonna give them other choices. You might redirect them to something else. You might say my body doesn't like it when you do that. But you can maybe hold this cloth that's tucked into your bra maybe hold a sensory toy. We can play with this Teddy's nose instead, giving them options, what would you like to do instead, but we're still holding that boundary quite firmly.

With older children, I would suggest that you do some roleplay games roleplay is great for any aspect of weaning that you can start by role playing around nursing manners. So mummy Teddy doesn't like it when baby Teddy fiddles with other nipple. Mummy Teddy asks them to stop explains that her body doesn't like it. And when baby Teddy does stop, mommy, Teddy feels more relaxed and calm and is in a happier place. You know, this conversation is important stuff, we're talking to little people about consent, and unwelcome touch and body autonomy. And we're modelling some really important stuff. This is not just about breastfeeding, these are bigger conversations about body autonomy and consent. We're also teaching them about empathy and kindness. You know, we're not expecting a two year old or even a five year old to, you know, suddenly have this download where they completely understand what empathy is all about. But it's got to start somewhere, that sense of what empathy is, is got to start from something. And these are the conversations where it can can begin, you can see why authentic communication is important here. Parents sometimes say things like, oh, I don't want them to feel like I'm cross with them. I don't want them to feel like I'm blaming them. I don't want them to know that they're hurting me. But actually, if someone was sticking their finger in your eye, you wouldn't hesitate to say ouch, no, thank you very much. I don't like that. And actually, in the context of breastfeeding, too, we need to use authentic truthful communications, because Empathy means appreciating real, authentic feelings. You know, just because we're in the realm of talking to little people, it doesn't mean we can't use direct and truthful language. You know, we speak truth to the people we love. And that's not what ruptures relationships. It's inauthenticity that ruptures relationships. So Philippa Perry, the psychotherapist Philippa Perry, who wrote the book, this is the book you wish your parents had read, and your children will be glad that you did. She talks in that book about how a grumpy parent which society often deems a bad parent in inverted commas, may actually be more authentic and truthful than the syrupy, sweet parent that hides their true emotions and doesn't allow their child to see their full range of emotions. We want our children to know the full natural range of emotions, to not feel frightened of them to know that all emotions are welcome. And we also model how we regulate ourselves how we manage different feelings. You know, for the first time, you may have to accept that your child's anger is not something that is our responsibility to fix. We don't have to put our own needs to one side to solve that problem. We're allowed to centre our own needs. And our child will over time come to accept that no, we can't fiddle with mommy's nipple, because she doesn't like that. It feels uncomfortable for her. And I'm going to do something else instead. So when you have conquered nursing manners, and you've got to a place that feels comfortable, it's time to think about the next step. Now, assuming that you're feeding frequently throughout the day, I would suggest that you start with a period of assessment and observation, and yes, you can tell that I used to be a primary school teacher, it is quite useful if you've got someone else who can help you with this. So maybe your partner or close family friend, or a member of the family who can help you do this period of observation, because sometimes we're so close to it, we don't actually see what's going on. You know, when does your child ask for breastfeed? What often is the trigger? What were you doing five minutes before? You know, were you on your phone? Were you not paying attention? What could have been going on? Are they asking for a breastfeed? Because they're feeling a bit bored? Is it because they're tired? Is it because they're hungry or thirsty? Maybe they're not able to ask for a drink independently? Maybe they're not able to ask for a snack independently? Is it because breastfeeding is their way of asking for a hug. Now I know that last one might sound a bit daft but I have actually worked with families where the child doesn't have the capacity to ask for a hug and breastfeeding request has become shorthand in the family for I want some close physical contact with you. So it's actually really worth checking that your child can say the word hug or cuddle, that has a way to ask for one that you model to them that you can hug them as well as breastfeed them that they see you asking your partner for a hug and your partner asking you for a hug. You want the whole family everybody to be asking everybody for hugs. We want them to know that there's another way to ask for physical affection because if breastfeeding requests are the only way they can get that, of course, they're not going to want to give that up. So we need to make sure that they're able to ask for a hug. And actually, when a little person asks for breastfeed, and that request is met. It feels really wonderful. You know, it feels really empowering. They've been heard they've been acknowledged, they've got influence over their life. They've got influence over the person that matters most to them. You know, Sarah Oakwell Smith reminds us that little people do not have a lot of agency over their lives. So if we respond to a request for a breastfeed with a no, no, that's going to feel rubbish. We're going to leave them feeling disempowered, unheard ignored. And we're going to need to make sure we understand that that's going to have to be replaced by something else. We're going to have to give them other ways to make requests, we're going to have to give them other ways to feel that sense of empowerment. It could be that your child is in a new developmental phase. And it's time for a refresh around play and activities. It is possible that some of these very frequent breastfeeding requests are coming from a place of feeling a bit bored or wanting to seek connection with you in a different way. You can do lots of reading around attachment play, and particularly power reversal play and attachment play, I would send to you to Shelly Clark, who's a parenting mentor in Australia, who's got some great resources around play, you can find some books on attachment play as well. But essentially, the concept of attachment play is that you're giving your child your focus, not necessarily for an extended period of time, it could just be 10 minutes, 15 minutes, they have your focus, they have your respect, they take the initiative, you are following their lead. Power reversal activities are where they have that particular sense of empowerment. So it might be something very physical, you might be doing pool noodle fencing games, you might be having a pillow fight, it could be a roleplay game where they have a position of authority. So maybe they're the animal owner, and you're the pet, they're the doctor, you're the patient, they're the chef, you're the person coming to their restaurant, or it could just be a normal play opportunity where they take the lead, and they see that you are absolutely giving them your complete attention. Now at certain times of day, you may need different kinds of activities. 

So in the evening, for example, when maybe they're gonna be feeling a bit more tired. It may be that what replaces a breastfeeding request in the evening is more about gentle physical connection. So you might be looking at things like hand massage, head and shoulder massage, you know, hairdressing games, doing yoga together, listening to music together, reading together, you want something that fits the emotional tone of that moment. In the daytime, it may be that that attachment plays a bit more vibrant, bit more lively, a bit more physical. And I suggest that you think about developing a repertoire of maybe half a dozen new things that are fresh, have a bit of novelty and that they see for the first time. Now this doesn't have to be expensive. When I'm talking about buying things, I'm talking about getting a cardboard box and sticking a given gang cloth on it and saying this is our restaurant. And you know, looking what you've gotten reconfiguring it to maybe have something that's a bit fresh with a bit of novelty. So when a breastfeeding request does come, ideally, you've identified when that's likely, maybe you can even meet the needs before the request comes. But this is not entirely about distraction. You know, we're not trying to win by stealth, you know, so when they do ask for breastfeed initially, you might respond with Yes, we can absolutely do that. But then how about after that we do X, Y, Zed and the x, y Zed are those fresh, new activities that you've been promoting, that you've developed, that they're excited about that have a little bit of energy behind them some of these fresh things. So you're not saying no to a breastfeed? Because no is like that brick wall, that then leaves them feeling disempowered and humiliated. We're always looking for a door through the brick wall. 

So yeah, you can do a breastfeed but you know, duh duh duh, with basically with body language, we're sort of implying that the new thing is perhaps the thing that's going to be more exciting. That's going to really give them your focus and your attention. Just a word of caution. If you do get a request for breastfeed, just be a little bit careful about saying no, but how about a snack, because if we're responding with an offer of a snack, we could potentially be giving a message that food is how we deal with emotional issues. And we probably want to take some care around that if we're thinking about long term relationship between feelings and food. Usually, with an older booby monster, it's it's really not about the milk. It's usually about you not the calories. So you might say, yeah, we can have breastfeed, but you put in a lot of effort into elevating the alternative activity, then you might move to Yeah, we can do a breastfeed, but my body only wants to do a short breastfeed. Let's do a long breastfeed when it's nap time. Let's do a long nice special breastfeed when it's when it's bedtime, we can do a quick one now. And then let's move to the fresh activity. So you might use a counter to count that short breastfeed, you might use an egg timer, you might use a timer on your phone. In one of my recent winning groups, couple of people have been using phone timers to great success not just in a breastfeeding context, but using a phone timer to time other activities in the day. And you know, the little people really liked the sound of the timer going off, you can hold the vibrating phone against their body, it's a really clear external indicator that the feed time is over. And now we're going to move on. So you spent some time hyping up the next activity. And ideally, it's the next activity that's exciting and interesting and it's going to meet their needs that need of wanting to be connected to you and that need of wanting to be doing something different. Then eventually when a call for a breastfeeding comes, you might be ready wondering by saying, actually, you know what the next breastfeed is going to be at this time. Right now, do you want to do X or Y? So you've moved from saying, Yeah, we can have a short breastfeed to saying actually, this is when the next breastfeed is going to come. So you're moving towards fixing breastfeeding at particular times and locations rather than it being frequent requests throughout the day, you're starting to anchor breastfeeding sessions into particular times and locations. So you might start to move to breastfeeding in the morning before naptime after naptime. Maybe after bath time and then bedtime, you know, as an example of when you might be starting to fix. And by the way, this is a situation which I'm assuming you're still breastfeeding at night, you start to fix those times in your home as the feed times they are the key times in the day. And you might also want to associate them with the location. So you might say, you know, we only feed in bed, or we only feed when it's near sleep time. 

Now, hopefully, if you've hyped up all the alternative connection activities, in your connection play in these fresh activities I've been talking about, you're not going to get a huge amount of distress, when finally there is no breastfeeding being offered at all, when you've moved from the short breastfeed to nothing. You are hopefully offering alternatives that meet that same need. If there is some disappointment, that's okay. They are allowed to be angry and disappointed. And you would validate those feelings. And you would say, it's really hard, isn't it? When you have to wait for something, you know, your mission is to stay calm in these moments. You're staying calm and loving, and you're not getting exasperated with their requests. You're listening to their protests, and you're holding that loving limit. And I know it's really difficult. By the way, I don't think the answer is to avoid being in the house. I don't think the answer is to say I'm going to it's summer, I'm going to spend the whole day outside so I don't get asked for a breastfeed or maybe to say Oh, I'm never gonna sit down. So they don't ask me for breastfeed. I know some people are tempted to do that. It's really tempting to avoid those difficult conversations. But actually, I think you're delaying a process that needs to happen, you are going to need to face head on the fact that one day you will be home and you will be sitting on the sofa. And breastfeeding is not going to be available. And that they may have feelings about that and everyone is going to be okay. Sometimes it's appropriate to use humour in those moments when there's a request and that request isn't being met. Now I'm a big fan of boobs being able to talk. You know, how about boobs are gonna see you later. And they'll see you at bath time. And we're just having a rest right now. And we look forward to our bath time feed, you know, in their best silly voice, you know, if you've got acting talent, why not have one boob speaking one accent and one boob speak in the other voice. And you might be essentially saying to a little child, yeah, we're not having a feed right now. But boobs are still here, you know, they're still here for you, you might have some kind of activity that's breast adjacent, you know, they're talking to the breasts, you might even say they can put their hand on them. But we're not necessarily having a full feed. 

So you've got down to these key times in the day, you are basically dealing with fixed feeds at certain times. And now the next step is going to be eliminating those feeds one by one. So we're about the morning feed. Now the bad news is for lots of little people, once you do drop that early morning feed, you are probably going to have to get up the day, it may be at the moment, they're waking up at sort of 5am or 6am. Getting on the breast having a bit of a dose, you're all in bed for another hour or so maybe even two hours, and you finally get up for the day, you know, seven or 730 Truthfully, that world is not likely to continue. Once you have dropped that morning feed, they are not likely to hang around in bed if breastfeeding is not an option. It's tough. I know. But that is the reality. So you know the hormones and breast milk are really useful at getting little people to doze and continuing to continue to stay in bed and continuing to go back to sleep. Without that they probably won't have sufficient sleep pressure to doze again. You might be able to try you, they might be happy to have a cuddle and stay in bed with you. But truthfully, most people when they drop the morning feed are going to be getting up and having breakfast. Similarly, with nap time, a lot of little people from about 18 months on are going to resist naps pretty hard if they don't have the hormones of breast milk to help them get to sleep. And that can be tough. So some people are choosing to hang on to the morning feed and hang on to the nap feed for a bit longer. For example, if you're not a morning person, you may decide that the morning feed is going to be the last one you drop. If you're somebody that really needs that nap to happen, perhaps for a work schedule reason, you might decide you're going to hang on to that nap feed for a bit longer because you might know that your child is really going to struggle to fall asleep without the nap. For you. It might also be that the late afternoon feed is a tough one because maybe that's when you're reconnecting with your child after a day at work and nursery. That reconnection feed is often very much about having you in that moment and having time With you, you know, it's really a time to reconnect after separation, it's often very little about milk. So there is a need for that physical touch and physical connection and also for you to give them your focus and attention. And it does often come down to something being offered that is exciting and appealing and a little bit different. I'm a big fan of creating a den. In order to drop this particular feed, you might have had a tent in the corner of your room for a while, you might have created a den for a while, but maybe it's time to freshen it, get some fairy lights pinned up, you can get these little LED strip lights that change colour, online relatively inexpensively. You might need to think a bit imaginatively about what could happen in that reconnecting ritual. So maybe every evening there's something inside the den to be looked at and discovered together, whether it's a natural object or a photo from your childhood or their childhood, or one particular favourite picture book, you know, something that they can go in, and they know that that's something you're going to share together. You might have a system where you're home first, so they have to come and find you. And you could hide in the den, use technology, use FaceTime, talk to them on your way home, tell them you're coming home, tell them what you're going to look forward to doing together in the morning, tell them what's going to be happening when you get home, ask their caregiver to remind them what you're going to do together when you get home. So really emphasising another reconnection ritual that's going to replace that that feed that happens after work and after nursery at the moment. 

For a lot of people bedtime feeds and overnight feeds are the big ones. In my last episode, I talked a bit about night weaning, essentially, your child is going to need to learn to transition between sleep cycles without the breast. If they're falling deeply asleep on the breast, it's going to take them a while to accept a new association. And to be able to accept a new form of coregulation and to essentially learn to fall asleep a different way. Elizabeth Panteley who wrote the no cry Sleep Solution books, there are two no cry Sleep Solution books one's for babies, ones for toddlers and preschoolers. She talks about how when a child falls asleep on the breast, their next wake up, it's a bit like the equivalent of waking up on the kitchen floor. They're going to feel dislocated, they're going to get a rush of adrenaline, where have you gone what's happened, the last thing they remember was breastfeeding. So we want to get them comfortable with falling asleep with perhaps you being present an offering emotional support and offering co regulation but not necessarily being present in order for them to breastfeed. And I've mentioned before I would signpost you to the work of Lindsay Hookway. Her books her Instagram to learn a bit more about the concept of habit stacking. So with habit stacking, we are developing alternative safe associations. So when we do take the breastfeeding out, we've got a better chance that they have other associations that they feel safe with around going to sleep. It's not to say that there won't be some struggles and there won't be some difficult feelings, but they will at least have a sense of familiarity with what you're offering.

So after the nursing manners have been dealt with, after you've started to have some regular slots for feeds, you might decide to tackle night weaning next. There are some picture books out there on this concept. There are some great picture books and there are some fairly dodgy picture books out there. It seems that everybody that comes to write a picture book about weaning comes to it from a place of love, but they don't always get the support of the publishing world. Some of the quality is a little bit variable. Most of the better ones are about weaning entirely, but I do like a book called nurses when the sun shines. Nurses when the Sun Shines is a classic, it's very simple. Essentially, there is a co sleeping family. And when it's dark, there are cuddles, and there's emotional support, but there's no breastfeeding. And when the sun comes up, there's breastfeeding again. Now, this works in the UK when it's the height of summer, but it gets a little bit more difficult when it's dark, four o'clock in the afternoon. And it's dark when everyone's still going to work in the morning. So you might want to use that concept of Nurses when the Sun Shines but create your own sense of day or night, using something like a clock which has a day or night symbol. There are clocks that have owls that wake up and open their eyes. There are clubs that have bunny ears that pop up. Or you could use some other kind of symbol like when the curtains are open. It's daytime when the curtains are closed, it's nighttime and we don't have milk. Clear communication is key as always. So sometimes night weaning can happen with a period of negotiation and compromise. You might talk to an older child and say, you know, you can only have one feed when it's dark. Or maybe we can we only have shorter feeds at nighttime. But for a lot of nursery things, that sense of being stuck in a phase of transition or a phase of negotiation can be difficult. So sometimes we're not weaning it's easier to have a blanket approach rather than think of yourself as dropping one feet at a time when you're weaning younger babies. You might be thinking about dropping one feet at a time with older children, it's often better to have a blanket approach that says, you know, nighttime booby is sleeping, boobies are sleeping, milk is sleeping at nighttime. 

Those first few nights that you try can be really tough. And it's the job of the little person to work out whether your boundaries are sticking. But when they do realise that those boundaries are sticking, and everything's okay, and you are there to support them, things do get easier. Sometimes there is a little bit of regression, but with your support, they're gonna come through it. You don't necessarily want to approach night weaning, when you've had a massive week on at work, or there are lots of other stresses in your daily life because the short term is going to be hard. Now it sounds obvious, but you get to decide when your night is if you want to have your night stop at 4am. So you can feed then, and maybe everyone gets back to sleep, that's definitely an option. It's just about how you communicate that clearly and consistently. You need language that makes sense. And something like an indicator clock can be useful. So you might talk about it being morning, and it being sleepy morning time. And then gradually, you can extend what you consider morning until it actually creeps closer to actual wakeup time when actually the whole family is getting up. You want to develop consistent language that is age appropriate. So sometimes it can be something as simple as boobies are sleeping. Now, that concept is something that even young children can often understand. 

So let's imagine you're down to the morning feed the pre and post nap feed, and the bedtime feed. Post nap is probably an easy one because you can focus on other kinds of transitions, you can move to doing the next activity again, looking at those attachment play opportunities and those connection activities. Pre nap is going to be a tough one. Depending on your child's sleep pressure at that time, you might be moving to do a nap in a pram. But for some children, when you do drop that pre nap breastfeed, you may find that they stopped napping entirely. So that is something to bear in mind. What you could do is maybe talk about having a quiet time when everyone lies down. This is a time when we have to be quiet and rest we listen to music, and maybe take away that sense of pressure that they must sleep which can actually cause a greater sense of anxiety. And in both you and them. It could be that habit stacking at naptime to also build up some other associations that can help them to prepare for sleep and give them that sense that sleep is going to be happening. Let's imagine you're down to just morning and bedtime. Now, if you're okay in the mornings, and you're pretty decent at getting up early, it could be that the morning feeds the next one to go. And essentially, you have to get up. You know, after a loving and affectionate good morning hug, you are going to be getting going downstairs and having breakfast and getting on with the day. Not much fun when you've been used to me a little bit of a snooze. But that is realistically what most people are doing. Most people will leave the bedtime feed until last. Now by the way, you can pause the weaning process at any time, if you find you get to a place where you're happy to stop, you may end up dropping the last couple of feeds at your child's pace. It's not unusual for people to start parent led weaning and then go you know what I can actually manage this, I can hang on with this. And you may find that actually your child ends up self weaning, after perhaps a period of initially parent led weaning. There's no rule that says that once you start a parent led weaning process, you have to finish it you can stop at any time. 

One question is What have you been saying to them throughout this whole process? Have you been explicitly talking to them about the fact that you are weaning and this is going to vary according to your child's age and their level of comprehension? I'm not sure you want weeks of flagging up that this is the end to your breastfeeding. I sometimes compare this to being told that your dog is going to die, you know, months of warning is not always happier than perhaps only having a last few days to say goodbye. But equally being told that your dog is going to die in the next 30 minutes is pretty terrifying too. And think there's an answer that somewhere in the middle. I do think that from the beginning of the weaning process, it is useful to have general conversations about how breastfeeding does end for everybody. So when you're walking around, do you want to look at other children in the playground and go right look at that bloke on the swings? Does he still have milk? Does he still have baby? When do you think he stopped having boobie you know, look around children the supermarket? How old were they when they stopped having baby I wonder what they do now to help them get to sleep. You want to flag up friends who are no longer breastfeeding, you want to highlight the fact that there are babies breastfeeding and families but not older children and older siblings breastfeeding. You want them to have this sense that breastfeeding does and eventually and when we're not yet saying and it does for you to young man and an intense, intense voice. We're just giving them a sense that it's not a permanent state because otherwise, you know, how would they know it wasn't. If you're two and a half and you're happily breastfeeding, you would assume the whole world is breastfeeding. 

So let's just make it clear that it's not something that happens forever. I would suggest you're a bit cautious though around the you're a big boy, or you're a big girl type language, you know, for lots of little people, that's quite frightening. And it certainly implies that bigger boys don't have emotional needs, or aren't allowed to have their emotional needs met. And potentially, we're tapping into slightly toxic cultural messaging about, you know, boys particularly, and how their feelings are being supported and how little people are expected to be independent and, and not showing emotions. So we're not saying that big boys don't have mommy milk. But we might be saying, you know, you know, when you were a baby, and you know, let's look at some pictures together. When you're a baby, look, here you are having some milk, you know, when you were little, all you could drink was mommy milk. And now your body is bigger and stronger, and you can run and when you climb, your muscles need to work really hard. And they need things from the food to help your muscles to work really hard. Little babies, they sleep all the time, they don't get to play as much, they can't really walk and move. But you're bigger, you need more energy, your muscles are stronger. So we're just beginning to highlight the difference. We're beginning to highlight the value of a wider diet, we're talking about their favourite foods, we're talking about the things that they can do that babies can't do. But we also want to make sure that when when we're talking about the end of breastfeeding, we make it clear that emotions are allowed and feelings are allowed. And an emotional support is allowed. There are picture books out there that you can use at this stage for that general conversation. You know, this is a story about one particular child saying goodbye to breastfeeding again, this is not a book, that's your story, young man. This is a book about here's this person, they're saying goodbye to breastfeeding, you know, you might be able to change the words. This is a story about someone else. So the book boobie moon, for example, which is a really popular one is about one family. And on this child's birthday, they let go of a balloon, and the balloon goes up into the sky. And that's that little person saying goodbye to breastfeeding. By the way, I'm not necessarily a big fan of literally floating balloons off into the sky. But you know, they're used to reading lots of little books that are stories and not necessarily based in real facts, they can get that stories aren't factual. And that story is one person saying goodbye to milk. A book I would particularly recommend is good by Mommies Milk by Maria Paola Weeks, there is space in that book for families to have real feelings, and real reactions. And again, you can adapt the words in a way that works for you. So when you're down to perhaps those last few final feeds, that may be the time to start taking those general conversations about how breastfeeding ends for everybody into the personal and when it's time to night when you want to ideally give a few days warning that milk is going to be sleeping at night.

When it's time to end breastfeeding entirely. You are saying okay, now we have two mommy milks a day. But mommy milk is going away one day, and when you are down to one feed, you are in that last stage, when you are finally ready to drop that last feed, you might potentially give them a few days notice depending on their age, or you know, perhaps weeks notice depending on their age, but you know, obviously you know your child better than anyone else. To an older child, you might say, Mommy milk is going away on Saturday. And the bedtime feed on Saturday will be the last feed and then on Sunday, we're going to do something special together to help her say goodbye to mommy milk. So there's a really clear boundary marker. So in our culture, we're not great on rites of passage. So maybe we're gonna have to, we're gonna have to create our own around this. This is not the same as having a party. By the way, you might see some stuff online about weaning parties, we're not celebrating the end of breastfeeding because parties and celebrations do not have space for little people to feel sad or to feel a loss. We're not celebrating the end of breastfeeding, we're just marking it so you might say we know we're gonna go on a trip to the zoo or a trip to the farm or something else that you might particularly look forward to to help them say goodbye to to mommy milk or baby. With a younger child maybe two or three days notice before the final feed is more appropriate. And again, lots of discussions in the day roleplay games playing bedtimes making it clear that baby Teddy is sad about saying goodbye to Mummy Milk, but Mummy Teddy's there to help them. 

And that final feed. If it was the bedtime feed, you will want to have established over a while that having stuck a habit stacking is in place. And there are other ways that they can now go to sleep. When you talk about the process of falling asleep as a family, it's those other habits that you are highlighting, you might even make your own picture book and I'm a big fan of people making their own picture books using online photo companies. I've had some previous clients make some books that are really superior to stuff that you can buy commercially by a longshot use real photographs of your bedrooms and your home and your child and you say you know this is Bob and this is how he falls asleep. You know show pictures of his new habits talk about them explicitly. You might spend a few days or weeks getting down to a much shorter feed. You might have also removed the bedtime feed from the actual bedroom so the Bedtime feed has been somewhere else. And then you're taking them in the bed into the bedroom to finish the bedtime routine. You might have done the bedtime feed, maybe in a chair and then move to the bed. You might have done the bedtime feed 10 minutes before they fall asleep. And it's ended instead, with you telling a story or singing a song or doing a guided meditation, I do have a guided meditation on my resources page on my website for this purpose created for me by the lovely Ananda trust got read that you could use as a model for something you could use with your own child. So ideally, the bedtime feed has not been the very last thing for quite a while. When it finally goes, it's not as though the night before you fed for 14 minutes and fed until they were deeply asleep. It's already been de prioritised and de emphasised over time. So when you finally get to that final night, when you're making it clear, it's that last feed, you know, it's not something that they've been really relying on as that central crutch, you might have some unexpected feelings too, even though you wanted to win. And give yourself some space for those feelings, you might also want to take a picture for you. And then the next morning, you're making it clear to your child that there won't be any milk that night. You're saying good morning to your boobs just saying thank you to them. 

In terms of your breast health, if you've got down to that final feed, and it has been a shorter feed for a while, it's unlikely that you're going to experience a lot in terms of engagement, or discomfort, but still keep an eye out. If you do feel very full, you might want to hand express just a tiny amount. But we need fullness because fullness is how your body receives a signal to make less milk, you know, you're accumulating a whey protein called feedback inhibitor of lactation, you're descending your prolactin receptors. And this is all sending messages to make less milk over time. So you need some fullness, we're not going to be going out with the pump and really making a lot of effort to remove the milk every time we need to have some fullness to tell our body to make less milk. If you do think maybe you're experiencing a blockage or mastitis then obviously you do need to seek help at that point. But we're going to need some fullness, it can take a month or sometimes more before milk production stops entirely. There is a small group of people who take even longer than that. But try not to be tempted to check because when you check if you've got milk, you're telling your body to keep making milk, the real way to reduce milk production is time and reduce demand. When you finally drop that feed, you may be surprised that you have some emotional reactions that you weren't expecting. Even if weaning was something you very much wanted. Some parents do experience what we call weaning blues, you have lost those surges of oxytocin. You know, you're saying goodbye to a phase of your parenting, you're moving into a new phase of parenting and you're saying goodbye to that baby phase. And that can take some adjusting it might be this is your last child. Give yourself some time. Give yourself some space. 

One question is What has your partner been doing through this process? How is your partner been supporting you? Now, obviously, you've heard from my discussion that I do believe that the breastfeeding parent really is central in this process. I am not somebody who's going to be advocating that you leave home in order to win. I don't believe that works. And I also think the rupture it causes in the relationship requires repair. That is not easy. We're also missing the point that weaning is not just the removal of breastfeeding is the reeducation of everybody about how a child's needs are going to be met. And that takes practice. You can't practice if you're staying a few nights away and leaving your partner to do the night weaning. You know, we're asking our partner to take on that emotional burden. We may have a child who is not breastfeeding to sleep when you come back, but they haven't learned to not breastfeed to sleep with you. There are plenty of little people who go to nursery and go to daycare, and sleep brilliantly when there's no breast available. They sleep when they're when they're at Granny's for the weekend, they eat and drink when there's no breast available. We all know little people that can who can do that. They can adjust to different adults in different situations. But weaning is about them adjusting with you, and learning to do those things differently with you. So if you leave, we're not really teaching them much. And crucially, you are not being upskilled. And you're not learning to serve your child in different ways. So I'm not a fan of this very culturally accepted idea that we win by leaving our children or we take advantage of the fact we're going away on holiday or we take advantage of the fact we're having a work trip. And that's how we win. Honestly, it doesn't make a lot of sense. That's not to say that the other adult on the home doesn't do any parenting at night, if they're used to doing nighttime settling, if they're used to doing bed times absolutely lean into that and make use of that. But that's not part of the weaning process. That might give you a break. It might give the breastfeeding parent a chance to catch their breath or get more sleep. But you're not learning how to parent without feeding. Your partner is there to support you. They may sometimes need to give you a chance to tap out when you're really struggling. If your child's very distressed and you're finding it very hard. You might want to take five minutes to take a drink of water and catch your breath in another room. Before you go back in again, it may be it may be that your partner is in there with you the whole time. But ultimately, you're going to be the one that's going to need to upskill and learn to settle your child in new ways. And you and your child are going to be working through this process together. In the daytime, your partner can also be part of these role playing conversations, they're reinforcing the message that they're there to support both of you. They're talking to the child about how they fall asleep, they're talking to a child about how different people fall asleep, they're talking to the child about how, you know milk will go away. And that might be difficult, and they may feel sad, but they're going to be there to help them. They're also there to help you talk through your plans, and think through your strategies and decide what to do next. But they cannot reconfigure your relationship with your child as only you can do that only you can when only you can take the breastfeeding away. 

When we do communicate with our child about weaning, we do want to be as authentic as possible. I do think it's valid to say babies are sleeping. You know, nurses are sleeping when it's dark, because that's true, you want to sleep your body wants to sleep. You might also talk about the fact that as we're getting older, your body's making less milk, maybe you only have enough milk for certain times of the day. Or it might be that you have another reason that you can communicate that is based on truth, maybe your body's getting tired of making milk. Or maybe you need to take some medicine or your body needs more energy to do other things and you're not going to be making milk anymore. whatever language you come up with, you want it to be age appropriate and as close to the truth as possible, because little people are very good at picking up when we're not being authentic and truthful. By the way, I'm aware, you may be listening to this and you're supporting a child who is nonverbal or pre verbal, we can never be sure exactly how much we're saying has been fully understood. But I would encourage you to explain what you're doing and why. We can use repetitive language and your tone, especially your tone when you're validating their feelings, whether when they're feeling distressed will be felt. It may take you longer to introduce new forms of coregulation and you're not able to use roleplay as a tool, and you may need more help from others. But it is possible to win even if your child is nonverbal.

After breastfeeding, your relationship will look different. But you've hopefully already spent some time learning to meet your child's needs in different ways. You've already got those skills, you've already been doing habit stacking, you've already been doing the cuddles and the attachment play and giving your child other opportunities to feel empowered and making sure they're able to independently ask for snacks and drinks. You've already upscaled in all these different areas. Even if you've gone really gently even if you've really taken your time to meet their needs in different ways. You cannot completely eliminate the fact that they may be sad that breastfeeding is going and our job is loving parents creating emotionally intelligent little people is not to believe that we can always fix sadness or, or stop sadness. or refer you back to Philippa Perry again, she talks about how parents really need to understand that we cannot prevent our children being sad. And if we believe that it is our duty, we could be sending some messages that could potentially have long term negative consequences. We're sending the message that sadness is unacceptable. If you are really struggling with your child's negative feelings, and it's not unusual for someone who's historically breastfed for quite a long time to really find big feelings tough because you may never have seen a full on meltdown, you may have always been able to disrupt them with the breastfeed, you may possibly have some work to do about your own comfort levels around big feelings. Have a look at the Aware Parenting programme and Salt, his work around crying and tantrums and big feelings. Big feelings are going to happen. And we're going to be there to sit alongside them, to validate them and to listen to them. It does not mean that we're doing the wrong thing by ending breastfeeding if that's what we really need to do. The act of weaning is supporting our children through their first major loss in most cases. So it's a real parenting opportunities to do that lovingly and gently. It's an opportunity to demonstrate honest communication to listen and negotiate. We're also modelling self care. So when we come out the other side of it all those foundations that you've put in place through your loving breastfeeding relationship and your loving weaning process will help you go on to form long term closeness. Your breastfeeding will have helped form that foundation of your new relationship. And your honest authentic approach to weaning will achieve that too. 

How long does the process of weaning a baby wants to take? Going from a child who's breastfeeding to sleep and breastfeeding multiple times a day throughout night and day? I think you are looking at a minimum of several weeks. This process is unlikely to take less than a month. In rare cases, there may be a family merge See, perhaps maybe someone needs to start with chemotherapy, maybe winning does have to be much faster than that. There is an accelerated version where you focus on offering other ways to meet the needs. You lean hard into offering other ways for them to feel closeness and to feel agency. And you want honest communication with an explanation that is close to the truth as as possible, you're going to have lots of big feelings for both of you, you're going to be validating those big feelings. And accelerated journey is going to need more support for the parent and you reach out to lactation consultants and breastfeeding supporters to help you to for most people, the weaning process takes a long time, in fact, you've been weaning, the minute you gave your child a cup or a stick of broccoli for the first time. This is just the next phase of weaning, you might move more quickly than you would have expected if they really lean in to some of the other ways of connecting, they may really enjoy nighttime storytelling and guided meditations. And sometimes Little People can surprise us. Or you might pause for a stage and maybe take a bit more time. So maybe if night weaning is really painful. If there are very big tears, if they're taking an hour and a half before they get back to sleep. Something in your gut might say no, this is not working right now, I need to pause this. If that's the decision you make, you can't restart night winning the next night. That is just not fair. And inconsistency is the enemy of gentle weaning, you have to have a consistent approach. So if you decide no, I'm going to have to abandon this, please don't go back for perhaps several weeks without having done some more work around habit stacking and preparing them and talking about nighttime, comforting. It might be that you need to move more slowly. Perhaps there are other changes going on in their life. And you may decide you need to pause for a moment. But don't assume that slower weaning is always kinder, some children actually find that period of being stuck in transition harder. And they actually do better if we move more quickly through the stages. So what's right for your child is right for your child, don't assume that there are rules about this. 

Can you wean your child if they're experiencing other changes? Some changes naturally do sit together. So some children that are potty training, for example, seem to make a connection with weaning and may say, Oh, I'm a big girl, I'm wearing pants and I don't breastfeed as much as I did before, they may actually make that connection themselves. Sometimes moving house can be a chance to sort of jiggle around bedtime routines, breastfeed in different rooms, you know, make things a bit fresh and a bit different. And that isn't necessarily going to leave them feeling more emotionally vulnerable, it can actually seem quite logical for them. We'll talk in the next episode about tandem feeding. And we'll talk specifically in that episode about whether you can wean an older child when there's a baby in the house who will still be feeding spoiler, it is possible. And we'll talk about how you can approach that next time. 

On my Instagram, Emma Pickett ibclc you'll find a lot more content about weaning, you'll find many interviews with parents about their weaning journeys on my Reels. My book about weaning is coming out in February, and can be pre ordered now. It's called Supporting the Transition from Breastfeeding, a Guide to Weaning for Professionals, Supporters and Parents. And it's published by Jessica Kingsley Press. She published my last book on Supporting Breastfeeding past the First Six Months, which also has a chapter on weaning. 

That was me talking for an hour, I could have talked for three hours. There are lots of things about weaning a booby monster I haven't covered, but I will hopefully get to them. Bit by bit over the next few episodes. I'll have a question and answer session as well, to cover some of the things that I haven't covered in the future. Good luck with your weaning journey. This is going to be possibly one of the hardest things you've done if you're winning a boobie monster, but if you need to do it for yourself, listen to your gut feelings. Listen to your instincts, you have the right to end breastfeeding at any point in a breastfeeding journey. And if it's the right thing for you to do, listen to that inner voice that tells you that's what you need to do. If you continue to breastfeed, unhappily and reluctantly, I would argue you could do more damage to your relationship with your child than if you end breastfeeding lovingly and thoughtfully. Now good luck.

Thank you for joining me today. You can find me on Instagram at Emma Pickett ibclc and on Twitter at Makes Milk. It would be lovely if you subscribed because that helps other people to know I exist, and leaving your 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.