DD is 13 months, and we are still breastfeeding, happily for the most part. Her biggest feeding is first thing in the morning, immediately after I pick her up out of her crib (before diapering, turning on the lights, etc.). Then she nurses again after daycare, around 5 pm, before dinner. She does not have a before bed or mid-night nursing. On the weekends when we're together during the day, she also tends to nurse after waking up from naps, and in general when we're reunited (i.e. if I go out for a while, she'll nurse when I get back). Over the past couple months she's also started to climb into my nap to nurse in the middle of playing (or at inconvenient times, like at the grocery store), where she'll nurse for literally a couple seconds and then go about her business. These sessions I find a little frustrating, and would like to eliminate, but otherwise I think I'd be happy to continue breastfeeding indefinitely if it weren't for my schedule.

Starting in September or October (probably October, but it depends on when I have to show up for my elective, which I won't really know until it starts), I will be out of the house way before DD wakes up in the morning. Thus, the morning nursing will have to go. By November, when I am on Medicine, I may be out past her bedtime so the before-nursing might have to go too. I have no interest in taking up pumping again, so it seems like this means weaning, at least for the most part. I'm okay with continuing to nurse her when we are together (days off, when I manage to get home in time), but it can't be something she relies on in my absence, and I also don't want it to be something she insists on doing all of our time together.

A couple days ago I stopped allowing her to nurse randomly while we're playing. It has gone reasonably well - we cuddle, she fusses some and then gets distracted. Today was a professional development day at her daycare so she was home, and I was out part of the day. If I had been home when she woke up from her nap, I probably would have nursed her, but I got home after her lunch and DH and I decided I shouldn't nurse her, so I didn't. Again, it went reasonably well. However, I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from here. Popular wisdom goes that I should cut out one feeding a week or so, starting with the least important. However, we only have two feedings on most days, and the most important one (morning) is the one that becomes problematic in my schedule first. So here's my question, I guess: should I just wait until Sept or Oct to stop the morning nursing, when I won't be here anyway and DH will get her up in the morning? And then stop the evening session when Medicine starts and I'm not around? Or will it be too much for her to stop nursing at the same time that I'm not here? I can imagine it going both ways - harder to stop if I'm here and she knows she should be able to nurse, or harder if I'm not here and she has to deal with not nursing and my absence all at once. I can imagine refusing the before dinner session but it's really hard to imagine refusing in the morning if I'm actually here - she'd go ballistic. Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Sorry for the long post - I really appreciate your help!

Has it ever happened that you weren't there first thing in the morning? Trip or anything? If so, how did she handle that? I would anticipate her being more clingy at times when you ARE home, to compensate. you might also institute some other bonding ritual you can do instead, and maybe incorporate dad so that in the future either one of you can do it. My kids self-weaned, so no experience in this area.

Nope, it has NEVER happened. The only nursing sessions we've ever "missed" were during the day last year when I was doing research, and I pumped and DH gave her a bottle. She's also NEVER been put to bed at night by anyone other than me. Eek!

Sorry, I'm not a lot of help either- my kids all self-weaned as well (at least to date).

I would think the tapering off as it happens naturally with your schedule should work out fine- that's sort of how things happened with mine- I started to pump less, they got more formula/milk and less breastmilk and it just slowly increased/decreased from there.

Has she started drinking cow's/soy milk/formula for older kids? Does she like it? If so, perhaps giving her some first thing in the morning while she cuddles with you first before breastfeeding might help.

But again, not speaking from experience, just guessing???

If I were you I would just continue to enjoy breastfeeding for now and not worry about the future. In another month or two, she may be starting to self wean anyway. I nursed my youngest until he was almost two but just before bed and naps. It got to the point where Dad could put him down and he did not even miss me! You could try having your husband put her down for bed or get her in the morning, it might be easier than you think!

If it were me, I would not try to actively wean unless you want to. My DD#1 weaned around 23 months. I stopped pumping around 18 months. She gradually stopped taking EBM on her own. Her weaning was hastened by my pregnancy with DD#2.

If I were you, I would do a couple trial runs with you being gone and see how it goes. You may be surprised that when you are there she nurses and when you are gone her and her caregiver do something else. As my DD#1 was weaning, I took a don't ask, don't refuse approach. I did use distraction but if she still wanted to nurse, we nursed. I also used counting where she could nurse until I counted to 10.

Here are some tips on weaning, if you are interested.
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/index.html
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/weaning/weaning_techniques.html

DD does drink cow's milk and she seems to like it quite a bit. There's no way she'd take it from me in the morning before breastfeeding though - she'd just throw the sippy cup across the room and wail I'm wondering if DH should do a bottle of cow's milk on mornings when I'm not around, to encourage some snuggle time like she gets with me now. The problem is that then we'd have to wean off the bottle at some point, too. Also, this may seem like a lame concern, but if she's given a sippy cup of milk right away (rather than a bottle) she'll get it ALL over her PJs (it comes spilling out of her mouth when she guzzles it), and then we'd have to change her jammies every night, which would not be ideal. But, I guess I should just suck that up, right?

As I said before I don't want to start pumping again, so I expect my milk supply will decrease, though hopefully not so much that we can't nurse when I'm around. I've never had problems with milk supply so I'm not too worried about that.

So it seems like it would be okay for us to stick with our two nursings a day until my schedule requires us to miss one, and then just have DH play it by ear? I love the idea of not having to cut it out early, I guess I just thought we needed to be prepared ahead of time. Also, I've read about moms being depressed when they wean. It worries me that that would coincide with my Medicine rotation (assuming that rotation has me out before she's up and home after she goes to bed, which it may or may not). Any thoughts?

I would go straight to a sippy cup and skip the bottle issue. At one she should be weaning off the bottle anyway. On a hopeful note, I find the things that stress me the most seem to affect my children much less than I anticipate.

Oh, you also might play around with a few different sippys to find one she doesn't make a massive mess with. The only ones I have ever liked are the PlayTex ones, personally, I find everything else leaks.

Ugh, now I'm having second thoughts. Should I start pumping again? And if I do, should DH give it to DD in a sippy cup to avoid the bottle issue, as you mention residentmom?

It seems like it's so easy to make a decision one way or the other and then read something or talk to someone and end up feeling guilty about it. Why is it that all the lactation support groups make you feel like such an awful person for anything other than 100% child-led weaning?

As for sippy cups, we've been using the Nuk learner cups. They have something different at daycare and I'm not sure she leaks as much there, though she still does some - I think it's because she sucks it in too fast and then doesn't swallow all of it. But we'll play around with different cups and see if that helps