What's typical for a 1-year-old?

Also, I plan to let DS wean as he wishes, but I'm curious to know when
babies begin to let go of some feedings. How long will he still be nursing
8x/day? And which feedings are the first to go?


This is so YMMV. Some kids are, with little or no encouragement from Mom, down
to nursing 1 or 2x a day by 12 months, while others like yours nurse much more.

My DS was nursing 3-4x at a year (morning, evening when I returned home from
work, bedtime, often once during the night). We dropped the evening session
(mostly at my instigation) when he was 18 months. The middle-of-the-night one
almost completely disappeared as soon as we moved him from crib to twin bed, at
25 or 26 months. And he began skipping the morning one more often than not
somewhere around 2.5. Now, at a month and a half past his 3rd birthday, he's
more or less weaned, but that's probably because I'm pregnant. He still asks
to nurse at bedtime intermittently (like once every couple weeks), then stops
after about 3 or 4 sucks.

I am sure that part of the reason he has always nursed less frequently than
many babies is that I'm a WOHM, so I was motivated to eliminate the daytime
feeds early on (I loathed pumping) -- and he was less motivated to continue
with bottles than he might have been to nurse if I'd been home during the day.
So although I've truly allowed him to self-wean from the last few sessions, I
did some weaning *down* between 9 and 18 months. I certainly didn't insist on
dropping any session he still seemed to need, but the don't offer, don't refuse
thing mostly worked in our case. Oh, and he's always been a pretty
enthusiastic solids eater; by 9 months he was having 3 meals a day plus snacks
(though "meal" would have to be loosely defined -- breakfast was often a
fistful of Cheerios), and by 15 months or so those meals included nearly
everything *we* eat.

Anyway, my point is that if 8x a day is getting wearing for you, don't feel at
all guilty about working on cutting back a little! Experiment with don't
offer, don't refuse or even a little distraction, offer more solid foods, and
see how it goes. If he has a hard time giving up a session or two, or he seems
to be okay with nursing less but his behavior suffers, add the dropped sessions
back in. But chances are, he'll be absolutely fine and you will feel a bit
more free. Weaning is not an all-or-nothing proposition.

I gather that with most kids it's either the morning wake-up or the bedtime
nursing session that's the last to go. The "snacks" are usually the first and
most easily given up, as well as the most easily replaced by solid foods.
Before- or after-nap sessions come next, then morning and bedtime last.

Holly
Mom to Camden, 3yo
EDD #2 6/8/04

Alpha wrote:

Also, I plan to let DS wean as he wishes, but I'm curious to know when
babies begin to let go of some feedings. How long will he still be nursing
8x/day? And which feedings are the first to go?

I couldn't begin to answer that question, because with my son, he had many very
short nursings. By that age, it was five minutes here, five minutes there. It
was like trying to keep track of how many drinks of water you have in a typical
day, or how many times you use the bathroom. I really was not thinking at all
in terms of "feedings" by that point (if I had to be away from him for a few
hours, I no longer thought of myself as "missing a feeding," for instance).
Your son seems to have quite a different pattern, so my answer may not be
directly useful, except to help indicate the variety of behavior out there!

My twins were a lot more scheduled, and at that age were probably having
feedings pretty closely tied to mealtimes, with morning and evening extra, so
about five times a day. But they too were much less trouble to nurse by that
point, so they got extra nursings when they were upset or whatever.

--Helen

Maybe I'm atypical, but DD was nursing five times a day about a month ago
(10 months) and I easily rearranged her schedule so that she was nursing
four times a day and eating three meals. Now I'm weaning her, but she seems
just fine with three meals, one snack and nursing first thing in the morning
and last thing at night.

--
Melissa (in Los Angeles)
Mum to Elizabeth 4/13/03

"Alpha" wrote in message
ink.net...
My son will be 1 next month -- wow! -- and he's still nursing 8x/day, plus
he takes 2 solids meals. I'm wondering how much bf'ing is typical at 1
year. I remember a neighbor telling me that she had her first child
totally weaned by his first birthday, and geez, even if I wanted to do
that, it would be totally out of the question. DS doesn't eat a wide
enough variety of foods for me to consider cutting back on breastmilk.

Also, I plan to let DS wean as he wishes, but I'm curious to know when
babies begin to let go of some feedings. How long will he still be
nursing
8x/day? And which feedings are the first to go?

-- Alpha
mom to Eamon and Quinn

Thanks everyone for your responses! It was very interesting to hear all
the different ways that babies seem to approach nursing and weaning. Quinn
isn't overly enthusiastic about solids -- he does pretty well with what he
likes, but doesn't have a very big repertoire of foods he'll eat. And he
also seems to really like nursing, for the most part. So I think we've got
motivations to nurse from both the nutrition side and the emotional side.

I've been doing frequent night nursing for 4+ months now and I've mostly
come to terms with it, although oh how I would love longer stretches of
sleep. I would be in bf heaven if I could just get him to nurse only once
during the night. :-)

Anyway, I guess we just need to wait and see what happens, because it
sounds like there is no clear, typical trajectory I should be expecting!

-- Alpha
mom to Eamon and Quinn