How to properly complete breastfeeding

Breastfeeding is the most natural and natural process that can only be imagined in a series of modern realities. A woman breast-feeding a baby not only gives her baby food, but also makes a special elusive contact with him. Many women admit that only with the first application of crumbs to their breasts did they realize the true value of motherhood. But time passes, the baby grows and sooner or later it should be weaned. How to make it as painless as possible for a child and mother? In this article, you will learn about the timing of completing breastfeeding, ways to reduce lactation, and also about the psychological discomfort of the baby in such a stressful situation as weaning.

When to wean a baby

This question is so individual that there is no exact answer to it. Each mother herself decides for her child how long she wants to give him breasts. Doctors agree that up to six months the baby should be fed exclusively with mother's milk or adapted milk formula. If you fed your baby before the age of six months, you have completed the minimum program. Feeding a baby up to a year is very good. But remember that at this time you should add other products to the baby's diet - vegetables, fruits, cereals, meat, kefir, cottage cheese. After all, the baby is growing and breast milk alone is not enough for him.

There is an opinion that after a year, mother's milk becomes useless. In fact, this is not so. In milk there is a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Just the baby is growing, and this type of nutrition in the overall diet plays an increasingly smaller role. After a year, the psychological factor of intimacy with the mother is of greater importance. Feeding after a year is no longer considered as necessary as in the first year of life. But one thing is certain: if mom and baby like feeding, they can continue for at least how long. Only mom decides when to complete this long process.

As a rule, weaned after a year of age. By this time, the child eats almost all healthy foods and will be able to quickly make up for the deficiency of vitamins formed by excommunication.

When to wean a baby from a breast is not worth it

Breast for the baby is not only nutrition. This is a way to calm and solitude with the mother. That is why it is impossible to plan weaning during teething, during illness (and especially rotovirus infection). They try not to excommunicate from the breast during too cold or too hot season. Also, you should not create additional stress for the child if he has recently been vaccinated. Weaning cannot be combined with other serious experiences in a child’s life - the beginning of going to kindergarten, the appearance of a nanny, accustoming to a potty, change of residence, etc.

How to properly complete breastfeeding

The most correct way to complete lactation is to gradually wean. It is close to natural, and is considered humane both in relation to the child, and in relation to the female body. To excommunicate a baby, you must adhere to the following rules.

1. If you plan to move away from breastfeeding in the future, you need to think over the course of action in advance. Gradual excommunication involves a long process that can take more than one month.
2. Gradually reduce the number of applications. If you fed your baby 4 times a day, limit it to 3, then leave 2 times.
3. Eliminate the nightly application of the baby.If the baby asks for breasts at night, shake it, give it water from the bottle, hold it to yourself, stroke it, but you should not give breasts. The fact is that night feeds stimulate milk production.
4. Gradually, you need to leave only 2 feedings - morning and evening. After a week, leave only morning feeding.
5. Do not associate other areas of the child’s life with feeding. Do not reassure the child with a breast, do not fall asleep with her. Look for alternative ways to calm and fall asleep - stroking, patting, motion sickness, etc.
6. What to do with breasts during weaning? If you wean the baby gradually, then lactation decreases gradually. After six months, mother’s milk is produced according to the principle “If there is demand, there will be supply”. The less you feed your baby, the less milk is produced. With such an excommunication, you do not need to drink drugs or pull the chest.
7. To reduce lactation, you can drink herbal decoctions that inhibit milk production. This is mint, sage, parsley.
8. At one fine moment, when the number of feedings was reduced to one per day, you can completely abandon the baby's attachments to the chest.
9. If the breast swells, you can attach cabbage to it. Take the cabbage leaf and mash it with a rolling pin on the board. Attach to the chest and put on a bra.
10. Wear supporting underwear until completely weaned.

By following these simple rules, you can wean the baby from the chest without stress, and you will be able to gradually reduce lactation without harm to your body.

How to wean a baby quickly

There are times when there is no time for gradual excommunication. For example, if a mother needs treatment that is incompatible with breastfeeding. Some mothers prefer to wean immediately, rather than gradually. They explain this by the fact that it is easier for a child to survive stress once than to stretch this process for long weeks and even months. Such an opinion has the right to exist - each mother decides for herself how to complete breastfeeding. So, if you need to excommunicate a child in a few days, follow these rules.

1. For the last time, breastfeed your baby and smear the mammary glands with camphor oil. There is an experience of our mothers and grandmothers in tugging breast tissue. Is it possible to do this? Modern doctors do not recommend pulling the chest, as this can lead to mastitis and injury. However, you need to wear tight, shapewear all the time, which prevents the breast from filling freely with milk. If you still decide to pull the chest, do it not so much.
2. If weaning occurs abruptly, then most likely you can not do without medications that can hormone suppress lactation. Most of them involve taking only one pill, after which milk “burns out”. Remember, it is impossible to feed the child after taking this pill in any case - it can be dangerous. Some of these drugs cause side effects - nausea, headache, palpitations, loss of appetite. Take hormonal drugs to suppress lactation without consulting a gynecologist is strictly contraindicated!
3. Breastfeeding counselors do not recommend leaving the baby the first night after weaning with someone other than the mother. However, this method of excommunication takes place. The fact is that the baby will experience more stress if left with his mother, but she will not give him the usual chest. The child simply cannot understand why it was always possible, but now it is impossible? Moreover, from my mother it smells so good milk. If you leave the child with someone else (not a stranger, but, for example, a grandmother or dad), he will feel protected, but will remember less often about his chest.
4. If you feel pain and fullness in the chest, express milk and drink an antipyretic or analgesic. It will help you survive the discomfort.

Following these simple rules, you can complete breastfeeding in a week.

How to prepare a child for excommunication

There is a popular way to complete breastfeeding - to spread the breast with something bitter or nasty. Do not do this, otherwise you will provoke additional stress in the child, rejection from the breast and from the mother.

What to do if the breast is swollen

If you finish breastfeeding gradually, then the risk of swelling and overflowing the breast is minimal. If the breast is still swollen, it must be expressed. Do this as little as possible, but you can not do without pumping, otherwise you can bring the body to mastitis or lactostasis. The produced milk needs to go somewhere. When expressing milk, each time it will be less and less until one day you stop feeling full in the mammary glands.

If you feel that a lump has formed in your chest, you need to proceed as follows. Open your chest under a hot shower, direct a powerful stream of hot water directly to this bump. After this, express the “sick” chest from the side where the lump has formed. Milk that will be decanted may be gray or even yellow - this is normal. After complete emptying of the chest, the bump will disappear. Then the breast needs to be decanted for several more days, doing this less and less. After each emptying, you need to lubricate the breast with camphor oil - it will soothe the skin and help suppress lactation. You can get rid of cones with a compress of magnesia - it dissolves small seals. However, remember, large cones need only decantation. If the seal does not disappear, the temperature does not return to normal for more than a day - do not hesitate, consult a doctor.

Breastfeeding is a long, interesting and intimate process. This is the invisible connection that unites the mother and child. But sooner or later, breastfeeding should be abandoned. And only depends on the woman, this process will be sharp and painful or gradual and humane. Love yourself and your child, listen to your body. And then the end of breastfeeding will be as natural as its beginning.

Video: how to wean a baby