Women's milk not only strengthens the immune system, but also helps maintain the close psychological and tactile connection that is so necessary for a newborn. Every young mother sooner or later comes to the question of how to wean the baby from the breast. This is especially true with prolonged feeding.
When is it better to stop breastfeeding?
On the question of when it is better to wean from the chest, there is no definite answer, because everything is individual and depends on many factors. The optimal period for this is the age of the baby from one and half to two years. At this time, the lure has already been introduced, almost all the teeth have come out, the child can eat on his own and receive useful trace elements without mother's milk.
When the baby is weaned from the breast, it is worth considering some factors. For example, to stop breastfeeding is not recommended:
- In summer, during the heat, as the mother's milk protects the child's body from harmful microorganisms and prevents him from getting intestinal infections.
- In winter, especially during the period of respiratory infections and influenza, because breast milk is considered a powerful immune agent and helps the child to transfer the disease more easily.
- After vaccination or a serious illness, until the child's body regains its strength.
How can we wean the child from the breast?
The main reasons why mother decides that it's time to finish breastfeeding are:
- emotional and physical fatigue of a woman with prolonged feeding;
- freezing of the baby on the breast;
- a painful process of feeding when the baby is sickly biting or wrongly taking the breast ;
- the need for my mother to go to work or leave for a while;
- hospitalization of a woman or her shaky health.
Depending on the cause and urgency, there are different ways to wean the baby from the breast. They can differ in the speed of completion, psychological traumatism and even lead to stresses, both the baby and his mother. The most effective means of excommunication are:
- drug method, when mum drinks tablets and milk burns out;
- the natural way is to gradually reduce the feeding;
- grandmother's method, when my mother bandages her breasts and leaves for a few days from the baby.
How quickly to wean the baby from the breast?
If weaning from breastfeeding needs to be done quickly, then the medication method will suit you. It is used on a serious need and after consultation with a family doctor or gynecologist. They prescribe drugs, for example, Parlodel, Agalates or Dostinex , which inhibit the production of a hormone like prolactin. The latter is responsible for lactation.
Unfortunately, these drugs have many side effects (insomnia, dizziness, nausea, headache, and so on) and contraindications (pregnancy, serious diseases), so they should be taken in exceptional cases. That the medicine has worked, the mother should as much as possible lower appendages to a breast, especially at night.
How painless is it to wean the baby from the breast?
Many parents, wondering how to wean a child from a breast, choose a natural way. This process is lengthy and can take up to 6 months, but the most harmless and painless for the baby and mother. It consists in the conscious choice of a woman to stop feeding and in the gradual preparation of the child for the completion of lactation.
Natural excommunication consists of several stages:
- Mom needs to gradually eliminate chaotic feeding , and then day, while replacing them with ordinary food.
- If the child is tired, crying or just bored and requires a breast, then for the sake of consolation it is not necessary to give it. Distract the kid by playing games or reading books.
- The next stage will be the abolition of breastfeeding during daytime sleep. You can put the child on the street in a wheelchair, rocking on your hands or telling him fairy tales.
- Then cancel the morning feeding. When the baby is already awake and requires a breast, then offer him a porridge or another breakfast.
- Then cut the feed before bed. The child is fed dinner and given him fatigue, and stacked by singing songs, motion sickness or easy stroking.
- The final point is the cancellation of night feedings . Reduce them gradually, offering instead of breast vodichku or compote.
At these stages, the emphasis is on the word "gradually". While you do not pass one moment, it is not recommended to proceed to another. This method allows not only the child to adapt to new conditions for him, but also helps to evenly reduce lactation. Mom does not experience painful sensations, the breast does not pour so much, and the amount of milk decreases depending on the needs.
How to properly wean the baby?
Young parents at a certain stage wonder how to wean the baby to suck his breast. Pediatricians and children's psychologists believe that both the mother and the baby should be ready for this process. After the end of lactation, many women become depressed, miss the feeling of "unification" with their baby, and they can have a hormonal splash.
Answering the question about how to wean the child from the breast, we should say about the following actions:
- Distract the baby from the desire to "eat" the chest, switch his attention to the surrounding objects.
- Do not give the breast on demand.
- Do not allow to tear up your T-shirt not only in public, but at home, because weaning the baby from the breast, if it is available for him always, is difficult.
- Hide your chest under your clothes so that your child can not see it.
- Give your child a sense of security through tactile contacts: hug and kiss the baby as often as possible.
How to wean a child from a nightly breast-feeding?
If the baby often wakes up at night and cries, causing a negative emotion in her mother, the question is how to wean the child from breastfeeding. In this case, you can:
- Nourishingly feed the baby before bedtime;
- In the evening, a long walk in the fresh air, it's good to buy it, do gymnastics - the child must get tired to sleep all night.
- Instead of milk, you can offer the crumb warm milk, a mixture or water.
- Shruggle the kid in his arms, shake or talk to him.
- You can not give up if you decide to complete breastfeeding, then you do not need to stop halfway.
How to stop lactation naturally?
Excommunication of a child from breastfeeding is not always a pleasant experience for women. When a lot of milk comes, and you have already decided not to feed your child, the question arises: what should I do? The main rules are:
- Reduce the use of water. In this case, the amount of milk will decrease, and it will be more difficult to suck it.
- Do not express instead of feeding.
- Do not eat cumin, warm soup, nuts, dried fruits and other products that cause lactation.
- Be engaged in sports, increase loading that the liquid with then left an organism;
- Reduce breastfeeding as much as possible.
What to do with the chest during excommunication?
During the lactation process, the breast is poured, therefore it has attractive curvy shapes that you do not want to lose. In this connection, the question arises: what to do with the chest after weaning? There are the following methods that help women with the completion of feeding:
- To wear quality bras that should be pitted and do not crush.
- Tightening the chest is not necessary, because often this is the reason not only lactostasis, but also mastitis.
When the milk completely burns out, a woman can try:
- take a contrast shower;
- rub your chest with a cool towel;
- exercise for the pectoral muscles;
Than to smear a breast to wean the child?
When the lactation is no longer in joy, but the kid constantly requires mother's milk and can not distract him, the woman thinks about how to spread her breasts to wean the child. Our mothers and grandmothers smeared the halos of the nipples with tincture of motherwort or wormwood, mustard, zelenka and so on. Modern psychologists do not recommend this and advise to wait for hysterics, and then continue the excommunication.
Do I need to express milk at the end of lactation?
If the breast of a young mother is heavily poured and even causes pain, then you can try to express it to relief, and in other cases this is not recommended. Leaving the breast empty does not make sense, because milk constantly comes in the amount that was used and the completion of lactation will be prolonged for a longer period.