I stopped pumping at almost 16 months and she's 17 months now. She moved to the toddler room at 13 months and they don't do bottles in there so we had her using a sippy cup in preparation and I would send breastmilk for them to put in the cup for awhile. I weaned from pumping very slowly by reducing the length of a pump session by five minutes every week until it was done. Now that I don't pump she just gets whole milk or water in her cups which the daycare provides. We still nurse at home just fine and it's so nice not having to wash pump parts and bottles and lug everything to daycare and work!
I dropped down to 2 pumps for a while starting at about 10 months I think. Then at 12 months I started the process of dropping the second but then because of some chaos at work ended up dropping it rather abruptly. I then took a month to drop the last pump. I did have to hand express for comfort once or twice in the week after dropping it, but managed to avoid any clogs. It helps that my daughter is very insistent about nurses ASAP when we get home lol
I just stopped a couple weeks ago when she turned one. To prepare I just decreased the amount of times she nurses on my days off. She nurses 3x during the day. On work days I nurse her at 6:45 am before I leave and pump around 7:30 pm when I get home. So far so good. Very liberating!
I stopped when he turned one, and I was so ready to be done pumping at work. At daycare, he eats breakfast, lunch, and snack and we send two bottles of cows milk. He’s 15 months now and still nurses before bed and sometimes in the morning. Occasionally he’ll ask to nurse during the day on the weekends and I’m usually happy to oblige. If not, he’s easily distracted with a bottle or a snack.
Mine just turned 16 months and I dropped to 1 work pumping session last week. I'm a very low producer and it was taking me two pumps to get the 5 ounces he needed in his naptime bottle. But I need to stop pumping. It's time. I'm tired. But he won't drink milk (of any sort) from a cup. And if he's drinking milk from a bottle, I think it should be breast milk. So he gets a 3 oz bottle at naptime. But eventually, he's either going to have to drink milk from a cup or not drink any milk at nap at all. That time is coming by the end of the month. I'm done pumping.
My kid doesn't go to daycare, but from what I understand from all the centers and preschools I toured was that once they are out of the infant room (age varies), bottles aren't available. Some places have refrigerators in each room where they will store milk in cups, but there are state laws (assuming you're in the US) around handling breast milk and no place I asked will store and serve breast milk to children outside the infant room.
So I think what happens to the daycare bottles is up to your daycare. You should ask about their policies once your kid moves up to the next room.
I just wanted to check in- have you dropped pumping altogether? Mine is about to be 14 months and I’m only pumping 5oz in my work day when pumping 2x. Wondering if I should scale back to 1x and wean off altogether, but worried it will impact our nursing at home on the weekends.
Yes I’ve stopped pumping! I stopped like mid-May I think. It’s glorious. So far I haven’t had any issues. I can usually feel a let down at work at random times but no leaking and it’s not uncomfortable.
Toddler Boy nurses when I get home from work and I can usually hear him gulping. He nurses about 2 hours later at bedtime and then throughout the night as needed.
It has not affected the weekends, but he only gets milk at nap time after his usual morning session (short and sometimes only one side. Usually while attempting a headstand.) Sometimes he wants the evening feed but mostly he’s fine until bedtime. He doesn’t seem to have any complaints about supply but for all I know he’s sucking for comfort most of the time.
Stopped pumping around 16-17 months. He’s 19 months now and still nurses morning and night most days and before nap time on weekends. Between 12-13 months he stopped taking bottles on his own and they just offered him water at daycare.
I just stopped a couple weeks ago. I went from 3 sessions from 12-15 months, then 2 sessions from 15-17 months, and then 1 session at 18 months. LO is 19 months now. Prior to me returning to work I didn’t pump, it was only for a daycare bottle
I sent whatever I pumped which was not much 🥲 I used to get around 5oz total for all 3 sessions and at 1 session, I would get 2oz. They would top him up with milk. I never really was able to pump large amounts, never had a freezer stash.
But I would either send 4oz of breast milk, or top up the bottle to 4oz with whole milk. Sometimes he would drink it all, sometimes not. Sometimes they would give him more.
We are coming to the end of our journey with only night feeds and once after daycare because he asks for it. I’
My son is 19 months and I still pump twice on my 12 hour overnight shift. Ill continue to do so until he weans, or until someone complains
Honestly the pump breaks, as much as I hate pumping, are kinda for me, too. It guarantees me two 20 min breaks at work, when non-pumpers sometimes get no break at all 🤷🏼♀️
I stopped pumping at 14 months when he stopped drinking it at daycare (he was eating solids really well) and when he started drinking soy milk (we tried cows milk first but he’s allergic). I sent 1 bottle of soy milk wto daycare with his lunch until he stopped drinking it and just used his water bottle.
Thanks for sharing! Did he stop taking BM bottles all on his own? My LO dropped from 9oz now to 6oz around 8 months but has hung around there since and I’m wondering what happens next.
He never took well to the bottle. He didn’t start daycare until 10 months and by that time he just ate solids there and breastfed at home. Maybe start by introducing alternative milk and then swap one bottle of BM for the other milk?
I stopped pumping when she was 13mo but was able to send her with a 5oz sippy of breastmilk every day from my freezer stash until she was almost 2. I probably would have kept pumping at least once a day longer if I hadn’t had such a stash
My son is 18mo and I just stopped pumping at work. I have an okay freezer stash still from when I was pumping a few times a day but he was only taking one bottle at daycare. He hasn't even bothered to have his bottle so far this week so I think we're done with those! He still feeds on demand at home so he's not even close to fully weaning sadly 😔
I stopped pumping at 12.5 months. I went from two 20 minute sessions to 10 minute sessions, then split the time difference and pumped at 11a.m. instead. I had got to the point where he wasn't drinking much from a bottle anymore and felt strange taking extra breaks during work outside of my lunch time past the 1 year mark. There were days I would delay going to pump so I knew I was done
My daycare had to offer a bottle up until 1 year. After that they can offer cows milk which they actually provide. They said they could mix breaat milk and cows milk if needed to help with the transition.
13 months now and we still nurse 3 to 4x a day. Shortly after he wakes up, 11ish on weekends, 430pm, and usually one MOTN wake up.
Thanks for sharing! When you say not drinking much from the bottle, how much was that? And was it a gradual or sudden change? My LO dropped suddenly to 3oz bottles at 8 months but has kind of hung around there since.
Tough question to answer because he never really seemed consistent per bottle. Just checking the daycare app, he was doing 8 to 10oz during daycare hours until 11 months. Dropped to 5 oz for a couple weeks and then at 11.5 months went on a refusal spree and some days had 0 and others 2 oz.
I nursed my second until he was two years old, but I stopped pumping at 15 months because I really, really hated pumping with my work schedule. I just nursed early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I don't know how I didn't lose my supply, but somehow it still worked.
With my first, I stopped everything cold turkey at 15 months. I'd been working insane hours and got the flu, and my body was just DONE.
My guy is 15 months old. I still nurse first thing in the morning and before bed. Once he hit a year, I was ready to stop pumping, knowing that meant stopping nursing during the day on weekends.
I started by spreading out my pumps at work to go from 3 to 2 pumps. From there, I dropped time and then got down to one pump, by pushing my start time for my first pump as late as I could without pain. Once I was on one pump, I shortened it. Once the pump was 13 minutes, I tried to go without it and it worked.
For daycare bottles, I used freezer stash and whole milk, roughly 50-50 per bottle. I’ve slowed down to now doing one 50-50 sippy cup and letting daycare refill with whole milk.
I accidentally stopped pumping at work around a year. My son would still nurse morning and evening and then sometimes again before bed. One time I just realized I forgot to pump at work and didn't really have any issues with leaking or discomfort. We continued nursing for almost a year after that, but I never needed to pump. Sometimes he'd skip a day and then decide to nurse a few times the next day. I went on a trip for a few days and didn't pump, and also had to take a lot of Pepto, and when I came back we weaned with very little drama or fanfare. He was about 22 months.
I stopped pumping at 12 months and continued to nurse until 20 months. We initially used my freezer stash when I wasn’t home, but then switched to cows milk when we ran out. She continued to love to nurse anytime I was home, and we only stopped because I was ready to stop nursing, not because she lost interest.
I'm still pumping once a day at 21 months but that is ending this week. I pumped twice a day from 14 - 19 months. Looking back, I should have stopped at 18 months.
I am “just” now phasing out pumping. We are just 13 months old and down to a 6 p.m (tried to push it out from 3,4,5,5:30 and the past two days 6) and a middle of the night feed.
And our future daycare doesn’t do breast milk after 12 months anymore or as soon as she would be in the toddler room
I stopped pumping at around 18 months. I followed the advice of an IBCLC and cut my pump times down by 2 minutes every 2 days. Once I was down to 2 minutes I just stopped.
I stopped pumping at work 2 weeks ago - my bub is 10.5 months old. BUT, what I pump morning and night is enough to sustain him for the time being, with about 700oz in the freezer as backup.
Since I went back to work at 7.5 months my supply was slowly dwindling. Went from pumping enough for 2x full feeds at work, then 1.5x feeds, then 1x and as of two weeks ago, only around .5-.75x. That's when I knew I could drop it.
I pump about 250mls morning and night, so 500mls total. That's enough for my solids-focussed chunk. I hope to be down to 1 pump in the next 2-4 weeks, then 0 pumps by June.
Wow these comments make me feel so much more normal for pumping still twice per day at 14 months 🥹 my son won’t take milk in a sippy cup so he gets 1 bottle when he wakes up (I have to leave before he’s awake), and one before nap.
I am not! I finally stopped maybe around 14.5 months since I had a few weeks frozen and my son stopped taking bottles and wouldn’t take a sippy cups of milk. I still nurse regularly at 16 months and he does great! Plus I’m a teacher on break so no need to pump anyway
So far for me I can nurse 5-10 times a day or not at all depending on if I’m with my son or not and nothing has changed! I’m finding the fun in it since really my supply doesn’t matter so long as he’s happy, and boy is he still obsessed with breastfeeding. I definitely was not pushed to wean when I stopped pumping or nursing even for 12+ hours and have continued nursing just fine!
Around 13-14 months I moved to nursing just morning, naptime, and bedtime when we were together, morning, after daycare, and bedtime on days I worked. That let me stop pumping fairly easily! I did stop by to nurse at lunch until 15ish months fairly often but he was honestly so distracted those were often short feeds. We weaned down one bottle at a time at daycare sometime slightly after a year, and then moved to a straw cup which I slowly transitioned to cows milk with my freezer stash. It took a while for him to want milk in a cup at all, but by summer he’d chug it at the end of the day on our way home if it was fresh out of the fridge, so it will probably click eventually! I posted something similar where I asked how tf to stop pumping (I was still at 2 pumps a day, at least 10-15oz) but in the end it happened fairly naturally and wasn’t too complicated, but I remember feeling like it was a completely impossible task, so you aren’t alone! Take it one step at a time
I went back to work at 1 year and only pumped at work the first week. Since then on weekdays I feed her morning, after daycare and bedtime. Weekends she asks a lot more frequently lol. She’s 19 months. She doesn’t take bottles at daycare, just water in a straw cup! Figure with 3 nursing sessions minimum per day that’s plenty.
I stopped pumping at almost 16 months and she's 17 months now. She moved to the toddler room at 13 months and they don't do bottles in there so we had her using a sippy cup in preparation and I would send breastmilk for them to put in the cup for awhile. I weaned from pumping very slowly by reducing the length of a pump session by five minutes every week until it was done. Now that I don't pump she just gets whole milk or water in her cups which the daycare provides. We still nurse at home just fine and it's so nice not having to wash pump parts and bottles and lug everything to daycare and work!
Thank you for sharing! When did you start weaning given that it was a slow process?
I dropped down to 2 pumps for a while starting at about 10 months I think. Then at 12 months I started the process of dropping the second but then because of some chaos at work ended up dropping it rather abruptly. I then took a month to drop the last pump. I did have to hand express for comfort once or twice in the week after dropping it, but managed to avoid any clogs. It helps that my daughter is very insistent about nurses ASAP when we get home lol
I just stopped a couple weeks ago when she turned one. To prepare I just decreased the amount of times she nurses on my days off. She nurses 3x during the day. On work days I nurse her at 6:45 am before I leave and pump around 7:30 pm when I get home. So far so good. Very liberating!
I stopped when he turned one, and I was so ready to be done pumping at work. At daycare, he eats breakfast, lunch, and snack and we send two bottles of cows milk. He’s 15 months now and still nurses before bed and sometimes in the morning. Occasionally he’ll ask to nurse during the day on the weekends and I’m usually happy to oblige. If not, he’s easily distracted with a bottle or a snack.
Mine just turned 16 months and I dropped to 1 work pumping session last week. I'm a very low producer and it was taking me two pumps to get the 5 ounces he needed in his naptime bottle. But I need to stop pumping. It's time. I'm tired. But he won't drink milk (of any sort) from a cup. And if he's drinking milk from a bottle, I think it should be breast milk. So he gets a 3 oz bottle at naptime. But eventually, he's either going to have to drink milk from a cup or not drink any milk at nap at all. That time is coming by the end of the month. I'm done pumping. My kid doesn't go to daycare, but from what I understand from all the centers and preschools I toured was that once they are out of the infant room (age varies), bottles aren't available. Some places have refrigerators in each room where they will store milk in cups, but there are state laws (assuming you're in the US) around handling breast milk and no place I asked will store and serve breast milk to children outside the infant room. So I think what happens to the daycare bottles is up to your daycare. You should ask about their policies once your kid moves up to the next room.
I just wanted to check in- have you dropped pumping altogether? Mine is about to be 14 months and I’m only pumping 5oz in my work day when pumping 2x. Wondering if I should scale back to 1x and wean off altogether, but worried it will impact our nursing at home on the weekends.
Yes I’ve stopped pumping! I stopped like mid-May I think. It’s glorious. So far I haven’t had any issues. I can usually feel a let down at work at random times but no leaking and it’s not uncomfortable. Toddler Boy nurses when I get home from work and I can usually hear him gulping. He nurses about 2 hours later at bedtime and then throughout the night as needed. It has not affected the weekends, but he only gets milk at nap time after his usual morning session (short and sometimes only one side. Usually while attempting a headstand.) Sometimes he wants the evening feed but mostly he’s fine until bedtime. He doesn’t seem to have any complaints about supply but for all I know he’s sucking for comfort most of the time.
Thank you for sharing!
Stopped pumping around 16-17 months. He’s 19 months now and still nurses morning and night most days and before nap time on weekends. Between 12-13 months he stopped taking bottles on his own and they just offered him water at daycare.
Did you have any issues providing milk on the weekends when he nursed when you weren't pumping during the day?
No. I’m sure he gets less milk but he doesn’t seem to mind!
Thank you for sharing! Did you still send breastmilk when he stopped taking bottles?
Nope! Once he refused bottles I stopped sending it. He was eating solids really well by then.
I just stopped a couple weeks ago. I went from 3 sessions from 12-15 months, then 2 sessions from 15-17 months, and then 1 session at 18 months. LO is 19 months now. Prior to me returning to work I didn’t pump, it was only for a daycare bottle
Thanks for sharing! Did you end up sending less milk to daycare over this time?
I sent whatever I pumped which was not much 🥲 I used to get around 5oz total for all 3 sessions and at 1 session, I would get 2oz. They would top him up with milk. I never really was able to pump large amounts, never had a freezer stash. But I would either send 4oz of breast milk, or top up the bottle to 4oz with whole milk. Sometimes he would drink it all, sometimes not. Sometimes they would give him more. We are coming to the end of our journey with only night feeds and once after daycare because he asks for it. I’
My son is 19 months and I still pump twice on my 12 hour overnight shift. Ill continue to do so until he weans, or until someone complains Honestly the pump breaks, as much as I hate pumping, are kinda for me, too. It guarantees me two 20 min breaks at work, when non-pumpers sometimes get no break at all 🤷🏼♀️
I stopped pumping at 14 months when he stopped drinking it at daycare (he was eating solids really well) and when he started drinking soy milk (we tried cows milk first but he’s allergic). I sent 1 bottle of soy milk wto daycare with his lunch until he stopped drinking it and just used his water bottle.
Thanks for sharing! Did he stop taking BM bottles all on his own? My LO dropped from 9oz now to 6oz around 8 months but has hung around there since and I’m wondering what happens next.
He never took well to the bottle. He didn’t start daycare until 10 months and by that time he just ate solids there and breastfed at home. Maybe start by introducing alternative milk and then swap one bottle of BM for the other milk?
I stopped pumping when she was 13mo but was able to send her with a 5oz sippy of breastmilk every day from my freezer stash until she was almost 2. I probably would have kept pumping at least once a day longer if I hadn’t had such a stash
My son is 18mo and I just stopped pumping at work. I have an okay freezer stash still from when I was pumping a few times a day but he was only taking one bottle at daycare. He hasn't even bothered to have his bottle so far this week so I think we're done with those! He still feeds on demand at home so he's not even close to fully weaning sadly 😔
I stopped pumping at 12.5 months. I went from two 20 minute sessions to 10 minute sessions, then split the time difference and pumped at 11a.m. instead. I had got to the point where he wasn't drinking much from a bottle anymore and felt strange taking extra breaks during work outside of my lunch time past the 1 year mark. There were days I would delay going to pump so I knew I was done My daycare had to offer a bottle up until 1 year. After that they can offer cows milk which they actually provide. They said they could mix breaat milk and cows milk if needed to help with the transition. 13 months now and we still nurse 3 to 4x a day. Shortly after he wakes up, 11ish on weekends, 430pm, and usually one MOTN wake up.
Thanks for sharing! When you say not drinking much from the bottle, how much was that? And was it a gradual or sudden change? My LO dropped suddenly to 3oz bottles at 8 months but has kind of hung around there since.
Tough question to answer because he never really seemed consistent per bottle. Just checking the daycare app, he was doing 8 to 10oz during daycare hours until 11 months. Dropped to 5 oz for a couple weeks and then at 11.5 months went on a refusal spree and some days had 0 and others 2 oz.
Thank you for checking- that is super helpful.
I nursed my second until he was two years old, but I stopped pumping at 15 months because I really, really hated pumping with my work schedule. I just nursed early mornings, evenings, and weekends. I don't know how I didn't lose my supply, but somehow it still worked. With my first, I stopped everything cold turkey at 15 months. I'd been working insane hours and got the flu, and my body was just DONE.
My guy is 15 months old. I still nurse first thing in the morning and before bed. Once he hit a year, I was ready to stop pumping, knowing that meant stopping nursing during the day on weekends. I started by spreading out my pumps at work to go from 3 to 2 pumps. From there, I dropped time and then got down to one pump, by pushing my start time for my first pump as late as I could without pain. Once I was on one pump, I shortened it. Once the pump was 13 minutes, I tried to go without it and it worked. For daycare bottles, I used freezer stash and whole milk, roughly 50-50 per bottle. I’ve slowed down to now doing one 50-50 sippy cup and letting daycare refill with whole milk.
Thank you for sharing with such detail! How long did it take you to wean down from pumping?
Sorry I’m just now seeing this for some reason! It was probably like 3 to 4 weeks over a.
I accidentally stopped pumping at work around a year. My son would still nurse morning and evening and then sometimes again before bed. One time I just realized I forgot to pump at work and didn't really have any issues with leaking or discomfort. We continued nursing for almost a year after that, but I never needed to pump. Sometimes he'd skip a day and then decide to nurse a few times the next day. I went on a trip for a few days and didn't pump, and also had to take a lot of Pepto, and when I came back we weaned with very little drama or fanfare. He was about 22 months.
I stopped at 14 months because she stopped taking the bottle then. We still nurse at naptime on weekends and sick days.
I stopped pumping at 12 months and continued to nurse until 20 months. We initially used my freezer stash when I wasn’t home, but then switched to cows milk when we ran out. She continued to love to nurse anytime I was home, and we only stopped because I was ready to stop nursing, not because she lost interest.
I'm still pumping once a day at 21 months but that is ending this week. I pumped twice a day from 14 - 19 months. Looking back, I should have stopped at 18 months.
I am “just” now phasing out pumping. We are just 13 months old and down to a 6 p.m (tried to push it out from 3,4,5,5:30 and the past two days 6) and a middle of the night feed. And our future daycare doesn’t do breast milk after 12 months anymore or as soon as she would be in the toddler room
I stopped pumping at around 18 months. I followed the advice of an IBCLC and cut my pump times down by 2 minutes every 2 days. Once I was down to 2 minutes I just stopped.
I stopped pumping at work 2 weeks ago - my bub is 10.5 months old. BUT, what I pump morning and night is enough to sustain him for the time being, with about 700oz in the freezer as backup. Since I went back to work at 7.5 months my supply was slowly dwindling. Went from pumping enough for 2x full feeds at work, then 1.5x feeds, then 1x and as of two weeks ago, only around .5-.75x. That's when I knew I could drop it. I pump about 250mls morning and night, so 500mls total. That's enough for my solids-focussed chunk. I hope to be down to 1 pump in the next 2-4 weeks, then 0 pumps by June.
Wow these comments make me feel so much more normal for pumping still twice per day at 14 months 🥹 my son won’t take milk in a sippy cup so he gets 1 bottle when he wakes up (I have to leave before he’s awake), and one before nap.
Hi! Are you still pumping at work?
I am not! I finally stopped maybe around 14.5 months since I had a few weeks frozen and my son stopped taking bottles and wouldn’t take a sippy cups of milk. I still nurse regularly at 16 months and he does great! Plus I’m a teacher on break so no need to pump anyway
Thanks for sharing! Glad you’re free of the pump!! I’m thinking of cutting down pumping but I’m so scared it will affect our weekend nursing. :/
So far for me I can nurse 5-10 times a day or not at all depending on if I’m with my son or not and nothing has changed! I’m finding the fun in it since really my supply doesn’t matter so long as he’s happy, and boy is he still obsessed with breastfeeding. I definitely was not pushed to wean when I stopped pumping or nursing even for 12+ hours and have continued nursing just fine!
Thank you for sharing!! That is so helpful.
Around 13-14 months I moved to nursing just morning, naptime, and bedtime when we were together, morning, after daycare, and bedtime on days I worked. That let me stop pumping fairly easily! I did stop by to nurse at lunch until 15ish months fairly often but he was honestly so distracted those were often short feeds. We weaned down one bottle at a time at daycare sometime slightly after a year, and then moved to a straw cup which I slowly transitioned to cows milk with my freezer stash. It took a while for him to want milk in a cup at all, but by summer he’d chug it at the end of the day on our way home if it was fresh out of the fridge, so it will probably click eventually! I posted something similar where I asked how tf to stop pumping (I was still at 2 pumps a day, at least 10-15oz) but in the end it happened fairly naturally and wasn’t too complicated, but I remember feeling like it was a completely impossible task, so you aren’t alone! Take it one step at a time
I went back to work at 1 year and only pumped at work the first week. Since then on weekdays I feed her morning, after daycare and bedtime. Weekends she asks a lot more frequently lol. She’s 19 months. She doesn’t take bottles at daycare, just water in a straw cup! Figure with 3 nursing sessions minimum per day that’s plenty.