It’s such a hard question for moms who have been lucky enough to successfully breastfeed. When do you stop? How do you stop? What’s the best option for your baby when you do decide to stop? What options are there for breastfeeding supplements?
There’s no concrete answers to any of these questions. It depends on your baby, on you, on your lifestyle, on so many factors. But here at Organic Baby Food Shop we put our heads together to come up with some answers for you.
In our opinion there is no set date, time or age to stop breastfeeding. We have moms on our team who weren’t able to breastfeed from birth, ranging right up to moms who continue to night feed their four year old. It’s a personal choice and all we recommend is to listen to your body, heart and soul.
So, when you do decide to stop, how to supplement breastmilk with formula? Well there are some different techniques that we’ve tried, and succeeded, and failed at:
- Cold turkey – switch straight to a baby formula. But which one? There are so many on the market! We like, and our customers recommend, that the best formula for breastfed babies may be Holle Stage Pre Organic (Bio) Infant Milk Formula.
- You might also consider letting your partner take over the feeding. It can be hard for a breastfeeding mom to stop that intimate and beautiful contact that you get while feeding. Not only that, people say that babies can smell your breastmilk! Like wild little woodland creatures! And so it may actually be better for your scrumptious smelly breasts to be away from your munchkin’s attempts to switch to formula.
- 1 on 1 off, where you alternate breastfeeding and supplementing with formula. 1 feed of breast, 1 feed of bottle.
- Continue with night feeds only and switch all other feeds to one of our best formula for supplementing like Lebenswert Stage 1 Organic Formula.
Whatever you decide to do and whenever you decide to do it; it is a hard decision, and you may fear the lack of contact, the lack of intimacy that could result with your baby. But do not fear! Intimacy develops over time and throughout your baby’s development in so many different, wonderful and fascinating ways.
You might decide to start music classes and dancing together. Maybe you’ll join a stroller walking group. Perhaps you like baby yoga. There are so many ways that you can maintain and continue to grow the intimacy with your precious creation.