Guest Blogger
Guest Post: Reconsidering the 11-Month Wean
Illustration by Charlotte Oh
Here in Canada, we are fortunate to be able to take up to a year of maternity and parental leave. This allows many mothers and fathers the opportunity to stay at home with their babies. It has also made it easier for women to breastfeed their babies and to breastfeed them for longer periods of time. But it also means that a lot of women assume that they have to wean their baby from the breast at around 11 months, to get ready to go back to work.
Both the World Health Organization and Health Canada recommend breastfeeding beyond the age of one:
Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended for the first six months of life for healthy term infants, as breast milk is the best food for optimal growth. Infants should be introduced to nutrient-rich, solid foods with particular attention to iron at six months with continued breastfeeding for up to two years and beyond.
I understand that not every woman is able to breastfeed and that not every woman wants to breastfeed for two years or longer. That is fine. But for women that do want to continue breastfeeding their child into the second year, Canada’s one year maternity leave should not be a barrier to them doing so.
I have friends that chose to wean very slowly, introducing a bottle of formula a day starting at around 8 months and gradually replacing each nursing session with a bottle until they weren’t nursing anymore at all. I also have friends that weaned cold turkey just before going back to work, resulting in a very upset baby (doubly upset because of weaning and mom going back to work) and a nasty bout of mastitis for the mother.
But you don’t have to do either of those things or anything in between. If you are planning to go back to work when your baby is about a year old, you can continue nursing without having to pump at work. A lot of people assume that isn’t possible, that you will get plugged ducts or mastitis from not nursing all day long or that your supply will dry up. But that isn’t the case at all if you do it right. Here are some tips:
• Before going back to work, slowly cut back on daytime feedings or pump at lunchtime during your first few weeks at work and slowly decrease the length of your pumping session until you are not pumping anymore.
• If you have trouble with plugged ducts or mastitis, consider taking lecithin as you transition back to work.
• Continue to nurse whenever you want when you and your child are together. When my kids were one year old, I usually nursed when I got home from work, at bedtime, as needed during the night (ranged from not at all to frequent), and in the morning before going to work.
Partial weaning like this can be a great option for women that are going back to work but would like to keep nursing beyond one year.
If you went back to work at about a year, what did you do about breastfeeding? Did you wean? Or did you continue nursing?
—Annie works full-time and continues to nurse her 2-year-old daughter when they are together. She blogs about the art and science of parenting at PhD in Parenting.
Tags: Breastfeeding, Guest Blogger
[...] Reconsidering the 11 month wean [...]
I am so glad you wrote this post – it’s important for parents to understand that this is an option. It’s exactly what we did, and I’m thrilled that we chose this option because it allows me both to enjoy extended nursing and my lunch hour at work!
I actually intended to pump while at work and for my then-13-month-old son to get a bottle of expressed milk during the day; we tried that for about a month. But my son – who had resisted the bottle as a younger baby – had no interest in drinking the expressed milk. So I stopped – gradually, just as you recommend. To be sure, the first couple of months I came home with very full breasts, and did have an occasional let-down during the day (breast pads & the occasional hand-expressing made that a non-issue). That soon subsided, too. I had no other issues, and my supply remained very strong.
Now my 22-month old son wants to nurse pretty much the minute I get home, then periodically through the evening and night (we cosleep). On the weekends, he nurses all day long, just as if I were home full-time.
I love my extended nursing relationship with my son and I love my job; I’m glad I didn’t have to choose.
This picture is so adorable!
Great article.
What did your baby have during the day at daycare then?
I pumped at lunch from when Reid was 12-18 months and continued to nurse on demand when we were together. The after-work nursing session was great on 2 levels: 1. she got all of the greatness that breastfeeding offers and 2. it carved out time when I had to stop and *be* with her (not rushing to start supper, etc.) Reid did increase her night nursing to compensate for the lack of daytime opportunities but full or partial co-sleeping made it a non-issue.
I also continued an extended breastfeeding. Around 11 months I began weaning the mid day feeds and provided a morning and two evening feeds (via breast) so by 12 months my body was fully trained to keep up to the new schedule.
No sore breasts (or breast issues), a happy baby and a mom who felt satisfied that she was doing her personal best for her children while being a full-time working mother.
@Rupi:
My kids weren’t at day care, they were at home with my husband. When they are over a year old, they don’t need either formula or breastmilk during the day. My kids just drank water and ate meals/snacks. My son liked whole milk, so he drank that too. My daughter didn’t like milk much, so she just had water and then ate things like yoghurt, cheese, etc. to get what she was missing from milk.
They were getting more than enough breastmilk from the nursing sessions that we had after work, at bedtime, in the morning, etc. that they didn’t need anything other than their regular meals and water during the day.
Thank you. It’s good to know formula isn’t a must do and is avoidable.
In the US here, I went back to work after 14 weeks and pumped. However, I stopped pumping (with my first child at around 11 month) before I stopped nursing (around 15 months), as you said I was able to nurse morning and night even after I stopped pumping, which was great because I was just so done with the pumping.
With my son I tried to do the same thing and it didn’t work so well, he quit nursing at 12 months, a month or so after I quit pumping. I think he wasn’t able to get a decent long feed in the mornings and evenings because there was my older child to tend to (mine are 24 months apart) so my supply dwindled, and he quit far eariler than I had hoped he would. As my last baby I’d hoped to nurse him until he was 2 (I weaned my daughter when I got pregnant with my son), but he had other ideas.
I went back to work when my son was 12 months. We worked our way down to nursing twice a day, morning and night. He’s happy with it and I’m not uncomfortable. We even miss an odd feeding here or there and it’s okay. He’s 15 months now and I’m not sure when he’ll be ready to give it up entirely.
This is great advice!
I went back to work when my daughter was 12 months old. I had done some research and learned that most moms in the US who pump stop at around the one year mark but many continue to nurse when they’re together with their babies. Plus a lot of older babies / toddlers won’t accept pumped milk. So I continued to nurse on demand, and then for my first few weeks at work I pumped when I really needed to.
My supply adjusted quickly. It’s like my body knew what to do. I worked from home on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and was away for 10 hour stretches on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. On the days that I was with my daughter there was plenty of milk, and on the days I wasn’t, there wasn’t. I don’t even really know how it worked, just that it did.
We were able to continue nursing this way until my daughter was almost 3. For us, it was a great way to reconnect at the end of the day. And because my daughter was at a daycare centre 3 days a week I was really glad she was getting the benefits of my breast milk and all its immune boosting properties.
This is exactly what I did! By accident really. I went back to work at 11 months for 3 days a week – I wanted to express but I couldn’t get enough out to cover the day feeds so we had to introduce some formula feeds. With the short days I was initially working as we transitioned Jack to daycare spending 20-30mins twice a day trying to get milk out was a PITA. So I just stopped the daytime feeds. I did it in a week. Jack didn’t seem in the least bothered. Now he has a breastfeed before bed and in the morning. Sometimes a dreamfeed too.
I feel with him in daycare he really benefits from my breastmilk to help fight off colds etc.
I would just like to add that now we are past the 12 month mark people are starting to ask me when I’m going to stop breastfeeding. I have no idea! I never expected to get this far really. I am taking it one day at a time until Jack or I decide it isn’t working any more.
I feel like I am giving him a real gift in breastfeeding. And the longer I continue to breastfeed, the bigger and better the gift. That’s enough reason for now!
Great post, as always, Annie. I’m back to work in a couple of weeks, so this is so timely. It’s good to read other moms’ experiences with this difficult transition. I expect I may have to pump once or twice at work, as Owen doesn’t eat much in the way of solid food, but I’m hoping that will change over the next few months as he’s around other kids eating lots at his homecare. I’d really like to not have to pump! I too am getting the ’so when will you stop breastfeeding?’ questions. If I’m feeling cheeky, I respond with ‘in about five minutes’.
@Lindsay:
There are two ways to look at this.
On the one hand, you could say that if Owen still does nurse a lot during the day, then maybe you do want to pump a bit at work. You could also try pumping a bit at home and leaving that for him (from the time DD was really young, I always nursed on one side in the morning and pumped on the other because I had plenty of milk at that time of day). I did continue pumping at work for DD until she was 18 months old because I wanted to, not because I had to. She didn’t drink any other milk, didn’t eat a lot, and didn’t usually wake more than once at night, so I thought I should leave her some. My son nursed every 3 hours all night long and drank whole milk during the day, so I didn’t feel it was necessary to pump for him at work after he turned 1.
The other way to look at it would be to say that he may change his habits by necessity if you don’t pump at work. That could mean reverse cycling (i.e. nursing more in the evening and at night…may not be what you want). Or it could mean that he starts eating more other things during the day because he has to. Peer pressure also helps with that type of thing if he is going to be in a day care environment.
I’m not quite in that demographic because my husband and I split the parental leave and I went back to work when my daughter was 6 months. At that point, pumping was the only thing I felt I could do… so I did. In fact, she rarely drank more than a 6oz bottle while I was away from her – she preferred solids, and reverse-cycled and nursed more at night.
I continued pumping at work when my daughter started daycare at 11 months – I pumped once a day and sent a 6oz bottle to daycare with her. It was a great way for us to feel more connected. I stopped pumping at about 16 months, when I realized I was putting off pumping sessions. At that point, she simply drank whole milk at daycare. It worked out really well, and I plan to do the same with our next child, although we’re hoping for me to stay home longer this time to facilitate that.
@Juliette: I split the leave with my husband as well and did pump at work, but I thought the post would get too long if I went into all of the different possibilities! I pumped until 12 months for my son and until 18 months for my daughter.
@Annie: Good post and thanks for making people more aware of the possibilities (and doing so with sensitivity to the fact that other mothers may make different choices).
One note of caution, however. You were talking about frequent nursing through the night as a possibility. When I was looking into the research on extended breastfeeding and dental caries, I did find a couple of studies, that, according to the abstract (I haven’t yet got the actual studies), showed a link between night nursing into the toddler years and tooth decay. So I would be at least a little wary of that option.
I live in the United States. so one year maternity leave is a mere fantasy I have read about on the interwebs. I worked and went to school when both of my children were young.
I intended to follow the WHO recommendation of nursing to two years with both of my children. I didn’t really know any mothers well, especially not any breastfeeding ones, and didn’t belong to LLL or anything, but I read lot and it was a priority for me. I worked in the health food industry, so my environment was supportive of this perspective (in fact, I brought my son to work with me from 1 month to 6 months old, and breastfed him all over the store).
I stopped pumping at one year with my older son. He was drinking out of a cup and doing complementary feeding, and nursing in the morning, when I got home from work, and at bedtime. Waking at night was not an issue for him, thank goodness. We weren’t cosleeeping anymore.
He self weaned at 15 months, which kind of broke my heart at the time, but after knowing many many more moms with more significant breastfeeding barriers, it was not that big a deal in the long run.
With my younger son, I was working full time, two days a week out of the house and three in for a few months. He was never crazy about bottles and I didn’t end up pumping much for him, and ended up in house full time workwise(thanks to anti mom bosses!) before he was a year old. But, I was also training as a midwife and could be gone for long stretches at a time. I managed to pump rarely and breastfeed on demand a few times a day. We were cosleeping, but I don’t think night nursing was that common.
I was very comfortable offering my children a cup or something to eat after a year of age as an alternative to the breast, and kept the breast for specific times. When I came home from work or class, bedtime, and first thing in the morning. It was a rare time that I would need to or choose to comfort nurse. My children were luckily not demanding of comfort nursing and were perfectly happy to cuddle without nursing. It wasn’t a struggle.
We cooperated on weaning when my younger one was just 28 months old. I found out I was accepted to medical school (yay!) and we needed to potty train him and get him ready for pre school. It was a almost painless process, with little emotion at all on his part, and some tears on my part.
Whatever works for the parent child relationship is the best. Remember, most doctors say that you don’t need to use formula on a child that is a year old. No matter what your choice is, it may be developmentally appropriate to encourage more complementary feeding with solids and other drinks in sippy cups rather than using bottles at this age.
[...] weaning when their baby gets teeth. Or they need to wean when they introduce solid foods. Or they need to wean when they go back to work. This last one is the one I hear most often here in Canada where we have one year maternity leave. [...]
[...] Reconsidering the 11-Month Wean [...]