Breastfeeding/Weaning

My original goal was to breastfeed Owen to a year.  Well, I know I could have if I had wanted to, but there were multiple reasons we decided to wean Owen earlier than planned.  We started giving him water in this cheapo sippy box that has a flip up straw (from Walmart in the tupperware section on the bottom shelf it was like $1.50).

Owen: 
By 6 months, Owen was able to drinking my water through a straw.  So we kept offering him water to practice.  At 8 months, I started giving him the frozen milk I had stored up.   By 9 months, I ran out of frozen milk so I started to offer him formula and now at 10 months he is strictly formula.  I will probably switch to whole milk between 11-12 months.  I still want to talk to his pediatrician first.

Me:
I did call a lactation consultant (since it was free) and talked to a friend who had breastfeed her 2 sons (thanks Caroline!).  They gave me some great tips and the best is to drop one feeding a week.  If you are still pumping you should drop those first.  Owen was nursing 4 times a day, 8am, noon, 4:30pm and 7:30 pm. His favorite was the morning, so I started dropping the feeding in this order:  4:30/after nap, then the noon/after morning nap, this left me at nursing every 12 hours.  Since, he really asked for the morning feeding I dropped the nighttime feeding and just this past week dropped the morning feeding.

I just let it be a casual thing. For example, say I nursed him at noon on Monday, dropped the feeding on Tuesday and Wednesday, but then Thursday he was really cranky and needy I would just nurse him.  I am not sure how your milk supply has been, but I almost had an oversupply issue in my right breast so I was very worried about over engorgement.  So far I have not had too much uncomfortableness.  Another good tip is to wear a tight bra or sports bra.  The binding tells your body to slow down the milk supply.  You can use cabbage leaves if you get engorged and I do think they work some as I used them after I delivered the twins.  But thankfully this time I haven't needed to (they are stinky).

I did realize a couple days after what I was thinking was Owen's last feeding that I had some lumps in my right breast.  I massaged the lump that evening (and leaked a little) and then the next morning it was still there, though smaller.  So, I nursed Owen then they were gone!  I massaged my breast a TON when he was first born and as time went on I didn't need to anymore, but when you start weaning you should to make sure you don't get clogged ducts.  If you ever had mastitis you will know all this already.  I did and it is HORRIBLE!!!

Whew! I didn't realize I had such a long winded opinion....oh wait!  Yes, I did!   I hope this helps anyone going through this too!