Mothers who had decided to continue breastfeeding for a longer time may find that the children show disinterest in the breast and production is going down. Yes the child shows signs of weaning before two years Not everything is lost. This, to a certain extent, is normal, just as some seem to have a need for a tit with a year and a half than when they were babies, others feel so much appetite for complementary feeding and so much desire to explore that the tit becomes a bit boring .
It may be a phase or a beginning of weaning somewhat early. If we want to help the child not to stop breastfeeding there are some tricks that we can put into practice. Of course you never have to try to force a child to breastfeed, which, in any case, is not possible, nor to make him angry or angry with him if he rejects the chest.
What we can do is have patience, respect, and help maintain good production and an attractive breastfeeding to ensure that you have breast milk at least up to two years, which is what the World Health Organization recommends.
Peeling off the chest
The breast takeoff phases they can be temporary, due to an illness, a new situation, even due to the arrival of a pregnancy or a little brother. It can also influence the child to feel displaced if the daycare has started or has changed caregivers or if the mother has started working. Either your teeth hurt, the little triplet or you've had a cold.
Breastfeeding strikes are very common facts and should not be confused with weaning. Therefore, while the situation is resolved, we can help the child overcome the difficulty.
Ideally, continue to offer the breast often, before meals and ensure that the child can access the chest at any time.It also helps a lot to maintain nighttime breastfeeding and to collect, since children who go on a strike or a breastfeeding crisis usually Be more accessible and be quieter at night. This is also convenient if the mother works and wants to maintain breastfeeding, in this way the production will not decrease so much and the child can get the milk he needs at night.
Milk remains the fundamental food until two years
If it is a baby under one year of age, remember that the basis of your diet is still milk, and if you receive breast milk it is better to try to maintain breastfeeding and production than to go to artificial milk before depleting strategies possible. However, if we are unable to solve the crisis we should consult a lactation consultant and a pediatrician with good breastfeeding training, so that they recommend, if necessary, artificial milk. As much as we want to maintain breastfeeding and overcome the crisis, the main thing is to keep the child fed and hydrated.
A good trick to increase production is extraction. It has several advantages. On the one hand, by increasing the amount of milk available and the flow being more dynamic the child will have a good incentive to breastfeed: the milk comes out abundantly and is easy to obtain. In addition, in the case of a rejection of the breast, we will ensure that production does not decrease and if we combine extraction with direct breastfeeding, we will even increase it.
In this way, once the crisis is over, we will continue to have milk and, in the case of prolonging the problem, we will be able to give the milk supplement to the child without having to introduce artificial milk since we will have ours.
The extracted milk can be given in a glass and, if the child already takes complementary foods, combine it with these in porridge or simply letting bread or cookies in it. If what happens to our son is that he is now excited about the discovery of the food this way of offering it will please him for sure.
Some people put it in the freezer and make a rich mother's milk polo, which, with the heat or when the teeth hurt, the little ones love. It is really an experience for them to enjoy very very fresh milk but with the same flavor as always.
Tricks to avoid weaning before two years
As I said, it is essential offer the tit before the meal, not later as sometimes recommended. Actually there are children who don't care when we give it to them, they always want it and they want it in abundance. But if it is a child under two years of age with a bad stage and disinterest, it is better to give it when you are hungry, so that it sucks well, because if we leave it for dessert it has already filled and is wanting to do something else.
It is never a matter of forcing, nor of violating its evolution, but of allowing it to pass the different stages of breastfeeding and discoveries without losing the nutritional richness of breast milk being possible to maintain it with simple guidelines such as these.
If we continue to see that he does not want to breastfeed enough and is already over a year old, you can even count on supplementing with cow or goat dairy. Milk, yogurt or not very fatty cheeses are a good way to add calcium and protein to your diet, and also tend to like them a lot. However, it is necessary to be prudent, it is not good either to spend in the quantities or that they are the complete substitute of the mother's milk until the two years at least.
I hope that these ideas help you solve the breastfeeding crises of children older than six months and that you can help maintain breastfeeding if you see signs of weaning before two years.
