Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

So Sabrina is 8 1/2 months old and somehow we are still nursing but recently she has been distracted a lot and biting and only twice a day does it seem easy to nurse her the other times are miserable.

How many times a day do you think a baby needs to nurse at her age? And how do you know if she is getting enough? With solids in the picture, it is kind of hard to use the diaper counting method anymore.


I could also use some encouragement to get myself to the one year mark without resenting her.

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

maybe 5-6 times a day...last week we were in teething hell so he was up all night nursing.

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

Could you nurse 2x a day and also pump to give her a couple of bottles. At that age, DD had already cut me off from BFing but I still pumped. I was giving her 4 bottles a day. She wasn't a big drinker so I'm not a good gauge. Now at 12 months she drinks 3 sippy cups of milk, totaling about 18 ounces a day.

ETA: You can make it to a year for sure. Even if you just had to pump, you can do it!!!! (I exclusively pumped for 4 months).

Message edited 10/23/2007 9:36:33 PM.

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

DS self weaned at 9 months (almost to the day). He was constantly biting me and only wanted to play. I gave up at that point since he already had 4 teeth and almost broke the skin
If and when there are more kids, I really would like to go the full year.

OK, so no advice, but at least you can see you aren't alone

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

Good for you for making it this long!

DS is 9 1/2 months and was also getting distracted. He gets milk 4 times a day and has been for the past month. I BF first and last time of the day and he gets 2 bottles at child care. The morning and evening are easy because he's sleepy. During the day on weekends he's usually tired so he also feeds pretty easily. If he bites or gets hyper, I do the nice nice talk and he settles down or if he doesn't I stop, but that has happened once.

I've heard about people using a nursing necklace to occpy hands and distract.

You're almost there so hang on! I'm counting down the weeks until I can ho[efully put the pump away. I started weaning for the overnight pumping and am getting sleep for the first time since DS was born - that helped ease the BFing resentment that was creeping up a couple weeks ago...

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

Thanks for the support and advice, ladies. Maybe I am not so far off the mark with how many times we nurse. We do morning, mid afternoon, evening and nighttime and she gets a bottle of formula (gasp! ) when my parents watch her in the morning.

I think I also second guess myself when she transitions to nursing less. It is like the brain is programmed to every three hours even though she is almost 9 months old and eating solids. I keep feeling like I am doing something wrong when it probably comes down to me not wanting her to grow up.


I can make it to a year. I can survive teething. I can do this....I think....

Re: Breastfeeding 9-12 months old question

I think I was still nursing around 3-4x/day at 9 months but definitely dropped to 3x by 10...
Between 10 and 11 months I barely got in 2 nursing sessions and she weaned herself, completely uninterested anymore...