Women who are determined to wean their child from the breast often do not know how best to do it and, most importantly, when. The baby is used to drinking milk at a certain time, a certain routine and ritual has developed, and now weaning requires some effort and brings discomfort to both mother and child. However, this process cannot be avoided, so let's look at one of the main questions that plagues mothers - when to wean the baby, what time of year is the most suitable for this.
It's getting warmer outside, and mothers are becoming more and more worried, because their acquaintances, friends and relatives are telling them that summer is not the best time to wean their babies from breast milk. True, not everyone can give any reasonable arguments why you should not give up breastfeeding in the summer. So is there any grain of truth in their reasoning?
Why you can’t wean your baby in the summer: reasons
To be fair, it should be noted that this issue of weaning in the summer is not so pressing among pediatricians. It is unlikely that any doctor will strictly forbid you to stop breastfeeding your baby at this time of year. However, there are still some reasons to delay weaning in the summer. Let's look at the two main reasons that are most often mentioned by pediatric doctors and experienced parents.
In the summer, it is not recommended to stop breastfeeding for 2 reasons: due to the increased risk of intestinal diseases and dehydration, which can occur due to the heat and the baby’s poor drinking regime
The first is an increased risk of developing pathogenic microorganisms. It is in the summer, when it is hot, that the risk of intestinal infections is highest. A baby can eat something unwashed - fruit from a tree, berries from a bush - and get an intestinal upset.
In such cases, breast milk “works” as a protective factor: the important substances contained in it form positive microflora in the intestines and stomach, neutralizing harmful substances. Therefore, if the baby is poisoned or has an intestinal disorder in the form of diarrhea, then the best thing you can do for him is breastfeeding. It is better to postpone weaning at this time.
Another reason is the danger of dehydration in hot weather, since the child, after his mother stops feeding him milk, cannot immediately switch to a mode of greater water consumption. It turns out that he drinks little water, and there is no milk in his diet anymore.
Now is the time to consider what of this is true and what is vain fears.
If, after all, weaning took place in the summer: safety rules
Weaning your baby in the summer is not a good idea. If for some reason you have to stop breastfeeding your baby during the hot season, you need to follow simple rules:
- Try to give your child water, compote, and fruit juice more often to form the habit of getting enough fluids throughout the day;
- Wash your hands and your child’s with soap often to avoid contamination by bacteria;
- Do not allow your child to put foreign objects into his mouth;
- Be sure to wash all fruits and vegetables well, and it is best to soak them in a soda solution, including those that you peel (bacteria from dirty peels can transfer to clean hands, which will lead to digestive problems). To prepare the solution, add 1 tablespoon of baking soda per liter of water and soak the food in it for 15 minutes. This simple procedure will disinfect the surface of fruits and vegetables and help avoid intestinal diseases.
Be sure to remember that if you have finished breastfeeding during a hot period, the health of the baby is under your constant control.
Time of year: when it matters
When weaning occurs at an age when milk is the baby's main food (usually up to 1 year), then the time of year is of great importance.
But even after a year, if the child is breastfed quite often (that is, milk takes up a significant part of his diet), then in this case the time of year will play a big role. That is, when a baby’s breast milk takes up, for example, 50% of the total diet, and suddenly change this diet SHARPLY and stop feeding him milk, then in this sense, the time of year (in particular, summer with its heat) can affect the state of the gastrointestinal tract. - the intestinal tract of the baby and the water balance of its body. After all, along with milk, the mother takes away the huge amount of protective nutritional properties that the child received from half of his diet.
Advice: do not suddenly stop breastfeeding in the summer! A smooth reduction in feedings during the required age interval is a guarantee of the baby’s successful transition to a different diet and his good health.
If you wean your baby smoothly, then it won’t matter when you do it or in what season. You can read about how to wean your baby from breastfeeding here.
And, of course, if milk takes up a very small part of the baby’s diet, for example, these are only night feedings, then the time of year when you wean him is absolutely unimportant.
The most unfavorable thing is the sudden weaning of the baby from breastfeeding. Spending time at the breast is not only nutrition, but a whole ritual in which the psycho-emotional connection between mother and child is formed and maintained. The baby will suffer greatly if it is suddenly violated.
Prohibitions on refusal of breastfeeding
No matter how much the mother would like to wean the baby from the breast, doing this is strictly prohibited in the following cases:
- Baby teething.
- Baby's illness.
- Stressful situations for a child (moving, vacation at sea, mother going to work, falling, fright, injury, etc.).
- Period of epidemics and viral infections.
In addition, it is important to avoid breastfeeding in the summer and in any other season according to the following principles:
- There is no specific time or season (day, month) to wean your baby from the breast. This process is individual for each mother and child. As long as both remain emotionally calm and maintain healthy communication beyond feeding processes.
- The approximate age for weaning a baby is 1-2 years. During this period, the abandonment of breastfeeding occurs smoothly. If the baby is weaned from feeding at an earlier age (up to 7 months), this may lead to problems with the organization of nutrition and the emotional state of the baby.
- Under no circumstances should you smear your breasts with mustard, garlic, pepper, etc. This will only scare the baby and cause stress.
Remember, whenever you decide to stop breastfeeding, two components are important here - the optimal age of the baby and his emotional calm. Based on these two principles, weaning from breastfeeding in the summer or another season will go smoothly.
Breastfeeding is a unique gift from nature that should be used. But sooner or later, you will need to think about how to stop breastfeeding. At this time, a woman is bombarded with a lot of advice from “experienced” friends. Some advise stopping feeding abruptly, and generally leaving for a couple of days, leaving the baby with the father or grandmothers. Others categorically do not recommend doing this. Still others say that in no case should you stop feeding in the summer, and they cannot give arguments in favor of this advice.
Let's try to figure out why you shouldn't stop breastfeeding in the summer, and what other restrictions exist in this matter.
Why is summer considered a bad time to stop feeding? In fact, not a single pediatrician will tell a mother that stopping feeding in the winter is good and bad in the summer. The point here is not the season, but the readiness of the body of the child and mother.
The belief that summer is the worst time to stop breastfeeding comes from past times. The fact is that 50 years ago the seasonality of food was highly pronounced. In summer - vegetables and fruits, in winter - porridge. After all, fresh vegetables were not sold in winter at that time; frozen foods and canned food for children were in short supply. Shouldn't you feed your baby pickled cucumbers and sauerkraut? In the summer, during the vegetable season, mothers, caring for the health of their children, tried to feed them “vitamins” for future use.
When is it undesirable to stop breastfeeding?
There are certain situations when you should not stop breastfeeding.
We recommend reading: Until what age should a child be fed breast milk?
Let's look at them.
Weaning is not advisable if:
- he has recently been ill or continues to be ill (milk provides immunity);
- he has an acute intestinal disorder (milk is the best medicine);
- he is teething (milk soothes him);
- there is intense heat, because extreme weather conditions are already stressful for the little one, and weaning will only aggravate the load on the body;
- Just received a preventive vaccination (at this time the baby’s body is most susceptible to infections).
If you are going to send your child to kindergarten, then immediately before this event you cannot suddenly change the diet. It is advisable to start the weaning process a little earlier: if you plan to take your baby to the garden in the summer, then you should stop breastfeeding in the spring.
Weaning from breastfeeding in the summer does not always have a negative effect on the child’s body. And to be precise, it doesn’t always have an effect at all, if everything is done wisely. Moreover, there is a reason why, on the contrary, it is better to stop feeding in the summer.
Summer is a time of great activity for children. They walk a lot and for a long time, receive and absorb a huge number of new impressions, they have many interesting activities. Thanks to this, it is easier for babies to forget about milk - their favorite food, which means it will be easier to wean him off it.
Sometimes in the summer it is even easier to wean: the baby has many interesting activities, during the day you can take him for a long walk in the yard. He simply has no time to remember his mother’s breasts!
No complications
If you are still more interested in how to wean a child without consequences for both, first of all, think about whether you want to wean the baby completely or whether you would be satisfied with reducing the number of feedings. In any case, the preferred course of weaning implies that the process proceeds gradually, under the control of the mother, and a sensitive mother at any stage can stop it or take a step back if this is suggested by considerations of the health and psychological state of herself and the baby. When the child is ready for weaning, it can be carried out forcefully, in a few days. But, if you are just thinking about this against the backdrop of frequent attachments, gradual gentle weaning will take several months. We hope everything goes smoothly, but remember that the baby may begin to resist at any moment if the pace taken turns out to be too fast for him. If at these moments the mother is adamant, a rollback to her previous positions is very likely. Under fear of being deprived of the breast, the baby will “hang” on it more strongly than before. Therefore, it is better to stop somewhere, giving the baby more time to adapt, than to risk everything along such a difficult path.
1. The first targeted step towards weaning is to reduce daytime feedings. The child is offered active activities, the mother “does not notice” hints of a desire to kiss and actively distracts the baby with interesting activities, games, walks, favorite food... It is easier to negotiate with children over one and a half years old. Develop certain rules and stick to them. Remember that it is difficult for a tired and nervous child to keep agreements. If the mother goes on a visit for the whole day or spends several hours with the baby in a large store, where crowds of people are milling around, and then the baby hysterically begins to demand the breast, despite all the agreements, it is not his fault. Don't put your baby in too difficult a situation!
If the baby is feeding more out of boredom, many mothers are helped by the so-called moving target method in limiting daytime feedings: while the baby is awake, the mother actively plays with him or does some business. When asked to take a sip, my mother responds with some kind of distracting sentence like: “I’ll give you some, when I prepare the food, let’s do it together!” A mother who is sitting or lying down, not doing anything (and, according to the child, reading a book or sitting at the computer is just “not doing anything”) means for the baby the opportunity to come up and kiss! If the mother is constantly on the move, then after a couple of weeks the baby will lose the habit of asking for the breast frequently.
2. The next step is to fall asleep without breastfeeding. The most common way is when the mother leaves home during the baby’s nap, and someone close to the child puts him to bed. The main thing is not to worry or worry. If the remaining person is confident and friendly, then the baby quickly learns to fall asleep without the breast.
3. Falling asleep without feeding when mom is at home is the next stage. A method that works well is to increase the time periods of mother’s absence. The mother puts the child to bed, promises to return soon and leaves the room, first for half a minute, and then for a longer time. Having returned, the mother puts the baby to bed as usual, with the breast. It is advisable to tell the child where and why the mother went; this should be a relatively “good” reason. For example, a mother says that she is going to put the laundry in the washing machine, and if a couple of minutes later the child goes to check where the mother has gone, he finds her right next to the washing machine. Mom calmly tells the baby to go back to bed, but finishes the job and asks her to wait in bed next time. This way the child gets used to calm waiting without a feeling of abandonment, and at some point the mother will find him falling asleep without her.
In general, it is easier for a baby to adapt to the actions of a confident mother than to a mother who has doubts. If the mother is not sure whether she is doing the right thing, whether she needs to be weaned, the child will feel it. Always remember that the child is calmer with a calm mother! For evening sleep, building a ritual that includes a whole chain of actions also works well: putting away toys, brushing teeth, singing songs or telling fairy tales, be sure to pat the head and offer the breast. Over time, breastfeeding will simply fall out of this chain of actions familiar to the child without any particular problems.
Age matters too
Age is a more important factor in a mother's decision to wean. The smaller the baby, the more difficult it is for him to survive this event. For children under one year old, any changes in life, including weaning from their mother’s breast, are real stress. From a physiological point of view, important protective substances no longer enter the body, this creates an extra burden on the baby’s immature gastrointestinal tract, which, in turn, can lead to disruption of the digestive tract, the appearance of allergies, and a decrease in overall immunity.
The child also suffers psychologically: his rituals with his mother are violated, he will lose close physical contact with her. From this point of view, weaning, for example, a two-year-old child is much more difficult than the same six-month-old child, since the matured baby is very accustomed to these connections with his mother.
Do not make sudden movements!
So, from all of the above we can conclude: you should not suddenly stop breastfeeding your child if it is summer, the heat is unbearable, if there is at least one of the above situations in which weaning is not recommended.
It is also worth noting that if he has a psychological dependence on consuming milk at certain times of the day (or night), weaning the baby “in one fell swoop” will not only be difficult, but also traumatic for him. Abrupt weaning will lead to even more stress and hysterics, as a large number of mothers talk about on forums. Those who weaned know what we are talking about.
