Your baby has gradually grown up and is taking additional nutrients now, and the growing-up process has gained speed due to the fruit and vegetable extracts in the baby formula. Having only breastfed in the first months of its life and then started tasting other foods, your baby may have reached the right age to be weaned. Or is it too early? Then, what is the right age to wean a baby?
Actually, babies are usually weaned at two years of age. However, what is important here is your baby’s need to be breastfed for a certain period of time, taking the additional nutrients sufficiently during weaning, and ability to digest these nutrients.
If your baby is older than 6 months and can consume formula regularly, it can be weaned any time from month 6 to 24. At this very point, mother’s condition is important as well. The milk extracted and stored by especially the working mothers, may be insufficient due to mothers’ busy work life, and thus these mothers may find the opportunity to breastfeed their babies only at night. However, if the mother does not work and is in an environment suitable to breastfeed whenever needed, the mother should keep breastfeeding as long as the baby is willing to nurse.
Another criterion to consider before weaning a baby is its physical development. If the height, weight, bone development and other physical development parameters are in line with that of the month your baby is in, then it may be the time to wean the baby as of the said time periods. Babies who are old enough to go to kindergarten are considered to be too old to be breastfed anymore.
Some helpful tips for the mothers while weaning the babies:
- Prevent your baby from sucking on a pacifier at all times including the daytime.
- Do not resort to breastfeeding when your baby is restless. Try different methods to calm your baby.
- Do not breastfeed before putting your baby to sleep, or else your baby makes a habit of being breastfed to sleep each and every time and does not sleep until breastfed.
- One of the most practical consequences of weaning is your baby’s waking up at night. If you are planning to wean your baby, you should not be breastfeeding every time it wakes up or cries. You should definitely be determined not to do so.
- Do not immediately breastfeed your baby when it cries or becomes restless. You can lift the baby up in your arms, caress it, and rest its head on your breast without taking your bra off. Otherwise, you may have to go back and start over from the beginning since your baby will need the mother’s milk again just when it was about to be weaned.
