Hi mamas! Please excuse the length of this question in advance as I figure out how the partial-weaning process works.
I'm thinking ahead to an int'l business trip to Asia in mid-August, when my LO will be just over 11 mo old. For at least one portion of the travel I'll be on a plane for at least 12 hours, both ways.
I'm a WAHM/WOHM, so currently I either pump or nurse my 9 mo old LO ~7x in 24 hrs plus he gets small solids meals at breakfast, lunch and dinner (always AFTER a breastfeeding or bottle).
I haven't decided totally, but I think I may want to scale back breastfeeding/pumping before mid-August so I don't have to pump more than 2x/day (morning/night) while I'm away, and won't have to deal with trying to pump on the plane, which I am admittedly pretty anxious about.
I just did a business trip within the US that my LO and I successfully made it through w/o a strike afterwards, and I brought home milk on the plane (no pump & dump - yay!), but it was at times tedious, stressful and difficult trying to pump as often as I needed to in order to keep my supply up. And on top of that my supply took a bit of a hit anyway, which I'm trying to build back up before my next business trip in early July.
So yes, next month I have a (shorter) int'l biz trip that I'm still going to try to make it through with pumping. But I don't know if I can hack it for the Asia trip and I want to pump-wean by the time my LO is around a year (September) if possible.
If I am fortunate enough to make it to a year, I don't want or plan to stop the morning/night (and during the night if necessary) breastfeedings, and at this point am interested in continuing those for as long as my LO is interested. I love the idea of going beyond a year and seeing how it goes!
Anyway, long-winded explanation to ask - if what I am trying to do is possible (scale back by August w/o bringing on early weaning, and maintain breastfeeding relationship at morning/night) and if so, how to gently start that process? If it's not an easy answer, perhaps someone could suggest resources for figuring this out?
Thanks in advance!!![]()