What's magical about pump-weaning at a year vs. sooner?

[@llli*djs.mom]

I would also like to chime in and say that even though there is less pressure because you can feed solids after the year point, there is also signifigant DANGER in terms of actually losing your supply before hand. it's not a magic number persay, BUT I would be VERY concerned about someone cutting out pumping sessions at 8 or 9 months and expecting nothing to change in terms of supply. SOME babies may be able to reverse cycle enough so that you don't lose you supply but at that age you are taking a very REAL RISK in terms of being able to keep up supply when you are the childs primary source of nutrition and aren't mimicking all the times a child would eat.

[@llli*joshuas.mommy]

Thanks, Audrey. That's good to hear re: the amount of solids potentially increasing rapidly around the year mark.

DJ's Mom--you may have just been offering the above as general information, but I'm not planning on dropping any pump sessions yet at 9.5 months, so no danger here

[@llli*joe.s.mom]

As we say in my business, there is a "spectrum of risk." Some women may be able to pump wean before a year and nurse enough at night to keep their supply up, but there's a definite risk. The risk of losing your supply completely goes down the longer you wait to drop sessions. Even at a year, I think there's a risk if your baby sleeps through the night and you're not nursing much. (This is not for OP, but for anyone else reading the thread for general info. )

[@llli*manitobamommy]

I should clarify (for those who might be coming to this thread after the fact) that I didn't mean to say that every baby would successfully cut out pumped milk at 8 months (or that every mom's milk supply would handle it). I would NOT have tried it with my first child. It was just something that worked in our particular situation with our second - i.e. there is no "magical point". For some, that point might be earlier, for some, it might be later than 12 months. DJsmom is right that there are consequences to significantly cutting out a bunch of nursing sessions that you are used to suddenly. In our case, she wasn't nursing that often during the day at that point anyway - it was NOT a huge radical change. Some babies reverse cycle readily, others don't. In our case, it wasn't really reverse cycling so much as she was a very efficient nurser and really into solids, and totally rejected our attempts to get her to drink pumped milk in various forms.

[@llli*durhamgrrl]

I think the guideline has more to do with the baby needing breastmilk/formula before a year than mom's supply. That said, pump weaning at four or five months could definitely result in a total loss of supply, whereas this is unlikely to happen at a year. There's no magic point when your supply is safe, and every woman is different. But by a year, most women can pump wean and continue to nurse in evenings and on weekends indefinitely.

[QUOTE=@llli*joshuas.mommy;1284005I know my right to pump at work is protected by law up until a year but there's no legal protection after that, right? (I'm in California if it makes a difference). I don't think it is going to be that big an issue since I'm usually the only one using that office anyway, just would like to know what my rights are, legally speaking.[/QUOTE] For general information there are differrences by State. Oregon guarentees 18mo.