So, my son will be one year old in 10 days, and I'm starting to think about cutting back to one pumping session a day, with the goal of pump-weaning altogether by 14-15 months. Currently I work about 35 hours a week and pump 2-3x per day while at work, depending on how long I'm going to be gone that day and my work schedule. Right now I am getting 10-14 oz per day combined from my pumping sessions. Last week, I asked my mom to start giving DS solids before his bottles, rather than after, to see if we could up the amount of solids he's taking and decrease the amount of milk I need to pump. When he was getting milk first, then solids, he was taking 9-10 oz per day (occasionally up to 12 oz but that was uncommon). For the past week, with solids-first, bottle-after, he's only taking 4-6 oz of milk per day while I'm gone. Of course we nurse on demand when we're together and when we're together we mostly nurse and don't do a lot of solids (he gets solids 2-3 times per day from my mom while I'm at work). He doesn't have a lot of teeth yet, just 2 on top and 2 on bottom, which makes it hard for him to eat a ton of solids, since we're doing BLS and with no purees or spoon-feeding. He seems to be doing ok with the new approach of solids-first, bottle after if he still seems hungry, and eats fruit, cheese, yogurt, cheerios or crackers, and oatmeal (that mom does spoonfeed) with no problem. He has a tougher time with proteins like chicken, turkey, etc. due to having so few teeth.
I think he will be okay with about 6 oz of milk per day and the rest solids while I'm gone, and I think I can probably get that 6 oz from one pumping session in the morning and not have to worry about it the rest of the day. However, if he's not okay with 6 oz of breastmilk and needs more, how hard will it be to re-increase my supply once I've partially pump-weaned? Can I just start pumping more again and expect my supply to respond or will that be a lot harder now that he's nearly a year old? I'm nervous about dropping pump sessions if there's no going back, because he still doesn't have many teeth and doesn't take solids that well. I THINK he will be okay with 6 oz, but if he isn't I want to make sure I can go back to producing more, if I need to. I guess the other option is to give him whole milk in addition to whatever I pump but I'd prefer to just keep him on breastmilk for now. I also don't know how well he'd take whole milk, haven't tried it.
Thanks in advance!