Talk to me about pump weaning please. I need to better understand the relationship between solid intake and pump weaning and know when, roughly, I can start thinking about pump weaning.
Background on our situation: Baby is coming up on 1 year (!). I work 4 days/week. Baby gets three 4-oz bottles of expressed breastmilk while in daycare. I pump 3x/work day to get those 12 oz for baby. When we are together (weeknights, weekends, and overnights cosleeping) he nurses a lot... can't say exactly, but probably every 2-3 hours around the clock? As for solids, he is experimenting with tasting all kinds of foods (loosely a BLS approach), but most of it still gets spit out. I think maybe 10% of it goes down the hatch, but otherwise there's a lot of tasting, spitting, and occasional gagging. I do have a good freezer stash (maybe 150-200 oz? not sure exactly).
As you can guess I am quite eager to pump wean - or just pump less, if I can't ditch the dairy cow routine entirely. But it seems baby is still so reliant on breastmilk for his nutrition, so I don't want to jeopardize supply ... although other moms have told me that after 1 year your supply is so established it's just *there* when you need it. I think we're headed into extended breastfeeding territory anyway. Anyway I'm just confused. What do I need to look for with baby's habits to let me know that it would be safe to cut back on pumping without impact on supply? Part of me wonders if I could I pump less (2x/day) and use freezer stash to make up the difference, and just have faith that baby will get it together on solids before the freezer stash is done... but that's a leap of faith, isn't it?? I was sort of hoping the freezer stash would last (via rotating through it) to the point where he was taking milk in sippies as a supplement to solids, so he can stay on BM for longer and transition to cowmilk later without me having to pump ad infinitum, but maybe that was overly optimistic.
Any insight/advice would be appreciated, thanks!