Weaned Toddler Wants To Play With Breasts – 5 Effective Ways To Handle This

Navigating the transition from breastfeeding can be a unique journey, especially when your weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. It can be confusing and even a bit uncomfortable for parents, but it’s actually a common behavior. Toddlers often seek comfort and reassurance in familiar ways, and your breasts represent both nourishment and closeness. Understanding why your weaned toddler wants to play with breasts and how to address this behavior with sensitivity is key.

During this phase, it’s important to approach the situation with a sense of humor and patience. Toddlers are naturally curious and tactile, exploring the world around them with their hands. When your weaned toddler wants to play with their breasts, they might be seeking the security and affection they associate with breastfeeding. This behavior usually diminishes as they find new ways to connect and comfort themselves.

In this article, we’ll explore why your weaned toddler wants to play with breasts and offer practical tips to gently guide them toward other forms of comfort and connection. By staying positive and understanding, you can help your child navigate this developmental stage with ease, ensuring both of you feel secure and supported. Let’s dive into this quirky yet endearing aspect of toddlerhood together!

Weaned Toddler Wants To Play With Breasts

Your child’s weaning is probably going to be a significant transition. Weaning can be very traumatic for many older children who breastfeed primarily for security and comfort rather than for hunger.

This means it’s usually best to hold off on weaning when other significant changes are happening in your child’s life, including starting child care, moving, or toilet training.

It’s a good idea to start discussing what will happen when a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. This will give your youngster some time to adjust and may make the shift less difficult.

Suggestions For Weaning

It frequently works to stop providing certain breastfeeds while weaning older children off breastfeeding, but don’t deny if your child requests one. Your youngster may begin to forget about some feeds over time, you never know.

Further pointers are provided below on when a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. Start with the tip you believe will work best for your child, or utilize a few if it works better for you both.

Changes To Breastfeeding Procedures And Practices

Drop a breastfeed one at a time, and then wait a few days before dropping the next. Also, it will be easier on your breasts, which could swell if you quit abruptly.

First, you might choose to stop nursing during the day, and then you can gradually stop nursing at night or during bedtime. Your child probably feels the most at ease around these people.

If your baby tends to doze off at the breast, encourage shorter feeding. Before breastfeeding, you might promise your child that you will do something enjoyable as a family later. Your child might feel more motivated to complete their meal faster as a result.

If your child needs to be breastfed in the middle of the night, let your partner or another person comfort them with a hug or a cup of water.

occasionally substituting a “grown-up” alternative for breastfeeding. If they usually breastfeed at home, your child might be thrilled to have a special but nutritious beverage like a babyccino at a café.

Set certain restrictions, such as stopping nursing while you’re out of the house or feeding your baby only after lunch during the day can help when a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts.

Distractions

So that your youngster is too busy and preoccupied to consider breastfeeding, incorporate activities and outings into your daily schedule.

Use the adage “out of sight, out of mind.” This entails leaving your child with a caregiver they feel comfortable with at periods when they would typically breastfeed. If you’re not there, your child won’t be as likely to forget to nurse.

Avoid getting dressed and getting undressed in front of your child, and wear clothing that makes it difficult for them to access your breasts and can make weaned toddler wants to play with breasts, such as dresses rather than separates.

Weaning to pasteurized full-fat cow’s milk from a cup is possible for children older than 12 months. See your doctor or a dietician about options if your child is lactose intolerant or allergic to cow’s milk. You can provide tap water to your kid as well. After 12 months, children no longer require formula.

Removing The Morning and Nighttime Feedings

At bedtime and first thing in the morning, your child may receive his or her final breastfeeds.

If possible, get dressed and ready before your child awakens, then give them breakfast to stop the morning feeding.

Try changing your routine to break the old routine if you want to stop feeding your child before night. Try having your child spend the night with the grandparents, or have your partner read to the child instead of breastfeeding.

If your child is accustomed to being fed to sleep, you could break the pattern of a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts by providing a narrative as an incentive to stay awake after the feed.

Another way to remove the relationship between eating and sleeping is to feed in a different location than immediately before bed. Once you’ve broken the association, you can eventually stop receiving the feed.

Try to maintain a laid-back bedtime routine with lots of cuddling when a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts.

Also, discussing the changes with your child is beneficial when a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. For instance, you might state, “We only nurse when the sun is up again.”

Help! It’s very uncomfortable when we’re out in public and a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. How can I stop her (and why is she doing this)?

Without knowing more about why a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts, it’s difficult to pinpoint the precise reason why a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts but rest assured that it’s rather typical (and nothing to panic about).

Little children who have recently stopped nursing habitually clutch at the breasts. They also do this after they have come to associate the comfort of their mother’s breasts with themselves. Nevertheless, it’s likely that your child is simply interested in or enjoys the sensation of your breasts.

You now want the behavior of a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts to end for whatever cause it may be. What is the process for doing that?

Define Boundaries Clearly.

Inform your child that she has already felt your breasts and that she has grown to understand that touching private body parts, whether in public or privately, is not permitted. You can accomplish this by gently removing her hand from your breast. Even if she objects, she will not waver (in an empathetic way, of course).

You Might Also Give Your Kid A Transitional Item.

This might be a person’s thumb for some, a pillow, a soft silk blanket, or a cute plush animal. When your youngster is tired, stressed out, or frustrated, this item might provide comfort.

If she is not enthusiastic about any of these, try to get her to try on one of your worn-out, soft white T-shirts (unwashed so that it smells like mommy).

For each mother-baby combination, there is a different ideal weaning time.

Child-led weaning may feel natural for some mother-baby pairings.

In this scenario, the mother continues to nurse the kid whenever the child desires, and the child chooses the appropriate time to wean.

Every child eventually weans. The end of nursing, though, could feel like a very long way off, especially for some women who have a toddler who is a highly passionate breastfeeder.

How do you handle if a weaned toddler wants to play with breasts if this is the case for you but you still desire child-led weaning?

These 5 suggestions will assist you in dealing with the situation of weaned toddler wants to play with breasts:

Take Some Time For Yourself.

It can be exhausting to be a toddler’s mother when weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. It can imply that you provide her with a big amount of solace and security. She may fall asleep and wake up in the middle of the night by nursing.

You might have a wide range of conflicted feelings every day when weaned toddler wants to play with breasts even within a single day. might have an intense love for her during some breastfeeds, and you might like the connection nursing gives you two.

You might experience a tremendous sense of empowerment as a result of breastfeeding’s significance (see below) and the fact that it’s the one thing you and you alone can provide her. On other occasions, you could experience a strong dislike for breastfeeding when weaned toddler wants to play with breasts. You should rest certain that not all mothers enjoy breastfeeding all the time.

As a result, it’s crucial to make time for oneself. What activities do you like? Do you enjoy what pastimes? What relieves stress the most effectively for you? Make time for it, whatever that may be. Sometimes it can seem as though the effort required to plan so that you can have some time to yourself negates the advantages of it. Nonetheless, a lot of mothers discover that the work pays off and strengthens them.

2. Surround Yourself With Individuals Who Support Your Parenting Choices.

It can be challenging enough to breastfeed a toddler who is preoccupied with her breasts without having people around you say things like, “You’re being selfish,” “Just give her a bottle,” “She’s just using you like a dummy,” “Just give her real food,” etc. Comments of this ignorance can be damaging.

Because of this, it’s critical to counteract this negativity by surrounding oneself with people who agree with your parenting choices. If you’re fortunate enough to have relatives or friends who can play this role, that’s fantastic.

Joining a breastfeeding support organization like the Australian Breastfeeding Association or La Leche League and attending local support group meetings can be a huge source of help if you are not so fortunate. A nursing counselor can be reached by phone, which can be helpful when a weaned toddler wants to play with breast.

3: Keep In Mind The Value Of Breastfeeding

The importance of nursing for both the health of the mother and the child is one of the key reasons why some mothers choose child-led weaning.

The value of breastfeeding is acknowledged by prestigious health organizations. For instance, according to the World Health Organization, breastfeeding should be done solely for six months, followed by two years of supplementation.

The danger increases with decreasing breastfeeding because many of the health consequences linked to a child’s feeding method are dose-dependent.

During particularly challenging days, it can be helpful to recall your motivation for continuing to breastfeed until your kid is ready to wean.

4: Recognize That Secure Attachment Is Vital

When their parents respond to them warmly, sensitively, and responsively, children feel more safe and assured that their needs will be satisfied. Sadly, some kids never have the chance to form a strong relationship.

There are undoubtedly numerous strategies to develop a strong bond with your child. This can happen without you having to breastfeed. Yet, nursing has been shown to help women be more compassionate with their children.

Thus, keep in mind that by attending to your child’s needs, you are assisting her in growing emotionally and socially.

5: Confirm With Yourself It Won’t Be Around Forever

Your child will eventually wean, even if some days may seem like they go on forever. In trying parenting situations, telling yourself “This too shall pass” can be useful.

In Conclusion

Despite everything mentioned above on weaned toddler wants to play with breasts, so it’s crucial to act in the best way possible given your situation. On some days, you might feel like weaning, while on other days, all you want is to continue breastfeeding for however long your child requests.

The ups and downs we experience are quite normal. What you need to determine is what the dominant emotion or desire is. What is genuinely best for you can only be determined by you. Perhaps, the aforementioned advice will be helpful if continuing to breastfeed is best. Although this behavior won’t continue indefinitely, you can assist stop it by being transparent with your child and setting fair limits.