When I started breastfeeding I had some vague idea that you did it for the first six months, if you could. I don't know what I thought happened after that. I wasn't thinking very much at all back then.
After a while I realised that this was probably going to last a bit longer than six months. And I couldn't get the hang of expressing. The baby wouldn't touch a bottle anyway. This breastfeeding lark started to seem like a bit of a drag.
I'm going to be honest here. I don't really understand when other mums go on about the "wonderful bonding experience" of breastfeeding.
My baby has always been a smash and grab kind of girl. Gulp, gulp, gulp, merrily kicking me in the throat as she goes. She doesn't settle down for a long feed. It's impossible to read while feeding, for example - she would just kick the book out of your hand.
So it's never been a particularly snuggly kind of experience. To be frank, I feel like a bit of a machine.
Anyway, my baby is now 10 months old and I have cut down her feeds quite a lot. I stopped feeding her at night because it wasn't helping her (appalling) sleeping.
She has finally started to drink some formula from a cup so she has that during the day, and I feed her once in the morning and once just before bed.
I feel guilty about cutting back but on the other hand I feel I need more freedom.
The problem is - how do I cut out those last two feeds? She seems really attached to them.
I meet other breastfeeding mums at toddler groups and they bang on about how great it is. I don't feel I can ask them "do you know how to stop?" Specially as some of them haven't, and are still feeding toddlers...
By the time my daughter's a year old, I would like to have stopped. Is this realistic? Does anyone have any tips for me?