Breastfeeding and weaning

I have been receiving questions lately about gentle ways to wean, so I thought I would share some of the tried and true methods that worked with my six.
Before I talk about weaning I should add a caveat: I firmly believe that weaning from breastfeeding should happen gradually and that it should be done at the baby's pace. Babies and toddlers breastfeed because it provides not only nourishment, but a vital connection to mother which has important developmental benefits which are both physical and psychological. The World Health Organisation recommends that breastfeeding should continue till the child is around 2 years old. In times past it was common for a child to breastfeed till they were fairly independent and could speak. The tongue action of sucking which occurs in breastfeeding develops the tongue for speech. A child develops more independence once they can communicate via speech, so this is a more ideal time to wean. While a mother is breastfeeding she spends much of the time observing her baby with her eyes and communicating with her baby via body language. The language of loving touch as well as the language of chemical communication via the oxytocin, serotonin and other hormones produced during the time of feeding. I found that once my babies were weaned I needed to actually physically spend more time looking at them to check on them, and I relied a lot more on their verbal communication.
I had my babies close together purposely because I wanted them to be able to be companions for each other, I breastfed all of them till the next one was close to birth and then weaned. By the time my toddlers were around the one year old mark they were usually only breastfeeding three times in 24 hours. One time in the early morning, one time at nap time after lunch, and once more at bed time. Sometimes they would wake in the middle of the night and nurse back to sleep as well.
Weaning was very dependent on the needs of my toddler. If they were unwell or going through some sort of change( i.e.: moving house) I would not push the weaning, I would wait till things were more or less settled and they were in a good space emotionally. My kids always spent a lot of time with daddy even while I was still breastfeeding them, so it wasn't a big deal to have daddy take them and rock them to sleep while watching a late night movie. We were never big on forcing the kids to go to sleep at a certain time. When they were tired they would sleep. However we were careful to have an atmosphere conducive to being tired at night. We made sure that all of the children spent time outside every day in the fresh air, and we had a routine at night which signaled time for sleep. With the older children preparing for bed it was natural that the toddler would want to go to sleep as well.
I usually started the weaning with an explanation. "Now you are getting to be such a big girl/ boy we are going to try something new. How about we read book before nap time. I usually while I was reading they would fall asleep. The key was to keep them distracted. With a younger baby this might mean taking a walk with them in the pram, or dancing to soft music with them on a shoulder, patting their bottom as they go to sleep. I avoided using dummies as I didn't want to have to go through an other weaning later.
I weaned one feed at a time. Once the baby had gotten used to not having a feed at a certain time, usually my body would have also adjusted. Because breast milk is produced in response to the needs of the baby, your brain has to get used to the idea that it doesn't need to produce enough for that extra feed. If you try to wean cold-turkey, you will find it very uncomfortable for a few weeks as you will keep producing milk, and may even develop mastitis. Pumping doesn't help, because you will be stimulating more milk production.
Once the nap-time fed was gone, I would work on the going-to-sleep feed. This time I would swap jobs with hubby. I would get the other children ready for bed and hubby would take the baby and keep her (or him) in a different room until the baby went to sleep either on the lap while listening to a story or being rocked or simply sitting on the lap while daddy watched evening TV. The bed-time and night feeds were usually the hardest to quit. It could take several weeks to a month to get the baby used to it. By the time the baby was around one year old I found they were sleeping through the night and would only wake for one feed in the early morning around five or so. So when they started sleeping through, they would naturally wean. The early feed was easy to distract with a cuddle in bed, and if the baby was persistent, then either mommy or daddy would have to get up and get them a drink from the kitchen.
The whole weaning process from start to finish could take several months to happen. I never forced the issue, wanting it to be as gradual and natural a process as possible, for both mine and the baby's sake.