HI all. Ari is... well Ari but other then that she is great. She took a couple of crawling crawls the other day and thought she was sooooo clever but hasn't repeated it yet.

Hey Rachel - it is really hard when they get older and things are more important that BF. I'll just give you my experiences not that they are the right way or anything, as you said you have done a super job and it's more important that you are both happy. When we are out Ari rarely has a BF because she just isn't interested if I do put her on she is on and off. I usually give her five min and if she doesn't latch on I put the boob away and she goes without. She generally isn't bothered by this and when she is really happy no matter where we are she will have a decent feed. We have a sippy cup now that we take when out if she is thirsty and we have rusks and baby fod on hand for when we stop for a snack. It is much easier when they are on finger food.

As for the formula, Ari occassionally has formula when DH wants to feed her. I hate expressing (as I had to so much with DS) After 6mths you can skip eeds all over the place and your milk shouldn't dry up. Having said that yes babies love bottles as it is much easier to feed from, they don't have to get a let down, they can look around and drink at the same time and it tastes different from the norm. So yes some babies will wean if given the choice. If it was me I would decide on maybe the bottle before bed if you want but the rest of the time she has to have BM at least ntil 12mths as it is soooo hard when you can't just pop them on the boob to settle them and you don't have a bottle handy. eg car breaks down, caught out at feed time without a bottle, bottle spills, forget bottle etc. I once was stuck on a train for 11hrs when DS was 11mths and thank god I was BF as we would have been up the creek otherwise.

Most important they do learn very quickly that if they don't feed properly they miss out (I think it took DS 2-3wks to work out feed or go without)