This guest blog has been written by Caitlin, sharing her very personal experience of breastfeeding, the challenges, the joy, the grief and the gentle way she and her daughter chose to mark the end of their journey together.

It is a beautiful reminder that feeding journeys are rarely simple. They can hold so much at once. Love, pain, pride, sadness, relief and deep connection.

I’m so grateful to Caitlin for sharing her story so openly. I know it will resonate with so many parents.

“Breastfeeding, for me, has always been a beautiful story of contradiction. On the one hand, an incredibly difficult journey full of grief, compromise, learning, and constant adjustment. On the other, one of the most meaningful, proud, love-filled and quietly successful experiences of my life. There was pain and doubt alongside deep connection and warmth. And after more than two years of holding all of that together, I found that the way my daughter and I ended our breastfeeding journey felt like a fitting tribute and celebration of everything we shared.

The beginning was hard.
Those early weeks were marked by pain, confusion, and a persistent sense that something wasn’t quite right. I was repeatedly told that L was feeding well, yet she was rarely settled, and I carried a constant worry that she wasn’t getting enough. I was going through it too. My cracked and bleeding nipples were physical signs I was struggling, but a deeper emotional struggle was there too. Those first couple of weeks I tried in vain to get clear answers as to why this wasn’t going to plan. Then, when she was three weeks old, we were admitted to hospital. Despite hours of “feeding” each day she hadn’t regained her birth weight, and she was labelled “failure to thrive”. It was a brutal term that filled me with grief and disappointment in myself, but one that finally brought urgency and validity to the gut feeling concerns I’d been raising since the start.
What followed was a turning point. With support from the infant feeding team, countless hours of research, and working with a lactation consultant, I began to understand what was going on. We identified a low milk supply, I learned how to advocate for myself, started Domperidone, and slowly rebuilt things from there. What emerged was a mixed-feeding journey that worked — one that allowed me to continue breastfeeding, rebuild trust in myself and appreciation for my body, and ultimately feed my daughter in a way that felt sustainable and nourishing for both of us. We carried that forward all the way until L turned two.

The beginning of the end was here a few months before L turned 2
After such highs and lows and years of having this connection as a part of our mother daughter relationship, it felt important to honour something so monumental. When I began thinking about stopping, I felt a mix of readiness and tenderness. My body felt ready to be my own again. And while Louisa wasn’t actively asking to stop, she was old enough to walk with me through that transition. There had already been times when we were apart and, without me there, she didn’t miss breastfeeding, which gave me confidence that we could start approaching the ending gently and together.
Once I knew the time was coming, I started looking into how other families marked the end of breastfeeding and one idea that came up was a beautifully written children’s book called Booby Moon. It tells the story of breast milk as a magical gift from the moon; something lent to mums to nourish their babies, and something that, when the child grows bigger, is lovingly returned so it can be passed on to other babies. One of the things I appreciated most was how adaptable it is. You can substitute whatever language you use for breastfeeding, making the story feel personal and familiar.
In our house, the book became Milky Moon, and we talked about “mama milk” that the moon had sent just for L. We began reading it around three months before her second birthday, simply letting the idea settle. There was no pressure… just repetition, familiarity, and curiosity. As her birthday approached, we started gently talking about what would happen next: that soon, we would be sending the mama milk back to the moon.
I wanted to make that moment special
By a stroke of luck, L’s birthday falls close to Bonfire Night. In the book, the breastmilk is returned to the moon via a balloon floating into the sky, but for environmental reasons, and given the rainy cloudy time of year, that didn’t feel right for us. Instead, we decided that the bonfire and fireworks would mark the moment. The smoke drifting upward, the sparks lighting the sky all felt like a symbolic and meaningful and magical way to send the magic back.
That night became the perfect quiet ceremony. For L, it was a familiar story she could understand come to life. She pointed out the moon in the sky, talked about giving the magic back and cuddled in as we saw the first sparks of the bonfire drift away. For me, it was something else entirely. As each firework lit the sky, I found myself deciding to mark my own journey… the pain, the persistence, the rebuilding, the pride and the amazing bond created. Ending breastfeeding, even when it’s the right decision, can carry enormous grief. I remember coming downstairs after our final bedtime feed the night before the fireworks and breaking down completely in my husband’s arms. The ritual mattered not just for my daughter, but for me. It gave space and recognition to feelings that might otherwise have felt overwhelming or unseen.
Going a bit beyond what’s in Booby Moon, we also wanted L to have something tangible to anchor the story. We chose a small moonstone and placed it under her pillow overnight, explaining that the moon had left it as a thank you for returning the mama milk. She treasured that stone for months, carrying it around, holding it close. On her own, she decided it could help her teddies feel better when they were unwell - a quiet continuation of the care and magic that breastfeeding had represented for her.
Even now, if you ask her where the mama milk went, she’ll tell you it went back to the moon and that it’s helping little babies now.
This won’t be the right approach for everyone.
But if there’s one thing I’d pass on to the mum coming up behind me, it’s this: stories matter. Ritual matters. Giving your child a narrative they can understand — and giving yourself a moment of closure — can make an ending feel less like a loss and more like a transition. And having something physical to hold onto can help both of you carry that change forward.
I will always be deeply grateful that I did what I could to breastfeed my daughter, and for the bond that created between us. And I’m equally grateful that we chose to honour what an important, complicated, and meaningful chapter this was in our lives — not by rushing past it, but by giving it the ending it deserved.”

Caitlin is a mum, coach, learning professional, volunteer birth partner and can be found and followed at @howmumbecoming

Honouring the End of Our Breastfeeding Journey

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