Weaning

littleredfish

I'm not weaning my DD yet, but I plan to go back to work in January. She'll be 7 months by then and I'm proud of myself for making it this long since we had some issues in the beginning. Well those issues are back (really up and down supply for no apparent reason, lipase issue making my pumped milk taste sour enough that she won't drink it past 2 hours, etc) and I'm thinking I'll just spare the difficulty of pumping at work where I'd have to just dump it since I can't pump, scald, and store in my break time so I'd have to supplement anyway.

I feel really guilty stopping but I have to go back for financial reasons (my plan was to SAH) and these issues I'm having are not ideal since my supply issues have me with basically no stash so making a stash is not really an option at this point since I feel like I can barely keep up with her needs let alone extra.

Basically my question is what is the best way to wean her (links to good advice would be really helpful), and how long does it take to wean and have your supply dry up? Is it realistic to time it so she can start solids in December, and wean her off so by January we are only on formula and solids? Also how does formula work with solids? Do you still give it with solids as long as you would BM? Is it like BM where you can give it as long as you want or is there an age where it really has no more value than whole milk? (Sorry, I'm not familiar with formula at all)