I've found this too, Clare. Evie didn't want to leave the pups' side for about three weeks, then she gradually wanted to spend more and more time away from them.

In general, I think that as the pups have more and more solid food, they don't need as much of mum's milk. It's also better for the mum if she is gradually put in to feed them less and less, as her milk starts to dry up gradually and she isn't left with huge teats full of milk and no puppies to feed.

With Evie, I started the pups on solid food at about 4 weeks, and aimed for Evie to stop feeding them altogether at about 6 weeks. That seemed to work - Evie's milk production dried up naturally and then the pups had two weeks for us to make sure they were ok on solid food before they went to new owners.