I have officially stopped nursing last week!
I’m sure many people think it’s strange that I’ve just now weaned my 2-year-old toddler, but I am ecstatic that I said what I was going to do–to nurse him until he was 2.
When I first began nursing, it was the most magical bond that I could have ever developed with Kwabena. For all those women who were not able to nurse, or chose not to nurse, I feel sorry for them for missing out on the wonderful experience. To know that my own body produced all the nutrients that Kwabena needed to grow was very empowering.
And it was so easy!!!
(Okay, well, initially it was hard…having a baby that wanted and needed to nurse every 2-3 hours when my nips were like hot pink tubes of lipstick [yeah, nursing moms know what I am talking about!!] was not easy!)
But it became easy. The panacea for a crying baby. Why quit at 1 year old??!
So there we were, nearing 2 years old…. Kwabi has been weaned from middle-of-the-night nursing for quite some time now. I noticed that he would wake in the middle of the night just to nurse, which became disruptive to both of our sleep. Cutting out those middle of the night sessions helped him begin to sleep through the night, I believe (although he still comes to find me, only for other means of comfort now).
In the last month, I successfully weaned him from nursing to sleep by substituting reading books to him before bed. Surprisingly, he adjusted quite well with very little protest to having to drink “bottles of milk” (i.e. sippy cup of milk) before bed instead of nursing.
And last week I decided that it was time to wean completely, which meant weaning from his 5 a.m. nursing sessions. He would wake up and without even opening his eyes, moan , “Mommy! I want THAT milkie” (meaning: I want milk from you, not from a bottle!). LOL
So the first early morning weaning session, he cried and wailed, until I took him out on the balcony and he stopped crying to listen to the birds waking up and singing.
KWABI: “Birds singing!”
ME: “Yeah! You hear that? They are waking with their Mommies and drinking bottle of milk!”
KWABI: “I want bottle of milk, too.”
ME: “Okay! Let’s go get bottle of milk!”
🙂
Amazing what actually works with a 2-year-old…….
The next morning, he cried again for “that milkie” and instead of trying to soothe him, I simply lay there pretending to be asleep, and–what do you know?!–he stopped within 1-2 minutes and went back to sleep!
The following morning, he cried again, and when pretending to sleep didn’t work, I offered to read him a book, which instantly stopped the crying. And–what do you know?!–he forgot all about “that milkie.” Very tiring reading books at 5 a.m., but hey, it’s whatever works, right? 🙂
I suspect that it’s going to take him a solid week or so before finally understanding that Mommy’s not budging on giving him “that milkie” anymore. It’s either water or bottle of milk.
I’m surprised that his cries are so short-lived. Sometimes I think the anticipation of our kid’s unhappiness with change is worse than the reality. When we’ve parented gently and helped our kids face change with as least bumps as possible, we should realize that it’s not going to be as hard as we fear.
🙂
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