It's the middle of the night and I wake up to my son's cries. I pad across the hall, bleary-eyed, and scoop him up out of the crib and carry him back to our bed. I am still 90% asleep as I lay him down on his side and slide into bed next to him. Without even having to think, I lift my shirt and he latches on, his little legs in between mine. He reaches out and begins massaging my breast furiously, willing the milk to let down. This seems to go on for hours, as he sucks and sucks, taking comfort from my breasts but not much else. It used to be that he would drink quickly and hungrily, gulping down the milk and rolling over, happy and full, back into a nice deep sleep. Now he sits upright and cries, "Mommy, mommy! Milk? Milk?!"
He hasn't really demanded much milk for the last 5 months, so my body has pretty much stopped making it. We would still nurse once or twice a day, but only for a few minutes and he didn't get much milk, if any. He wasn't drinking, just reconnecting with me after a long day apart or taking a quick suck to lessen the hurt from an owie. I figured this was a good time to begin the weaning process. My initial goal had been to allow him to self-wean, but since he was nursing so infrequently, I thought I would try denying his nursing requests and try to wean him fully.
Saturday during the day he asked to nurse and I distracted him and he forgot all about it and didn't ask again. Saturday night he woke up around 3 am wanting to nurse. He's teething and it seems to be interrupting his normally excellent sleeping pattern. I didn't let him nurse, but tried to comfort him back to sleep in other ways: warm milk, rocking, patting, singing. Nothing was working and his crying was getting harder and harder to bear (I've never not responded to his cries), so I did the only thing I could think of: I turned on the lights and we played until he was exhausted and allowed himself to be shushed and patted to sleep. "OK," I thought. "That wasn't so bad."
Yesterday during the day he didn't ask to nurse at all! Score! Last night, though? Last night he wanted to nurse and when I refused, he wasn't having it. AT. ALL. Nothing I or Daddy did could calm him down. At one point my hubby said, "Elita, there has to be a better way, I can't take this anymore!" and my heart broke. So I finally gave in and let him "nurse," which pretty much consisted of him putting my nipple in his mouth and massaging the other breast. He was out like a light in a few minutes.
Now what? I really feel like I am ready to be done nursing him and it seems he is 90% there with me. I thought I could gently push him over the edge, but it doesn't feel gentle when he cries (and he cried for a while...longer than I'd like to admit on this blog.)
Does anyone have any tips for me? Am I being selfish? Do I just need to go ahead and let him have this one session at night until he outgrows it? Or is this just how it goes with weaning nursing toddlers? Does it take a few tears to wean them? I'm feeling so torn. Breastfeeding has been such a huge part of my life for the past 16 months that I am not sure how I would really feel if we stopped, but I'm feeling drained and like I want my body back. Between the 10-month pregnancy and the nursing, my body hasn't been just my own for over 2 years.
Help!
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Saturday during the day he asked to nurse and I distracted him and he forgot all about it and didn't ask again. Saturday night he woke up around 3 am wanting to nurse. He's teething and it seems to be interrupting his normally excellent sleeping pattern. I didn't let him nurse, but tried to comfort him back to sleep in other ways: warm milk, rocking, patting, singing. Nothing was working and his crying was getting harder and harder to bear (I've never not responded to his cries), so I did the only thing I could think of: I turned on the lights and we played until he was exhausted and allowed himself to be shushed and patted to sleep. "OK," I thought. "That wasn't so bad."
Yesterday during the day he didn't ask to nurse at all! Score! Last night, though? Last night he wanted to nurse and when I refused, he wasn't having it. AT. ALL. Nothing I or Daddy did could calm him down. At one point my hubby said, "Elita, there has to be a better way, I can't take this anymore!" and my heart broke. So I finally gave in and let him "nurse," which pretty much consisted of him putting my nipple in his mouth and massaging the other breast. He was out like a light in a few minutes.
Now what? I really feel like I am ready to be done nursing him and it seems he is 90% there with me. I thought I could gently push him over the edge, but it doesn't feel gentle when he cries (and he cried for a while...longer than I'd like to admit on this blog.)
Does anyone have any tips for me? Am I being selfish? Do I just need to go ahead and let him have this one session at night until he outgrows it? Or is this just how it goes with weaning nursing toddlers? Does it take a few tears to wean them? I'm feeling so torn. Breastfeeding has been such a huge part of my life for the past 16 months that I am not sure how I would really feel if we stopped, but I'm feeling drained and like I want my body back. Between the 10-month pregnancy and the nursing, my body hasn't been just my own for over 2 years.
Help!
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14 comments:
oh Elita! I feel you! I have been having this battle in my heart. I want him to wean himself, but I pretty close to done. I have no advice but am anxious to see what other moms have to say. I have no idea how or when to wean a toddler.
I would let him have 1 session at night, but make it a short one.
Ian started nursing again after Eva was born, but I only let him nurse before nap and bed and I don't let him nurse until he falls asleep.
My philosophy is when fighting it is harder than giving in, you should just give in.
Ian always nursed to sleep, but he was about 18 months old, he started waking up when I tried to get him off. So, I changed the routine to "You will have some milk then we will sing some songs and then you will go to sleep." As we did each step, I said what we were doing and what we would do next. I think it took about a week but, after I nursed him, I would sing softly in his ear while he cried and he eventually went to sleep and he eventually stopped fighting me and started making song requests.
Good luck!
Hi I am going through the same thing. My son is 15 months old and he is still furiosly nursing. No sign of weaning at all. Most of my family is trying to get me to stop and I tell them that they should consult the baby. It is more of a comfort food for him. :) Best of luck with it.
Oh, this is such a hard thing when you feel out of sync with what your baby wants! I weaned my daughter just past her 2nd birthday but the last feeding of hers to go was a daytime pre-nap feeding. That one finally went away without tears on her part, but night-weaning (which happened more at the age of your son) did involve some tears, I will admit. One thing that helped me with the nighttime issues was to separate the night-weaning from sleeping in her crib the whole night, i.e. we continued cosleeping but ended the nighttime nursing. She did cry, but I felt better about it because we were right there cuddling and comforting her. We told her that she couldn't nurse until the sun was up and it was morning.
Good luck, Elita. It can be heart-wrenching and challenging to find the right path to bring your little one out of this phase of babyhood and into more independence. I've so enjoyed your perspective on breastfeeding and know you will figure it out!
Gosh, the weaning thing can be so hard, especially the middle of the night ones.
I have no real words of wisdom, as the night feedings went away of their own accord in our family.
BUT, the one thing I will say is that transition times are hard: teething, sickness, change in routine, etc.
I would keep distracting him during the day, and let him do the "pretend" nursing at night for a bit to get through the teething. Then maybe let him nurse for a minute, and then read books or sing songs, like one of the other posters said.
After my son weaned, just before his second birthday, he asked just two weeks later and I let him, but he had TOTALLY forgotten how.
It will happen.
See, I think I might be more OK with him nursing if he were actually extracting milk and therefore receiving the benefits of breast milk, but he's really not.
Kimberly, you are right that transition times are hard. Not only is he teething but he is going through a growth spurt. Daycare said he ate two plates at every meal and slept for almost 4 hours! Also he was really grouchy today and was hitting and biting! Not what I wanted to hear.
16 months is exactly when I finished weaning Asher. I cut out evening nursings before the morning one, and for that I replaced it with bedtime snack (graham crackers and milk). Now that is his routine: bedtime snack, brushing teeth (which he has been fighting lately), diaper/pjs, and story time. He's typically pretty good about it all and sleeps through the night most of the time. Occasionally he wakes, and we assume it was a dream. For the morning nursings, I stopped one day when Brent went and got him and he seemed happy. I went almost a week without nursing, but then he got sick and he nursed once or twice more. Then that was it! It is definitely an odd feeling once you are done, it kind of felt surreal that that part of our life was over.
Asher also went through a growth spurt a few weeks ago, and he was eating like a mad man! When my cousin was weaning her son, she told me she would talk to him about it. I tried that too, and I don't know how much Asher actually understood, but basically I told him that he is a big boy and he doesn't NEED mommy milk, even though it is nice to have it sometimes. I told him that soon he wouldn't have it anymore but he could have it for now, and reiterated that big boys don't drink mommy milk, only moo cow milk. I would tell him this while he nursed, and when he wasn't nursing I would not offer or mention mommy milk.
Definitely don't feel bad about weaning. He obviously doesn't need the milk at this point and he is big enough to get comfort from other sources. Miles will be fine, for sure!
Elita, this sounds like what is going on with me and Cassius. He lost interest in day feeding around 10 months, so I started to wean him onto Enfamil Next Step. I kept the night nursing in, and had recently started to try and wean that. Cassius is also teething and he has been waking up so much at night. Last night, he screamed like something was awfully wrong with him. I would pick him up, he would calm down and then start right back up right away. So, I decided I needed to wake him up in order to calm him down. So I walked with him in the kitchen, had him pet the kittycat and then I gave in and laid on the couch with him nursing. I don't even have much milk, so it is somewhat uncomfortable for me. But, that conked him out and he slept for another few hours only for me to repeat the situation all over again. I was going to continue with this for a few days because of the teething.
I wish I had an answer for you, but I don't. I don't know what to do and I am just going with intuition.
I'd let him have that night session, at least for a couple more weeks. My daughter just weaned (part self-wean, part gentle nudge from me) and now I wish we DID have that one session a day. Two weeks after I quit she came down with bad allergy/cold symptoms. She hardly ever got sick before. It was so bad that I tried to go back and nurse her again, but it was like she didn't know how even though she wanted to. I am pregnant, and that greatly contributed to my daughter's decreased interest in nursing.
Eventually Suzi stopped asking to nurse regularly, and when three or four days had gone by I knew I didn't have enough milk left to bother with. At that point when she asked I said "sorry, Mama doesn't have any more" and offered to cuddle and rock her instead. She whined for a minute and took me up on it.
I never really minded the nighttime nursing, though. My daughter is the one who cut those sessions, and the last to go was the afternoon nap one. I guess I just see the nighttime nursing session as a good opportunity to avoid a bedtime tantrum.
Good luck!
My milk didn't stop from the time my son was born, through my second pregnancy, and until my 2nd was over 2 and a half. Over 5 years! My 1st nursed at nap and at night even when I was pregnant (I had very little milk, but it was there). When my daughter was born, my 2yo nursing helped me deal with the extra milk. He stopped soon after she was born because the milk was, in his words 'for my baby sister'. My daughter weaned slower. She wanted the nap and night nursing until she was nearly 3. I let her choose when to stop. When teething, I let my kids chew on clean, damp washcloths.. they didn't like teethers.
One thing that may have helped is that we never used a crib. We co-slept until the toddlers chose to move into their own room. Set up a bed and said "When you're ready you can have your own room..." They both moved out on their own... easily. No trauma or drama. And we just set them up with a regular twin box spring and mattress set - on the floor, not a frame - so they could get in and out independently. That gave them confidence that they could get up and come to us if and whenever they needed - or get to the potty, or go get a drink, etc. And it also let me lay down next to them - for snuggles, rather than nursing, to go to sleep. Part of nursing is being close and snuggling... no need to wean from that :)
Miles is welcome in our bed if he wakes up, but we put him down in the crib. I feel like he is safer in there for now, than in a toddler bed or our bed.
Last night he had a big dinner and then drank a big cup of milk and he slept through the night, until about 5 am. Not perfect, but much better. We did "nurse" for a bit and then I made him his morning cup of milk and he seemed to be in a much better mood and day care reports he was better behaved today. Guess I am not off the hook just yet!
Elita, It sounds like he *is* weaning if you have cut back so much. Chances are he will keep asking but it will get less and less frequent if you don't make too big a deal out of it. I think that is you *do* make a big deal out of it it will lead to some insecurity on his part and he might start asking even more. One theory is "don't offer, don't refuse." Distracting him from a feed seems to work for you sometimes so just keep doing what you are doing, but when he really wants it I would give it to him.
The older he gets the more he will start understanding too. Then you can tell him "mama needs a break right now" or "only at bedtime" or whatever you want to say. He will catch on and come to terms with it but I don't think it is something you can force if he's not *entirely* ready for it. But it sounds like he is getting there. I bet you he'll be self-weaned before you know it. Hang in there, you're doing great!
Nursing manners go a long way to making you feel better about continuing to nurse. :) I went for a few months at around 18-22 months where I WANTED TO BE DONE. My son is now 28 months old and I'm enjoying nursing again. He's more polite about it, asks nicely, is okay if I say "not right now", and when he's done nursing he says "TANKOO MAHMIE!"
I guess what I'm trying to say is that even though I "don't have my body back", in a lot of ways I do. If that makes any sense.
Hello,
Just found your blog on Twitter.
Don't have kids, but my friend who has a PhD in early childhood does. She agonized over this process too initially. She didn't like to hear her baby cry and gave in and let him have the breast more often than not.
She decided to wean him because he started getting teeth and it was beginning to hurt.
I don't remember what her weaning process was like initially but I do remember how he finally got weaned.
Basically, she went away to a four day conference. She left the essentials with her sister while she was away. In her case, the baby would drink from a bottle, but not if she was around.
Anyway, the kid totally forgot about breast feeding while she was away. He did not ask for the breast again. EVER.
She said that sometimes he would see her breast as she was changing clothes and kind of look at them as if he remembered breast feeding, but he would not ask for them.
I'm not sure if you would want to go somewhere for a weekend, but your not being there may make your kid forget about the breast.
Funny thing, my friend said that she missed the breastfeeding experience. She didn't expect it to end so abruptly without her control.
April
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