February 1st, 2011 by Busy Mommy

Wean is a weird word.  Look at it.  Isn’t it?  One definition for wean is “to detach from that to which one is strongly habituated or devoted.”  Nolan has loved nursing since he was born.  I remember feeling like all I did was nurse him the first few months of his life.  One meeting that I listened in on I realized he was nursing the entire almost 2 hours.  My butt got very sore and fell asleep.  Lol.  Breastfeeding does so much- it calmed Nolan instantly when he was fussy- it was the solution to anything that was wrong at any time.  And all I had to do to make it happen was sit on the couch.

I have so enjoyed nursing my son.  It has been a very special experience that I wasn’t ready to let go of at first.  I had originally planned to nurse him for another year, till he was at least 2 years old.  Back in May when Nolan was 7 months old there were some things my doctor found on my tests that we couldn’t address until I was no longer nursing.  So I put these things on hold and have been waiting to address them while Nolan continued breastfeeding.  Another 8 months have gone by, and I have finally decided it’s time for me to take some action for myself as I’ve been going a little more downhill lately.

It was hard to decide.  It’s hard to make a decision that feels like your choosing yourself over your child.  But in reality, taking care of myself at a time when I really really need to will benefit my son during the next few years when he gets super active and wants me to do everything with him.  I’m hoping that by taking action now, I will be able to at least somewhat keep up with him when he’s  4 and 5 years old and beyond.  I realized that he won’t remember nursing at all.  But he will remember when he’s 5 years old and I couldn’t go running around with him or play basketball because I ran myself into the ground when he was a baby.  He’s had a full 15 months of nursing which has given him a healthy start in life.

It was still hard though to make that final decision to wean him.  Ben and I discussed it a month ago and I kind of started for a day or two- I didn’t nurse him one night and not the next afternoon either.  But I was feeling nervous antsy about it like I wasn’t sure it was the right thing to do and I was scared because I knew once I ended it I couldn’t change my mind and go back.  Ben said, don’t do it if you don’t feel ready- don’t let me sway your decision.  “Okay I’m not ready” I said right away.  But having that freedom to do it when I felt ready made it easier for me to decide to go ahead and do it.  A week later I felt that it was really the right thing to do and I’m at peace with the decision.  I no longer have any hesitancy which makes going through the process feel good now.

I started by cutting out all before bed nursings.  This was the easiest one to eliminate in our family because we have now developed a great bedtime routine that he loves so he doesn’t even miss the nursing at night.  Daddy and Mommy trade off every other night (although Ben has so been enjoying the bedtime routine with his son that he’s been doing it multiple nights in a row.)  He gets to brush his teeth with one of us then we tell him to climb into bed and he gets stories, singing, guitar, and prayer.  When Ben does the routine I think Nolan falls asleep to Ben playing guitar.  When I do the routine, once it seems like he’s had enough time to wind down and know that it’s “bedtime” for awhile, I turn out the light and sing a couple of the few lullabies I know while laying next to him on the floor, then I  wind up his little giraffe stuffed animal that plays music before I leave the room.  He usually still awake, but with the routine we did and the music box in the giraffe still going he doesn’t even cry at all most nights!  And if he does it’s a feeble 1 or 2 minutes of protest.

After about a week or so of that I cut out his daytime/afternoon nursings- the one after his afternoon napped was the hardest.  One day in particular he threw quite a grumpy fit.  He tended to be groggy and grumpy after his afternoon nap and nursing always woke him up and got him cheery again.  But he got over it after a few days.

Now he’s only been nursing once a day, in the early morning when he first wakes up.  That will be the hardest to get rid of- for me to because he typically comes into our room around 7a.m. and nurses and then *sometimes* falls back asleep- that’s what I hope for every morning.  Now without that he definitely won’t go back to sleep so we’ll have to start getting up with him every day somehow.  This morning was the first morning that I didn’t nurse him- instead I had a small bowl of dry cheerios and clementine pieces, when he came into our room this morning, I got up and went with him back into his bedroom and pulled out one of my collage boards of family photos- he loves looking at those.  We sat on the floor together, Nolan in his cute red fleece robe over his pj’s, while he ate his cheerios and looked at his pictures.  He was perfectly content.  Later we went to bug Daddy in our bedroom, and he made his little sign that he wanted to nurse but I just kept ignoring and trying to tickle him and make him laugh instead.  So we got by without any crying.  Probably by the end of this week he’ll be completely weaned.

A special chapter in Nolan’s life is closing….it has been very special.