When it’s time to wean your baby, have patience, Mama.
I’ve always taken pride in my willingness and commitment to breastfeeding my children. I’ve been blessed enough to exclusively breastfeed all of them with my baby girl being the longest exclusive journey. She turned 17 months old yesterday, and I looked at her and thought to myself, “it’s time for this journey to fully come to an end.”
She is truly my Velcro baby, and the ‘boom’ as she calls it, is her go-to for anything. When she wants to nurse, when she’s upset, when she’s teething, and when she’s tired. Weaning is a process that comes easy to some and challenging to others. I’ll say we are definitely in the weaning stage as she eats full meals daily. However, she’s still nursing into toddlerhood and hasn’t fully been able to transition to other milk options. So I started doing a little research and talked to her pediatrician, as well.
The sense of comfort is the main cause of her breastfeeding. Her being almost 1 ½, she’s not getting much nutritional value from me continuing to feed her when she gets all the sources from the great foods we give her. Many toddlers also outgrow the need or want to breastfeed. That’s what my other 2 children did, however she’s standing strong with our journey.
Some things I have implemented to really allow her to have comfort in a healthy weaning process are:
1. Scale back on daytime feedings. I work from home, so she is here with me, which makes it a bit more challenging but giving her less feedings during the day has allowed me to offer her more food. Each week I will scale back more and more on her requests to nurse during the daytime. She’s not a fan of almond milk but I will be trying oat milk in the future to see if that’s a better option.
2. Healthy distraction. Most of the times she requests to nurse, I offer a few other things in replace of that. Toys, books, a light snack, water. Sometimes this also means changing our routines around to see what works best for us.
3. Being able to have time apart. Whether that’s me going to the grocery store alone, working in my office (in our basement), distancing myself while she plays, etc. I think when she sees me, she wants the urge to nurse even more but when I’m away, she eats well and is very content. So basically I am the drama!
4. Communication. I include her every step of the way. Even when we are not agreeing on her wants. I’ll say, “Let’s try these blueberries instead, or would you like water in your cup?” Not really offering and not really refusing allows for a healthy form of communication to her about different options she can have.
5. Limiting when and where I will nurse. She’s currently teething so it’s been a struggle for uninterrupted sleep. I will nurse her for comfort at night only once. Then during the day, only once or twice. She’s demanding and has started to rip my shirts or tug at my breasts, so it’s been challenging a little to limit where.
Overall, I am open to try anything, and I know this will all be a distant memory for us soon. I am very proud of us and can’t wait to see our new journey, and my full freedom of my body. Shoutout to all the mamas that have sacrificed daily to make the best decisions for them.
