Weaning my daughter.
I have decided that I need to wean my daughter, I started mentioning this to her on and off and during the last two weeks have been trying to let her cut down at least on the post day care nursing session.
However, I’m on a dead line for which I can not elaborate at present, thus I needed to get her weaned.
So with a heavy heart since Sunday, June 13th, I just stopped nursing her.
Sunday was hard, she couldn’t go to sleep because she is used to falling asleep on the breast, so she stayed up till midnight and finally after much frustration gave in, turned her back at me and fell asleep.
It’s gotten better since, on Monday she was too exhausted and went to sleep whilst I was cuddling her and singing twinkle, twinkle little star. Yesterday she stayed up longer but again fell asleep on the couch after I sang a little and I caressed her head. We still have our moments. I dare say the weekend will be the hardest yet, since she will be with me the whole day.
I feel very bad about turning her down, but I simply have no choice and I hope my plans will work out so that I will not regret this.
I’m trying to keep her occupied, but sometimes she still catches me when I sit down and assumes the position. At which point I need to remind her that we don’t nurse any more and offer her something else to do or hug her. She isn’t rejecting it, because I think she knows and she is testing my resolution.
As you know I’m a big fan of nursing. I would love to let my kids wean when they feel ready to wean, or if you will “natural weaning”, however, I can not give them this choice, at least not the older ones, the last child will be able to have this choice, so it’s a mother guided weaning process instead.
I weaned my son when he was 3 years old, in a much more gradual process. I feel bad for not allowing my daughter 3 years of nursing, but I’m older now so I can’t afford to prolong it this long and really the nursing by this age is just for comfort and not nourishment at least not the physical kind. She isn’t going to starve or stop developing.
I’m a bit concerned as to where all my milk will go, since I don’t want to end up with engorged breasts or worse, so I’m only expressing a little each day in the shower just to relive them a bit, and hope my body will pick up quickly that at present there is no need to make milk.
Future plans:
Once we are fully weaned and she is no longer interested
I will have to get her sleeping habits adjusted.
Right now when she falls asleep I move her to her bed, but once she wakes up, she moves back into our bedroom, I don’t want to over stress her, not to mention that I think the day care has started potty training the kids. I really want to focus her attention on to one thing at a time.
The funny thing is my daughter had very good sleeping habits, same as my son till they reached 8 month. She would sleep in the pack ‘n play in our bedroom, and she could go to sleep on her own, but once the teething begins it just messes up everything, they start waking up in the middle of the night and I for lack of energy and knowing I will need to get up in the morning and go to work bring them in to our bed and that is when the bad habits begin.
And Yes, I do like having my babies in my bed at least when they are young; it gives me peace of mind.