Up until our 10 week appointment, when we found out we were expecting triplets, our 22 month old daughter was still nursing day and night. Self weaning and possible tandem nursing is something I thought we would continue with, after all that was our PLAN...but so was having ONE more kid (which we now know God has a different plan)! I had contemplated cutting night nursing for a while but didn't want to rush anything...that is...until we found our there were three! Keeping things calm and fairly normal for our toddler was the plan. With all the other things to come the last thing I want to do is make drastic changes to something we are both very comfortable with. I still wasn't rushing but I knew she was ready for the night weaning. It took about 3 nights of her waking up asking for milk and each time I would calmly tell her, "no milk until the sun comes up." She would whine a bit, I would offer to rub her back and than she would fall back asleep. She would than sleep from 8:30-3:30ish, come into bed (we co-sleep/partial co-sleep, have since birth) and fall back asleep. This has progressed to her sleeping through until 5:30, most nights. This all happened in about a 2-3 week period. It was not a big deal and NO crying it out (CIO) was involved. I'm not sure if it's the night weaning or the pregnancy hormonal changes that has caused her to drop most of her day nursings but I can tell she is on the road to self weaning, :-/. Yes, it is probably happening sooner than expected because of the pregnancy but it does feel natural and not abrupt or 'cold turkey'. And if everything happens for a reason than it WAS meant to be. She still suckles/nurses in the morning for snuggle time, she'll nurse maybe 1 minute here or 2 minutes there throughout the day and for just a couple minutes at bedtime. Up until 3 weeks ago she would nurse to sleep in my arms, now, she nurses and asks to go into her crib and will fall asleep on her own. It is a very bittersweet sweet time for me; I was very adamant about exclusively breastfeeding her for various reasons (health benefits, cost, and it IS natural after all). It does make me sad if I think too hard about it being over but the natural course that is unfolding has helped soothe my uneasiness of her weaning. I'm a big believer that each child will be ready for different milestones on their own schedule. She is obviously telling us that she is ready to fall asleep on her own and sleep through the night. I'm pretty confident we will make it to the 2 year mark which is less than a month away but how long after that will be up to her. . .Maybe she will be done shortly after her birthday or maybe she'll suckle/dry nurse for another month or two, either way I'm taking her lead for the rest of our breastfeeding journey.
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Regrouping while taking
2 year old pictures |
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| 23 months |
