Remember that this is unedited text -- like "letters to the editor." Identifying information, such as names, has been removed; but otherwise it is posted here pretty much as it came in. So read it as personal opinion shared with warm intentions but without authority of any kind.
The most important message I stress to mums when I recommend your book is: Will weaning solve the problem or will the issue still be there and you will have one less way to deal with it? The message that it's OK to set limits is also important.
My firstborn was a girl born in 1966. At that time, even La Leche League mothers anticipated a gradual weaning to occur around a year of age. When my daughter still nursed upon awakening at two years of age, I was considered an anomaly. I suggested that she read with me instead of nursing, and she easily accepted.
In retrospect, I wish I'd known more. Her easy acceptance was not as much a sign of readiness as it was a sign of a problem. She has proven to have some of the distancing and coldness associated with autism, but not as severe. I wish I would have been encouraged to keep the nursing going to maximize her chances of developing an affectionate nature.
My son, born in 1969, weaned on his own at eighteen months. He is naturally more emotional and empathic. I believe his weaning happened at the right time for him.
My daughter was three years and three weeks when my blood pressure skyrocketed and having not been able to wean her gradually, we weaned her "cold turkey." Actually she did quite well after the first two weeks. I however had and still have very strong emotions and feelings regarding this weaning, looking for support, sympathy, encouragement I couldn't find in the book. But luckily I did in my local La Leche leader. I had nursed for over nine years -- more than half my adult life -- and it seemed so strange to stop.
My daughter has voluntarily decreased to nursing only three times a day; morning, nap and night. This appears to be the beginning of natural weaning for us. Although I never really imagined myself nursing a two year old, I know that when she finally weans it will be a bittersweet moment for me. Nursing has been a beautiful transition from baby to young girl.
An older nursing child can be reasoned with/bargained with to arrange appropriate nursings.
Often cutting back on nursing proves more satisfactory than weaning.
My son nursed until about 2 1/2. Somewhere in the middle of the second year I started to wonder if I was going to be nursing forever. Then I asked my cousin how it was when her children weaned and what she described happened to us--around the second birthday, I noticed that we weren't nursing so often; then it tapered off to just nursing to go to sleep; then once in a while he would go to sleep without nursing; then one day I realized we hadn't nursed in several days. A couple of days later, he asked, "More na-na." I challenged him, "More na-na?" and the request was not repeated, and that was the end of that. This experience of seeing child-led weaning in action was very empowering for me--confirmation that the LLL focus on meeting the child's needs really works. It deeply strengthened my confidence in all my child raising practices that are not mainstream (and also helped my husband go along with them) and made me a lot less defensive about criticism.
Although I aspired to child-led weaning, I did reach something of a burnout point not too long before we did ultimately wean due to my back injury. I started to feel like my son did not really "need" to nurse although he consistently asked for it at bedtime. Instead of relaxing him like it used to and being a cuddle time, it started to be a time for him to joke around and further delay his bedtime. I considered trying to wean him but I wanted to separate the "going to bed" battle from nursing. It was very difficult. I guess I wonder if sometimes the child is ready to wean but still asks to nurse out of habit or to avoid something else (like bedtime) and if so how can you tell? I also wonder how to handle bedtime struggles when nursing is part of the bedtime routine. I never wanted to "use" nursing as a discipline tool, and I didn't. I was very hung up on the "never refuse" concept and tended to feel like I could never refuse the bedtime nursing no matter what his behavior.
I have read a lot about how I might feel emotionally when we weaned but not physically. I experienced no engorgement or anything since my son was nursing very little, but I did have some odd things happen. For example, the menstrual cycle after I weaned was long (my period was two weeks late!) and I started having some mild breast pain on one side during the week prior to my period starting. This "before period" pain went on for several months. In posting to a newsgroup I found others had a similar experience so I didn't worry about it. Also I had a normal mammogram about four months after weaning. It would be nice to know if that sort of thing is normal or what to expect with a "late weaning". All I have read has been how to deal with engorgement and raging hormones.
My five-and-a-half-year-old stopped nursing when I told her she couldn't sleep over at her friends until she had weaned.
A mother writes about what she calls a tandem weaning: A few years ago, when I was six months pregnant with my son, my husband and I decided to take our girls on a trip to Disneyworld in Orlando, Florida. I had just started to feel better, getting over that "morning" (ha!) sickness that lasted for months! My girls, at 3 1/2 & 1 1/2, were "still" nursing, and I was beginning to enjoy it again, along with them. The first few months of the pregnancy, I had sore nipples, and I couldn't stand the sucking action! EEK!
But this trip, all was well. The days were filled with Mickey Mouse, The Little Mermaid, ice cream cones and cotton candy (well, our dinners were nutritious!). After each fun-filled day at the park, my daughters would fall asleep in the car during the twenty minute ride back to the hotel. Two days went by until I realized they hadn't nursed since we got to Florida. I lost out to a talking mouse!
They never really went back to breastfeeding after that, and my only regret is that the younger daughter doesn't remember nursing. But she won't forget Mickey!
When my middle child was three years and one month, his dad took him to the grandparents for a week and left me at home. He named my left breast "Za" and the right one "Zaza". The moment he came home from grandma's he ran into the house, wide-eyed, found me and asked dramatically "Za??" I said, "No, we don't do that anymore." He looked very sad and a couple of days later asked, "Zaza?" I shook my head sadly. He never asked again. I think if I had waited, he would have weaned completely himself in a month. This child had never had a pacifier or bottle and never sucked his thumb. . . . . I know this is a story from long ago, but since I now am a professional breastfeeding educator, I see my story re-enacted frequently. I hope by the time my daughter is a mother, people will not balk at the idea of nursing toddlers. I weaned my son abruptly because of what other less knowledgeable people thought. When are we going to stop using paranoid words like disgusting and repulsive to describe a healthy, happy wholesome act that will ensure a healthier lifetime for that child? I say, let children wean themselves, potty- train themselves, choose whatever they want to wear to the playground and learn to swim when they feel like it?
My oldest weaned (by mistake, sort of) when I stayed up to watch the Summer Olympics for three weeks, and she was too tired to wait up for me to come to bed, so she'd go to bed without me (and sister, 1 1/2 yo by then.) She nursed a few times since then, wished she could still nurse, until she was past her 6th birthday. She tried some expressed milk just recently and said yuck, first time ever. She would actually fight me to nurse sometimes, but I would hold her off, and cover myself. (Boy, makes me sound mean, but I didn't want her reverting at that age!) She is my spirited child and has a dairy allergy, which doesn't help matters. My currently three yo is much less "attached" to nursing, not sure how to explain that, but I feel she's different about it than my first one. I'm actually surprised she hasn't weaned herself yet, but she hasn't.
My son was still nursing several times a day at the age of four, when his sister was born. Close to the age of four and a half, we tried to abruptly wean him, which sounds terrible, but my spouse thought it would be better than dragging it out, so we tried. On the night that we stopped nursing, when I said we wouldn't nurse, our son cried horribly, and became so upset that his crying was in those breathless sobs. He was so torn up, that I couldn't bear to hear him like that, and felt that this wasn't the right time or way to wean him. So I encouraged my husband to work with me on another plan in the future, which he agreed to.
We got nursings down to nap and bedtimes. Around five and a half, I felt a change was needed, since my toddler nursed first, and by the time my son nursed there was barely anything left and my breasts were uncomfortable. And he is a tall boy, which felt strange. So we agreed that on his sixth birthday, he would stop nursing, and we would mark every other day on the calendar as a nursing night. He stopped on his birthday, and we put stickers on the calendar for every night after that that he did not fuss about not nursing anymore, with a . . . "reward" after so many stickers.
He asked about nursing for several months after that, especially when he was hurt or unhappy ( understandably), and expressed that he missed the taste. When I became pregnant in July, he expressed joy of having a lot of milk available when the baby was born. At first I was worried about what to do if he asked to nurse after the baby was born, being close to seven years old, but he hasn't mentioned it for some time. I feel that if I hadn't initiated the weaning, he would still be nursing that one time a day. He has always been a person that needs to be close to me and involved with me. His sister, on the other hand, almost three now, nurses less than he did at that age, is more content to occupy herself, and is more willing to work with changes in nursing. Our baby is due in two weeks.
At 18 months I sincerely felt that both my son and I were ready to wean. We were down to one or two nursings a day and there were days we didn't nurse at all. We had some very busy days between Christmas and New Years and we just didn't have time to nurse and after several days of no nursing I thought that It would be a good time to go ahead and wean. The weaning went fine for his part (I was pretty sore for a long while) and the few times he did ask I just offered him juice or a snack and he seemed ok with it. Then after about eight weeks of no nursing I woke up one morning and there he was nursing (he sleeps with us). I wasn't sure if I should let him continue or stop it. I asked some advice from friends, and they were sure that he must be going through some big, dramatic change or something but everything was the same as always -- no changes, no upsets, nothing new its just like all of the sudden he remembered nursing.
Well after two months of no nursing and a very painful and long weaning on my part the thought of starting to nurse again and having to wean again wasn't too pleasant but everyone told me I should continue to nurse him if he needed it so I did . Here are my concerns.
1) we have been trying unsuccessfully to have another baby for several months and I'm afraid this will make it harder.
2) my son is for the most part a very happy and pleasant child but now when it comes to nursing he is becoming increasingly demanding and whiny( sometimes he wants to nurse for 30-60 minutes and if I can't he cries and screams)
3) If I do conceive I don't think it would be wise for me health wise to nurse him while pregnant and I fear It will be a lot harder to wean him again plus I didn't enjoy how weaning him affected me.
4) sometimes I resent having to continue nursing him. Please understand that I love him very much and I really want to do what's best for him but I believe that nursing a child is a big commitment and after I thought that we were done I was kind of enjoying the break between nursing babies and never really recommitted to nursing him. I sometimes feel like I had no choice in the matter.
My son's weaning went along these lines. Once a day throughout my pregnancy and for close to a year of tandem nursing. He slowed down to once a week. When he first slowed down to once a month, it caught me off guard. By the second or third time, it was evident he just wanted to play, and we weaned. He has asked since then to nurse. The first time, I told him no, he had weaned, but I would cuddle him instead. The second time, I said okay. He just sat in my lap with the very tip of my nipple between his lips and that was all. He hasn't asked since, although he enjoys getting as close as possible sometimes when his (two yr. old) sister is nursing. My daughter continues to nurse four-six times a day. She recently weaned from nighttime nursing. Amusing to watch and note their different personalities.
One mother noticed that there seems to come a time when they literally forgot how to suckle correctly: With the first two I assumed it was from lack of practice (they "nursed" some months after having weaned but didn't remember the tongue action) but my son seemed to be in the process of forgetting even while he continued to nurse once a day or every other day. I wondered if others have described this phenomenon.
Is there a [maternal] weaning drive? There may well be, but my first step would be - get myself off alone for a few minutes with a trusted , loving. friend and ask myself out loud: "Do I like my child?" After the tears (and perhaps rage-ing come off) I have been more in touch with the love for my child, and able to think better too. I've been there.
I nursed my now almost six year old until his fourth birthday. The weaning was mutual, although he needed encouragement. After he was weaned, he did not ask for it again. Until the last six months or so. Now he wants to be a baby again, and really wants to nurse. He is pushing me to have another baby so I can get my milk back, and he can try nursing again. I have said that he can try, but he may have forgotten how to nurse. He emphatically claims that he has not. He also is still "in love" with my breasts and tries to "cuddle" them often. I guess weaning is more than just not breastfeeding anymore...
One mother of children who are now long weaned writes: My own experience was nursing my first daughter for six years (with a break of a couple months when she was two and a half). I had such a rough time with her because I was trying to go with never offer/never refuse but idiotically would refuse anything but nursing. I had expected her to pleasantly wean herself at about age two. I became unhappy with nursing but wanted weaning to be her idea. Also I was stressed and exhausted from trying to be the perfect mother (there were a few other factors, too). So it was a disastrous time ending up with a breast abscess and an angry weaning at about 2 1/2. She missed nursing so much though that we gradually started up again, nursed through a pregnancy and tandem nursed. She finally weaned by contract a couple months after her sixth birthday. She says she can remember deciding it really was time to wean. She asked to nurse again a couple times after upsetting experiences but finally once she asked and tried and I pointed out she had forgotten what to do (how to suckle). So we were able to laugh about that. ... My second child, a daughter, nursed until she was about 5 1/2. I became pregnant again, we continued to nurse but then she was gone for a week on a family visit. When she returned home and tried to nurse again it was so uncomfortable we negotiated a reward for her weaning. It was no problem at all. I think she was obviously ready. She claims she doesn't remember nursing as long as I remember her doing it--which I take as evidence it wasn't that important for her after about age five. My third child, a boy, also nursed until about 5 1/2. I had figured I would let him wean on his own, but I started finding that nursing became annoying to me. I wasn't getting any of the typical prolactin relaxation response, I assume because he wasn't nursing very often. Also I think he was starting to forget how to suckle properly. So I told him we were just going to have to stop and we had a reward for him doing so. He wasn't upset about it that I remember. When I asked him about it now he says he doesn't remember weaning.
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