Saturday, October 29, 2011

No More Mama Milk

It has been 1 week since Never has nursed!! I have nursed Nev for just shy of 2 years.  I am very thankful that I have been able to nurse him for as long as I have.  It was a good relationship between the two of us.  It brought him nourishment and comfort, gave us another way to bond and it also forced me to sit down, relax and give him my undivided attention for periods of time every day.  I really enjoyed this.  After Nev turned a year old I knew I would want to wean him sometime during his second year.  I knew I didn't want to do it while he was in daycare because of the extra immune boost he got from it.  Nev was in daycare until he was about 18 months old. Then it was time to focus on moving although the actual move would not come for several months I didn't want to wean him during a time of big change plus I thought it would be very helpful to have Micah's help to do it.  There were several times however when I really wanted him to stop nursing.  I was really feeling the need to have my body back to myself.  I was so tired at times and I felt exhausted when Nev wanted to nurse at the end of the day.  However, we were able to reduce the number of times he nursed to 1-2 times a day, at nap and at bedtime. Once we got moved and settled I started focusing on eliminating his nap time nursing.  He often did nap without "mama milk" simply because he feel asleep while we were running around. Then a few weeks ago Micah put him down for naps during the weekend.  He has been fine with going down for naps without any milk for some time now when someone else puts him down but when I put him down he wants to nurse.  So after that weekend when I would put him down for nap he didn't ask for milk.  Then if he did I told him "mama doesn't make milk anymore during the day."  Then last Friday when I put him down for bedtime I had gotten that feeling again that I needed my body back and I needed him to stop nursing.  After that night Micah put him down for bedtime and of course he went to bed no problem.  We did this for 4 nights then Micah had to work the next night so it was on me to get him to bed.  It went pretty good!  He asked me for milk once.  I told him that "mama doesn't make milk anymore" and that he was a "big boy!"  He cried far a minute then decided he wanted to go to bed and said "nigh-nigh mama." Since that night he hasn't asked.  It has only been 2 nights but I've got the feeling that he might be done.  I hope so!  I have had a lot of anxiety about weaning him.  I didn't want it to be too hard for him.  I didn't want nights of crying himself to sleep.  I think having Micah's help really made a big difference.  I think this can be a stressful time for a lot of moms.  If you were/are a breastfeeding mom, how long did you nurse and what was helpful during weaning?

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