tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post1897858981937876905..comments2023-10-21T03:54:12.029-04:00Comments on A Gift Universe: Tell me it's okay to weanSheilahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-15718332059289624672011-10-21T15:03:32.731-04:002011-10-21T15:03:32.731-04:00I actually know a few women who weaned in pregnanc...I actually know a few women who weaned in pregnancy. Have you heard of the don't offer don't refuse method? I think it's a gentle approach to weaning book.<br /><br />I have to say (another tandem feeder here I'm afraid) that I do think it is easier - just to get some rest for me. If I fed them both I knew what they were both up to. They'd more than likely both fall asleep too.<br /><br />I don't see why you couldn't (if it was what you wanted) try and then stop, change your mind.<br /><br />But yes if you don't fancy it then of course you should wean. Breastfeeding should be about what is right for both you and your child.<br /><br />Best of luck.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-53700248949253352472011-10-19T11:31:56.995-04:002011-10-19T11:31:56.995-04:00Thanks for the encouragement, full-time mummy.
Sa...Thanks for the encouragement, full-time mummy.<br /><br />Sarah, that's kind of where we are right now. We're only nursing at bedtime, but I'm a little clueless how to cut this session out. Every method of getting him to sleep without nursing is way more difficult, if not impossible. My husband stands up and bounces him, but the kid weighs 25 pounds! I've almost never been able to do this for twenty minutes at a time.<br /><br />I would totally just let him take over, only he's not always available at bedtime. So I need to figure out a way I can do it myself ... somehow. (Sleep has been getting more and more difficult the past few days, so I'm a little scared just thinking about it!)<br /><br />But the idea of snuggling without hair pulling and smacking sounds just lovely! I'll set my sights on that.Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-71609857586257421872011-10-17T17:22:39.712-04:002011-10-17T17:22:39.712-04:00I have ONLY ever weaned during pregnancy. :) Five ...I have ONLY ever weaned during pregnancy. :) Five times. Varying ages (from 6 months to 22 months). <br /> I found it necessary to involve my husband. I started with night weaning by leaving the cosleeping room for a few weeks and having my husband do bedtime and sleep with the child. They never seemed to even mind, as long as I wasn't there - something about not expecting him to nurse them allowed them to be comforted in other ways. I don't know why or if it would work for yours, but it did for all mine. (Sure they cried out for me a few times, but nothing major.)<br /><br />Then whenever they wanted to nurse in the day I would try to redirect. Offer milk from a cup (one of mine took a bottle from 11 months until she was almost 4 because I felt so guilty for "having" to wean her at that time!) or food or just a hug and tickle. If they would insist I'd go ahead and nurse and then cut them off as soon as it looked like they were calmed down. It only took a few weeks to wean this way and it was painless for both. There were times when they wouldn't nurse at all for 2 days and then ask again once, and then not again. <br />My favorite part of weaning is just being able to snuggle with the child without being pawed and groped. :) It definitely gets annoying especially at the toddler stage! Ha ha. <br />I'm totally with you on not wanting to tandem. I agree with extended breastfeeding, but I also like my sanity and I don't enjoy b/f to begin with, so I see no need to martyr myself and be resentful. All the kids adjusted well, even (eventually) the bottle addict. :)Sarah Faithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08878664620465280344noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-76997034072856986612011-10-12T01:01:41.845-04:002011-10-12T01:01:41.845-04:00My boy nursed right thru my pregnancy even though ...My boy nursed right thru my pregnancy even though my BM stopped at 5th month. I'm for weaning gently so at the moment I'm at the don't offer, don't refuse stage.<br /><br />I'm 1.5 months into tandem nursing my 31 months and 1.5 months kids, and yes, I have to struggle with some emotional battles at the initial stage (You can read it here: http://www.imafulltimemummy.com/post/2011/09/17/Slowly-Gettting-Used-to-Tandem-Nursing.aspx)<br /><br />I've read other tandem nursers who take more than 6 months to get used to tandem nursing, so yeah, tandem nursing is really not for everyone, if you feel comfortable to wean, then by all means do so. The fact that you choose to breastfeed is good enough no matter how short or long the duration is.I'm a full-time mummyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08500868058094898354noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-57775071497377774642011-10-09T21:55:49.024-04:002011-10-09T21:55:49.024-04:00Usually by the third trimester, my little ones wea...Usually by the third trimester, my little ones wean themselves. It seems the taste of the milk just changes too much for them....That is your hope! By the way, I nominated your blog for the Stylish Blogger Award. See my blog entry October 10 for details. God bless, Alecia.Aleciahttp://www.therollingacresfarm.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-18776723848317156032011-10-07T15:29:34.257-04:002011-10-07T15:29:34.257-04:00Fidelio, the reason I haven't weaned completel...Fidelio, the reason I haven't weaned completely is that we're trying to solve his sleep problems first, so I'm still nursing him a little before bed. I find a little pain a LOT easier to deal with than an hour-long bedtime routine, and I do have a plan for transitioning out of it. Another bonus is that it seems to be helping my morning sickness, so I figured I wouldn't cut down any further till we're out of the first trimester.<br /><br />Thanks for the assurance, everyone. I don't know what it is that makes me always want someone else to tell me I'm doing the right thing, but ... it always does help to know that you're not the only one, that what you have in mind has worked for others. It's nice to hear so many people say, "I did it and everything was fine!"<br /><br />Meredith, I wish you could come, too. I don't think I know of any out-of-the-area friends who are coming this year!Sheilahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10853868724554947854noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-2697096580743883372011-10-07T15:08:37.547-04:002011-10-07T15:08:37.547-04:00You're agonizing unnecesarily. It's ok to...You're agonizing unnecesarily. It's ok to wean. Just do it, in whatever fashions makes you not go crazy. Fast, slow, now, later. What-ever.<br /><br />Really.<br /><br />If you've got a child who's already down to twice a day or less, and accepts social and comfort interaction other than nursing (i.e. playing, book, walk), you have done your mental and physical duty by him with the nursing thing. It's obvious you have a close and happy relationship with him. Just...quit!<br /><br />Whether you realize it or not, the already-existing pain and exhaustion you're going through is going to have a cumulative effect, which is already hurting you and will eventually surface and hurt the whole family. And you'll remember it for a long time, how much you agonized and how much it hurt and why-doesn't-anyone-appreciate-what-I-go-through. (Irrationality is a symptom of pregnancy...also possibly femininity.)<br /><br />Like everyone else says, Marko won't remember in the least that he quit nursing, that he ever nursed, or even that (which I think is unlikely in the first place) he had to scream bloody murder once or twice. Vincent never did--I said "no way, Jose" to night nursing, but still let him sleep in the bed, and he said "well, fine, woman, then <i>you</i> figure out how to get those things empty and comfortable" and that was that.<br /><br />;)Fideliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05153940948852223051noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-36243255720928584442011-10-07T14:50:30.242-04:002011-10-07T14:50:30.242-04:00It's okay to wean if you and John think that&#...It's okay to wean if you and John think that's best for your family. I guess it's easy for me to say - I had to wean Isaac at five months (cold turkey, no less), so I didn't have to make the decision to wean him or not once I got pregnant again. Having to wean Isaac that early broke my heart, but I think the experience taught me something: It really is okay if you can't (or realize you don't want to) follow your ideal nursing plan exactly as you had imagined. I think sometimes as new moms we put so much pressure on ourselves to do everything exactly the right way and we let ourselves feel SO guilty when things don't go perfectly. I'm not saying that the little things don't matter, but don't feel bad because you're not doing things the way someone else did (even if you really admire that person's parenting style), or because you aren't doing things the way you thought you would.Katiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00615433270604508560noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-11440804786912763222011-10-07T14:35:03.799-04:002011-10-07T14:35:03.799-04:00I never consciously weaned during pregnancy, thoug...I never consciously weaned during pregnancy, though having watched friends of mine do the tandem-nursing thing, I will confess that I was pretty determined that I would not do it myself. So I introduced weaning to my oldest (at 2 and a half) before being open to a second pregnancy. Our third and fourth children are 16 months apart; my suspicion is that a real cutback in my thirdborn's nursing at about 6-7 months is why I got pregnant again so quickly. Or else I got pregnant, and something about my milk incited him to taper off completely. Either way, except for my inevitable guilt, because of course he was really too young, it was pretty trauma-free on his end and seems to have had zero lasting effects on him. He had been a happy baby before; he was a happy baby after. He's a complex-but-happy nine-year-old today. <br /><br /><br />Fwiw, I think that if you're even remotely ambivalent about nursing two, it's much, much better to bite the bullet and wean now, albeit gradually, than to decide that you can't handle it once the second baby is here. If you do it now, Marko won't even remember it -- even my oldest who nursed the longest really doesn't remember my weaning her, or anything at all about nursing. Other things from that stage of her life she remembers vividly, like being in Wales when she was 2, but not nursing. <br /><br />So it's been my experience and observation that once they wean, it's like the whole nursing experience is wiped from their minds -- they may be curious about it once they see the new baby nurse, but they don't remember how (mine never tried, but I had a friend whose toddler son wanted to, and she let him, and even though it had only been a matter of months, he couldn't do it any more), and the milk doesn't taste good to them (I did let mine taste a drop or so on my finger -- they thought it was gross), and they very quickly lose interest. <br /><br />Anyway, I think your take is exactly right: gentle and gradual. There are always those phases when they start to be distracted from nursing, when previously you would have worked to keep it going; instead, you just let the distractions and other interests take over. Maybe you even introduce some other routines, rituals, or whatever to help with that -- like a story or a rock in the rocking chair, if he can do that and not want to nurse. It occurs to me that with each child of mine, there was some kind of "weaning" we had to do as part of the preparation for a new baby -- a change to a different room or bed, getting used to not being the one in the stroller, and other things which honestly, to a child's mind, seem to loom just as large as nursing, depending on the age of the child, because you are changing some part of the framework of their world as part of your preparation for a shift in the Big Paradigm. I guess in a way all of this is like weaning yourself away from any habit -- you replace the routines which bring you in contact with it with routines which don't. And you take it a day at a time. <br /><br />OK, as usual, I feel like Obnoxious Older Mom With Intrusive Advice . . . but I think you're right that if anyone's going to agonize over this issue, it probably won't be your child. :)Sally Thomashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05014351173194941624noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-26167091552587447012011-10-07T14:20:16.422-04:002011-10-07T14:20:16.422-04:00So here is my experience: By the time I got pregna...So here is my experience: By the time I got pregnant this time Lu was only nursing once or twice a day. We had a rough patch when she was about a year old, when she turned into a wild nurser and we cut down a lot then. I never had a set time in my mind that I wanted to wean, but being pregnant again made me want too. <br /><br />I wanted to fully wean during pregnancy for a couple of reasons. First off I honestly had a really hard time keeping on weight while nursing. It really sucked any fat I had right off of me! So I worried that nursing a toddler and growing a baby would require me to basically eat all day long. Second, I just did not want to nurse two kids at once. I know lots of moms do, but it sounded tough to me. Also, since I knew I wanted to wean Lu before the new one was born I figured earlier was better so that by the time the new one is born she will have forgotten that she used to do that. I thought weaning earlier would help her not to feel jealous of the baby (versus weaning a month before my due date). Finally, I wanted a break between nursing babies. Nursing is wonderful, but anyone who has done it knows that's it also super demanding. It has been really nice having several months off between nursing. <br /><br />The actual weaning process was pretty painless for us, mostly because I think my milk dried up a few months into pregnancy and after that Lu wasn't very interested. She stopped for good when I was about three months pregnant and she was 18 months old.<br /><br />So I say if weaning sounds best to you than go for it!Tawnyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02787330666573626420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2464977109229359349.post-47920292927569997882011-10-07T13:10:53.007-04:002011-10-07T13:10:53.007-04:00Sheila, I think you're more than justified in ...Sheila, I think you're more than justified in weaning at this point! (Says the non-mom.)<br /><br />I wish I could be at Homecoming this week. Miss you.Meredithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02275790985990503744noreply@blogger.com