Nursing was something that always came easily to me and Rosy. It was almost like we immediately fell into a groove and stayed there until it was time to wean her!
I was really really nervous about stopping breastfeeding. It had always been a great connection point between the two of us and a place of comfort for her. It seemed like almost everyone else I talked to either 1) couldn’t wait until they were done with nursing or 2) had already stopped nursing well before the age Rosy was.
We continued with breastfeeding until Rosy was 15 months old. There is a huge difference between weaning a 6 or 9 month old baby and a 15 month old toddler! Rosy had a keen ability to express herself and what she wanted and that made me really unsure about how the weaning process would go.
Breastfeeding had been a natural thing for us and so I trusted that would continue through the weaning process. I was pregnant again when she turned a year old, so I knew that it just needed to happen sometime before she was 18 months. That way, she would be completely adjusted by the time the new baby arrives!
So, here is the approach I took to weaning that was so easy and left both me and baby happy!
1) Don’t put any pressure on yourself or your baby.
This sounds obvious, but it’s so crucial! I’m an enneagram type 3, so getting things done is usually my top priority. But in this case, I just gave us a large and flexible time frame to get the job done.
Where I would usually write down a day in my calendar and stick to it, I gave us a 6 month window to make the change. Being flexible and having low expectations for a timeline, I was able to enjoy nursing through the entire experience.
Not stressing about it was a huge game changer for the weaning process, and something I recommend 100 percent.
2) Slowly reduce the number of nursing sessions.
The last few weeks that Rosy nursed she was just breastfeeding at most twice in a day. Sometimes she just nursed at night depending on her interest level.
This kept me from having pain and engorgement issues (which was a huge plus), but also made Rosy naturally more flexible when it came to her nursing requirements.
Reducing the number of times she nursed was huge and allowed Rosy to have more control over how often she actually wanted milk. I feel like her having control on how often she nursed (with limitations) made the transition easier for her.
3) Try doing your normal routine without nursing.
The final thing that really made a big difference for us was when Rosy went to bed without nursing. One night, I just felt like it was time and that we were both ready to be done nursing. We went through our normal after bath routine and I offered to nurse. She wasn’t super interested and looked at my and nodded her head no.
This wasn’t super unusual and typically I would just wait a little bit and try again and she would nurse. This time though, I just held her close and walked to her crib. She went down without any problems and slept all night without issue!
Basically, I just gave her full reign on when she would actually stop nursing and it made the transition so stinking easy!