Lactation Narration

Many babies go through a distractible or disinterested phase somewhere around 10-15 months, where baby seems much less interested in nursing. For moms who would like to wean around 12 months, this can be a window of time that can make that transition easier. If you are interested in weaning, you can use this opportunity to try some gentle weaning techniques.

One popular technique is “Don’t Offer, Don’t Refuse”. For this weaning method, you don’t nurse unless your baby has requested to nurse. You may already be doing this without having even considered that it is a weaning technique. If you had previously been nursing at specific times in your daily routine (such as upon wake-up, or before nap time), try seeing what happens if you don’t automatically nurse. Does your baby request to nurse, or get upset? During the distractible/ disinterested window, she might not notice that you haven’t nursed. You may be able to wean during this phase without much or any protest.

Distractible Sweets

For moms who would like to continue nursing, that is also possible. When Sweets went through this phase, she was about 14 months old. For me though, weaning at 14 months was not something I was interested in. It was my priority to nurse her until at least 2 years old.

If you are not interested in weaning, be careful not to fall into the “Don’t Offer, Don’t Refuse” pattern.  Consider “Don’t Offer, Don’t Refuse” a gentle weaning technique, and don’t use it if you are not interested in weaning. You will really need to continue to offer nursing through this phase. There were many times when I knew that if I did not offer, Sweets would not have asked to nurse. If I was interested in weaning, I would have just gone along with that – but I wasn’t, so I continued to offer. Once I offered, she would nurse, though maybe not for a long time.

I was also working out of the home through this, and while I considered quitting pumping (due to her age and that she could drink cow’s milk at daycare), I decided to continue pumping at work to keep up my supply. I wanted to make sure that there would be milk for the times when she DID want to nurse.  So that she wouldn’t ask to nurse one day and end up frustrated at the breast due to no milk.

I also continued to co-sleep and night-nurse during this time. Though I considered at least night-weaning her during the disinterested phase, I was afraid that if she wasn’t nursing at night that she would stop nursing all-together because she seemed to nurse the best and longest at night.

After about 6-8 weeks or so, the phase passed and she started to be more interested in nursing again. I successfully nursed her past her 2nd birthday, and she is still nursing once or twice per day most days now at almost 3 years old.

I think that Sweets is night-weaning herself.  It’s odd, because this is not how it happened with Munchkin. I got pregnant when Munchkin was 27 months old, and I felt like I had to night-wean her at that time.  Munchkin would just sleep latched on all night!  It was a somewhat long process, but she responded well which helped me feel that she was ready.

Sweets is almost 26 months old, so almost the same age Munchkin was when I night-weaned her, but I haven’t even tried to do anything to encourage night-weaning yet.  She basically started to just sleep through the night without nursing, all on her own!

Our normal routine has been that Sweets would go to bed in her own room around 8pm, and I in mine around 10:30.  At some time in the night, she would wake up and call for me.  I’d go in her room at that point, and sleep in her bed the rest of the night while she nursed at-will.  It was the same with Munchkin, but Munchkin would nurse many times, sometimes almost constantly, when I was next to her.  Sweets typically nursed once in the middle of the night, and then once again soon before it was time to get up.

7am and still asleep!

One day about two weeks ago, she didn’t wake up to nurse at all until 6am.  I was very surprised, and even wondered if she might not be feeling well!  I didn’t expect it to happen again though, and wasn’t surprised when the next night she woke up at 2:30am.  But the 3rd night she slept through again, all the way to 7:30!  The next night she woke, and the next she slept through again.  For the first week, she slept through all the way to morning about half the time or more, and this week she slept through almost every night!  Maybe not all the way to 6:30 (when I get up), but until at least 5am.

I have no idea what prompted this sudden change.  My only guess is that she is having a developmental spurt – she is attempting more words and learning more signs rapidly – and that this spurt is affecting her sleep as well as her vocabulary.  And while I wasn’t trying to night-wean her at this time, I’m certainly not complaining!  She is now only nursing 2-3 times per day on weekdays – when she gets up in the morning, when I get home from work, and sometimes again before bed.  On weekends when we are together all day though, she tends to nurse more often.

I know that many of my peers have babies who will sleep through all night far before a year and would think that it was awful to have a 2 year old still waking to nurse nightly.  And I have other peers with 2+ year olds who really wish for a night without nursing.  But it really hasn’t bothered me so far, which I guess is why I haven’t done anything to discourage Sweets from night-nursing yet.

I recently saw that there is a new children’s book about night-weaning – Nursies When The Sun Shines.  The website claims that it is the first children’s book to focus on night-weaning.  I think that’s a great idea for a book, and I think it’s a brilliant addition for this demographic.  I think it will fill a niche, just as books like Adventures in Tandem Nursing, Mothering Your Nursing Toddler, and Maggie’s Weaning have done.  And I’ll probably end up buying it, even if Sweets night-weans all by herself without intervention, just to have it in our library.

This week at our La Leche League meeting, we had a “Weaning Party” for Munchkin.  I took a few minutes from the meeting and gave her two gifts: a little book that I made her which tells her nursing story with pictures through the years, and a milk pendant necklace.  The necklace has two little hearts that are made from my own milk that I sent to the crafter – Hollyday Designs.  (I also got a matching keychain for myself!)  I also had a balloon and some blueberry muffins to make it a party!

Munchkin’s Little Book of Nursing and Weaning
To Munchkin
By Mommy

Nursing has been a big part of our lives, you and I. At first it was mostly about nourishment, and later mostly about comfort and closeness. Nursing gave us ample opportunities for physical closeness, and I think it brought us very close together emotionally too. It meant that even when we were apart, we were never far from each other’s thoughts. And when we were reunited, nursing allowed us to reconnect physically. For a long time nursing could fix all problems: from general crankiness, to illnesses and wakefulness, to shots and boo-boos. As you got older, you developed new sources of nourishment, new methods of physical closeness, new solutions to problems. And now, you have entered a new stage in your life, where you no longer nurse – now you are weaned. I am glad that I waited for you to come to this stage in your own time. I think that now we are both ready for what comes next in your great life adventure. I will always treasure the memory of our nursing relationship, but now it’s time to move forward.

Your first year (0-1) – The infancy year

This, of course, was the year you were born. My first time nursing a baby. We learned together! During the first half of this year, you grew and were nourished only by my milk! Our biggest challenge was that I went back to work and you didn’t take a bottle! You never wanted an artificial nipple, a bottle or a pacifier – only Mommy. I learned that nobody could take my place, that only I was “mother”. When we were together you nursed often and through the night to make up for the time we were apart, but we were never apart for more than 4 or 5 hours. When we were apart, I pumped my milk to keep up my milk supply, even though you didn’t drink it in bottles.

Your second year (1-2) – The toddler year

When you turned one, I thought you were so big! I was proud to still be nursing you, when so many others didn’t make it that long. One year was always the goal you heard about, from the pediatrician and the baby magazines. But by the time you turned one, I already knew that I wanted to nurse you until at least age two. I still nursed you on my lunch break for most of this year, until the time came when I found that you were falling asleep before I arrived more often than not. When this happened, we would be apart for the longest in your life – an entire workday. You no longer nursed down for sleep, but you still nursed through the night. You requested to nurse by signing MILK, and you called my breasts “na-nas”.

Your third year (2-3) – The pregnancy year

This was the year that I was pregnant with Sweets. You went from nursing 5 times per day to nursing only once per week for about six months. Maybe that’s why I have no pictures of you nursing during this year. There were many times that I was sure you had weaned, or that you were about to wean, but you always asked again – sometimes after two whole weeks! Even when there was no milk, even when it had been weeks since you last nursed, nursing was still important to you. When you did ask to nurse, you would cuddle up and nurse for 30 minutes! I was not sure if I wanted to tandem nurse, but I did know that I didn’t want to end our nursing relationship before you were ready, and so we continued.

Your forth year (3-4) – The tandem year

This was the year that Sweets was born, and you tandem nursed. The three nights I spent in the hospital having Sweets were the first time I had been away from you overnight, and the longest that I have been away from you even now. You learned to share Mommy, and your milk, with your sister. You went back to nursing more frequently when Sweets was born, but shortly after, we started nursing only twice per day as our regular schedule. You had such empathy for your sister – any time she cried, you would tell me, “She needs some Mommy’s Milk!” This year you started spending the night away from home with your grandparents occasionally. You didn’t notice or mind that you didn’t nurse when we were apart – you would just nurse again when you came home.

Your fifth year (4-5) – The weaning year

This was the year that you weaned. You had the opportunity to nurse twice per day, but some days you only chose to nurse once. Other days you didn’t nurse at all. One day you told me that you couldn’t get milk anymore when you nursed by yourself, but you could if you nursed together with Sweets. At this point you started going days and weeks between nursing again, like you had when I was pregnant. But this time, I knew that it wasn’t because of changes in my body – it was you who was changing this time. The last time you nursed was December 30, 2010, but even months later, you did not consider yourself weaned. You told me that you would be weaned when you were five.

And now, in the month of your fifth birthday, we are having a weaning celebration for you, to celebrate this milestone. I am giving you this necklace as a weaning gift, made from my own milk in the shape of two hearts, which symbolizes our two hearts that have been joined together with the bond of nursing. When you wear this necklace, you can always have Mama’s Milk close to your heart. And I am giving you this book, the story of your nursing years, so that you can remember how much it has meant to us both.

I think I’m ready to call Munchkin weaned. It’s been 3 months since she last nursed. She was 4 years, 7 months, 11 days old.

Though Munchkin hasn’t nursed in 3 months, she has not wanted to call herself weaned. I have offered to read Maggie’s Weaning to her a few times, but she adamantly did NOT want to read that book, or to hear anything about being weaned.

But today was different. This morning, she came into my bed and Sweets was nursing. Munchkin coyly snuck up on my other side and said that she wanted some milk. I said, “You know what? I think you are weaned though.” She said, “I’m not! I don’t want to be weaned!” I said, “But you haven’t nursed in 3 months. That’s a long time. I think it means you are weaned. What do you think?” She just lied down next to me. I said, “We can hug and cuddle, how about that?” She agreed.

We went to church a little while later, and while the kids were in their Religious Education classes, I went and talked to the minister for a bit. I told her that I was thinking of doing something special to mark or celebrate Munchkin’s weaning, and did she have any ideas or suggestions for making such a ritual. She suggested a few things, like giving her a special cup to drink from, that didn’t really resonate that much with me (probably because Munchkin has been drinking out of a cup for years!). But she also suggested giving her a bracelet, perhaps something with links to symbolize our link with each other that continues even after weaning. I liked this idea. She also suggested doing some kind of ritual in the presence of a supportive community, if I have one. I’m sure not everyone has a community that would understand the significance of weaning in our lives at almost 5 years old, but I think that my LLL group should be the right environment for this. I will also admit that I ended up crying quite a bit during this meeting – I guess I have some serious emotions about the end of Munchkin’s nursing days. To her credit, the minister was completely understanding and supportive and never batted an eye that we were talking about my 4 year old weaning, not my 1 year old!

In the car on the way home, I brought up the topic again with Munchkin. I told her that I wanted to give her a gift to celebrate her weaning, and did she have any ideas of what she might like. Predictably, her first thoughts were of toys, but I told her I wanted it to be more special than toys. I mentioned the idea of a bracelet, but Munchkin wasn’t into that. She then suggested a necklace instead, and I said that might work and I would look for something. When we got out of the car, she was a little teary. She said, “I’m going to miss nursing.” I said, also tearing up, “I know sweety, I’m going to miss it too. But everyone has to wean some time.”

Then she asked me if I was sad when I weaned, and I told her that I couldn’t remember when I weaned because I was just a little baby. This seemed shocking to her. She asked, “Why?!” I told her that it was my mommy’s choice to wean me then, and that lots of mommies wean their little ones when they are just babies, and some babies never even nurse at all. She told me, “That is not right! It should be the kid’s choice when to wean!” I laughed a bit and told her that I thought so too, but not everyone agrees.

We looked on the internet for an appropriate necklace, and I think we found the perfect thing. It is a necklace that is made with drops of your own breast milk! I showed it to Munchkin and told her that this way she could still carry a bit of Mommy’s Milk next to her heart even though she isn’t nursing. She thought this was a great idea, and I think it made her feel a lot better. She was able to talk to me about being weaned for the rest of the day without seeming sad or upset.

At bedtime, I suggested Maggie’s Weaning again, and this time she agreed. She happily heard the story and was particularly excited at the end when Maggie is big enough to be a flower girl (as Munchkin is going to be in May) and ride a bike. She would like to have a weaning party too, just like in the book. It seems like she suddenly identifies with this book, whereas before she totally rejected it! She even asked if we could meet Maggie (to which I told her that based on the publication date, Maggie should be a grown-up now!).

Munchkin’s nursing journey was long and fulfilling for us both, and I’m glad that it tapered off slowly and at her own pace. I’m glad that she seems to be coming to terms with weaning now. We both may have some tears yet to come though.

Munchkin insists that she’s not weaned. She doesn’t care that the last time she nursed was over a month ago. It doesn’t mean she is weaned. Last night, while I was reading her story, she slyly unbuttoned my shirt and peered inside. Our conversation went something like this:

Munchkin, 4 years old, and me

Munchkin: Can I have some Mommy’s milk?
Me: You want Mommy’s milk? You haven’t had any in a long time. I thought you were weaned.
Munchkin: I’m NOT weaned!
Me: Oh, I just thought maybe you were, because you haven’t had Mommy’s milk in weeks and weeks.
Munchkin: NO, I’m NOT weaned!
Me: Oh, okay, that’s okay.
Munchkin: When I’m five, then I will be weaned. But I’m not five, I’m still four. So that means I’m NOT weaned.
Me: Well, you could be weaned now, if you wanted, even though you are still four. Would you like to be weaned? It’s okay, even when you are four.
Munchkin: NO, I will be weaned when I’m FIVE. When I have my birthday, then I will be five, and I will be weaned.
Me: Really? What happens special when you are five, that means you will wean then?
Munchkin: Then I will go to kindergarten.
Me: What does that have to do with weaning?
Munchkin: Kindergarten is different from preschool. When I’m in kindergarten I will be weaned.
Me: Oh, okay.
Munchkin: So I want some Mommy’s milk.
Me: So, let me ask you something else first. What makes you want Mommy’s milk tonight?
Munchkin: I’m not weaned, so I can still have it.
Me: I know, but you haven’t wanted Mommy’s milk in weeks and weeks. Why do you want it tonight, but you didn’t want it yesterday, or the day before, or the day before that? Do you know what I mean?
Munchkin: Well, on those days I was already full, but today I’m not, so I need some Mommy’s milk.
Me: Are you thirsty or hungry? Would you like some water instead? Or a cup of milk? Or chocolate milk?…
Munchkin: CHOCOLATE MILK!!!
Me: Would you rather have chocolate milk instead of Mommy’s milk? Or do you still want Mommy’s milk?
Munchkin: I want chocolate milk! Let’s go!
Me: Okay, we can do that.

So we went downstairs and she drank a cup of chocolate milk and ate a banana while I read her story. She didn’t have Mommy’s milk. She hasn’t had it in 5+ weeks. But she’s NOT weaned. Don’t even suggest it!

I wonder if being a nursling is part of her identity that she’s not ready to give up yet, even if she’s not nursing anymore.  For me, I’m not giving up my identity as a nursing mother yet, because I’m still nursing Sweets and expect to be for a long while still.  I think that in that way it will be much harder for me when Sweets weans, because I will be losing that part of my identity which has been so important to me for the past 5 years (and a few more years yet to come).  But as Munchkin weans, I am not losing my identity as a nursing mother, only my identity as a tandem nursing mother.  Maybe it’s harder right now for her to give up the idea of nursing than it is to give up nursing itself.

I’ve heard stories from mothers who practiced child-led weaning who said that nursing phased out so gradually that one day they just noticed that their child was weaned, and they didn’t remember when the last time was. Some have said this with regret, that they wish they could remember that last nursing. Knowing that I would want to remember Munchkin’s last nursing, I started tracking her nursings on the calendar when they became sporadic.

The last time Munchkin nursed was 3 weeks ago at bedtime when I sat down to read her bedtime story. It had previously been a part of our bedtime routine to nurse while we read the story, but we hadn’t done it for a long time. A week and a half prior when she had asked to nurse, she had asked in the morning when she woke up, which was the other nursing time that had once been routine for us. This night, as I sat on her bed with the Disney chapter book we had recently started reading, I said to her, “Really? You want to nurse? I thought that maybe you had weaned?!” She said “NoOh!” in that sing-songy way that says  “Mom, you are SOO silly.” I asked, as I have before, “Do you think that you might be ready to wean soon?” She said, “Well, maybe when I’m 5.” I said, “Oh, okay, we’ll see” and we nursed. For about 5 seconds! She was barely on when she popped right back off. I said, “That’s it? You’re done?” and she said “Yep” so she sat on my lap while I finished reading the chapter.

It has now been three weeks since Munchkin’s last nursing. She nursed 5 times in December, but not at all in January (so far). Is she done? Was that really her last one? I don’t know. She has gone two weeks without nursing before, but not three; this is the longest she has ever gone without nursing. But, I have been convinced before that she was weaned, and she wasn’t, so I’m not ready to call our nursing days over yet at this point. When will I be convinced that she is really done? After a month? Two months? More? I don’t know.

Munchkin this winter

Do you remember your child’s last nursing?  Did you make special note of it?  If you practiced child-led weaning, how long did it take for you to know that your child was really done?

Sometimes we find that we are so “touched out” from nursing that we want to just wean. Maybe your toddler still wants to nurse every 2 hours, or all night long. Maybe you are pregnant and nursing has become painful. Maybe your child is just nursing more often than you would like. Nursing is a relationship, which means that both mother and baby have to be satisfied with the arrangement. If you are not happy with how it is going, you can make changes. You don’t have to be a martyr. But you don’t necessarily have to wean completely either, you can try just cutting down on nursing until you feel like you can handle it. Intentionally cutting down on nursing is sometimes called spot weaning or partial weaning.  This is what I did when I was pregnant and still nursing Munchkin, when she was 2.5 years old. I was able to get her down from nursing 5 times per day, including overnight, to nursing only twice per day, and that felt manageable enough for me that I didn’t feel the need to wean her completely.  Here are some of the methods I used for partial weaning.

1- Substitution
I tried to anticipate when she might be hungry or thirsty and offer her something else before she thought to ask for milk. If she wanted to nurse anyway, she might be satisfied to “touch the mommy’s milk instead of drink the mommy’s milk” she would put her hand on my nipple and cuddle me instead of nursing.

2- Distraction
Sometimes she would want to nurse just because she was bored, so I tried to keep her busy enough that she wouldn’t think of it.  Outside time was a great distraction for Munchkin and she wouldn’t even think about nursing. I also avoided sitting in my usual chair, because that was a trigger for her to ask to nurse. Instead, I sat at the kitchen table and stood up a lot for a while.

3- Postponement
I night-weaned Munchkin at 27 months when I got pregnant with Sweets.  I have a whole post on night-weaning because there were several stages, but at the end I told her that we would nurse later or in the morning.  I also used postponement during the day to delay nursing by telling her that we would nurse at bedtime.

4- Shortening
If she really wanted to nurse, I might allow her “just a short one” instead of letting her nurse as long as she wanted.  I let her nurse for the length of a song or story of my choice.

5- Changing the routine
After Sweets was born and I was tandem nursing, I limited Munchkin to nursing only first thing in the morning when she woke up and last thing at night before bed; the rest of the time, only Sweets nursed. This got us into a certain routine though, where she was nursing at those times because she expected it then. I had to change up the routine so that she didn’t expect to nurse at particular times.  After that, she only asked to nurse because she really wanted to, and not just out of routine, and that decreased her requests for nursing significantly.

I used partial weaning to get to a place where I felt I could handle continuing to nurse.  Munchkin has kept nursing for over a year after this, so partial weaning did not lead to complete weaning for us.  While I feel committed to allowing Munchkin to decide when she is ready to wean completely, I also feel that partial weaning was helpful to me in being able to continue to commit to child-led weaning.

I lay here snuggled close to you in your bed. Your little hand still cradles my nipple, but your lips no longer do. Your eyes are drooping, but you are not yet asleep. I caress your hair at your temple, and hum softly. I finish a verse and pause, and you sleepily say “Try again, Mommy,” so I begin the song again. I can remember a moment such as this, when I must have been just about your age: cradled sleepily in my own mother’s arms while she sang to me in the dark, waking just enough to ask her to sing it again. And as I wonder what of this you may recall when you are older, I notice that you are sound asleep, and I stop my humming. And I hope that I, at least, will remember this moment always.

I wrote that two years ago about Munchkin.  I was weeping as I wrote it because I felt so sure that she was so close to weaning.  I wondered if she was old enough that she would remember later how much she loved nursing.  During my pregnancy with Sweets, Munchkin had gone from nursing 5 times per day to less than once per week.  She even went two weeks between nursing sometimes.  I was sure that our nursing days were numbered.  And the thought of it made me cry.  My goal had been to nurse her for two years, and we had surpassed that by another half a year, but I still wasn’t ready for her to be done.  Nursing had been such a big part of our relationship for so long (well, her entire life), certainly much more than a mode of nutrition.  Even though she only nursed sporadically, I still very much identified myself as a “nursing mother” and her as a “nursing toddler.”

But it didn’t end.  Munchkin continued to nurse sporadically for the rest of my pregnancy, and then tandem nursed after Sweets was born.  There were a few other times when I was just so sure that she was about to wean, like the time she outright told me that she didn’t want to nurse because it made her feel sick, and then she still didn’t wean.  I remember a La Leche Leage meeting when I was on maternity leave with Sweets – the topic was weaning and I was in tears thinking that Munchkin would likely wean soon.  As time goes on though, I’m not so weepy about it anymore. When I think about her weaning now, I feel more proud than sad.  I think I must be ready.  Now I’m just waiting for her to be ready too.

I find myself thinking again that Munchkin is going to wean very soon.  She is now 4.5 years old and has started complaining that she “can’t get to the milk” when she nurses, which upsets her because she does not want to wean.  I’m not sure why it happened, but it seems that she’s not able to get a let-down by herself anymore.  If she nurses together with Sweets, she can get milk, but not usually on her own now.  This has been going on for about two weeks, and she has drastically cut down on how often she nurses, from twice most days lately, to only 3 times all week.  So, again, I wonder if she is going to be weaned soon.  But this time I know better than to hold my breath.  I’ll believe it when I see it.

Munchkin is 4 today. If you had told me when she was born that she would still be nursing now, I wouldn’t have believed it. My original goal with her was to nurse for 6 months, yet here we are. My goal now is for child led weaning.

Some people view child led weaning as meaning that the child has full access to nursing any time she wants it, and that mom never says “no”. This is not the case for us. I did night-wean her when she was 2, and I was pregnant with Sweets. I also spot weaned her when I was pregnant to cut down on how often she nursed. And since she turned 3, I have limited her to only nursing first thing in the morning and/or last thing before bed (the rest of the time, the milk is for Sweets). She continues to nurse once a day most days, typically when she first wakes up in the morning. Sometimes she nurses both in the morning and at bed time, and other days she doesn’t nurse at all. When I say that my goal is child led weaning, I mean that I will let her decide when she is finished with nursing, not that I won’t place any limits on it while she is still nursing.

There have been several occasions when I was convinced that she had weaned. For about 6 months when I was pregnant, she only nursed an average of once per week. Sometimes she skipped as much as two weeks before asking again. I really thought she had weaned more than once, and I thought that she would wean very shortly the whole time. I said to myself “I’m sure she will be weaned by the New Year at this rate” and then “I’m sure she will be weaned by the time the new baby comes,” but that wasn’t the case. When Sweets was born, Munchkin started nursing more again, but after about a week, she told me that she didn’t want to nurse anymore because it made her “feel sick”. I thought for sure she was weaned that time. But a week later she asked again, and she’s been pretty steady ever since. She will still skip a few days if we have house guests or if we are traveling because she gets distracted, but once we are back in our routine, she is ready to nurse again.

Lately, I have started talking to her about weaning. I have told her that one day she will be weaned, and that means that she won’t want to drink Mommy’s Milk anymore. She seems to think that is pretty silly, and that of course she will always want to drink Mommy’s Milk! But I see a few signs that she’s considering that some day she will actually wean. Since her birthday was coming up, I asked Munchkin if she thought she might wean when she is four. She told me, “Well, maybe when I’m 55.” I guess that’s progress!

The first thing that I want to say about night-weaning, is that I don’t even try it until 2 years old. This is because it is a priority for me to nurse until at least 2 years, and I worry that night-weaning might lead to a lower milk supply and/or premature weaning, and for me that is not something that I am willing to risk before 2 years. Besides that, night-weaning is a lot more effort than night-nursing while co-sleeping.

Though controlled crying methods of night-weaning/sleep-training seem to work for some people, and fairly quickly, this is not a strategy that I am willing to try. I am convinced that gentle, no-cry solutions also work, just more slowly. A lot of folks in my circle like to try Dr. Jay Gordon’s night-weaning method, which involves some crying, but importantly, no crying alone. One of the things I really took from Jay Gordon’s method though, was that he repeatedly says that if at any point in time you feel in your gut that the time isn’t right, then just stop.

I half-heartedly tried to night-wean Munchkin a few times before it actually worked. If she really screamed, I always just gave up and nursed her anyway. It just wasn’t worth it to me. I tried again when she was 27 months old, and she accepted it pretty easily then. I think that’s just when she was ready. I also think It helped a lot that she was old enough to really understand what I was telling her. And I also suspect that her willingness to cut down was also due to my pregnancy.

What I did was start by not letting her fall asleep nursing, but I would still let her nurse if she woke up. The way I accomplished this was if she wanted to nurse in the night, I would let her, BUT she had to stand up to nurse! I would stand next to the bed facing her and she would stand on the bed, which put her just at boob height to nurse. She could nurse as long as she wanted, but she had to stand up. Eventually, it was just too much trouble for her because she was too tired, so she dropped and went back to sleep. This way she wasn’t falling asleep latched on anymore. It did mean that I got less sleep while we were doing this, because I couldn’t just roll over and fall back asleep, but I never expected otherwise of night-weaning.

Just doing that cut her down to only 2 nursings in the night (which was an improvement – believe me!). After we got that down, I started trying to delay her. Just telling her that we would nurse a little bit later got her down to nursing only once in the night. Then I eliminated the last nursing by saying that we would nurse in the morning. When Munchkin would wake up I just told her that the “na-nas” were sleeping. She might complain for about a minute and then she would lay back down and go back to sleep. After 3 nights, she wasn’t even asking anymore, and that was that! After that, she still liked to sleep while holding my nipple in her hand instead of her mouth, but she was night-weaned.

Another point I want to make, is that night-weaning did reduce her night-waking, but it did not eliminate it. She would just wake up for different reasons. Until night-weaning, Munchkin had very rarely asked to go potty in the night and had just held it until the morning. Soon after night-weaning, she started waking at around 1 am and instead of asking to nurse, she would say she needed to go potty. So I put her on the potty and then she would go back to bed no problem. A year later, we now wake her on purpose to take her to the potty in the middle of the night – otherwise she has a wet bed in the morning. I think that waking for a drink, or to use the potty, or adjust the covers, or whatever, is perfectly normal, for children and adults. The trick is not to sleep through the night without waking, the trick is rather to be able to go back to sleep after attending to our night-time needs. Kids have needs in the night, and if it’s not nursing, it’s something else. So we’re still getting woken in the night, just for different reasons!