Weaning: Stage Three

WEANING: to accustom a young child to take food other than its mother’s milk (source: Dictionary.com)

Weaning is a natural process. As mothers we are not fully in control of the natural weaning process, but we can substantially direct the weaning process. Recently, Leland and I stopped our lunch time nursing dates. We still nurse in the morning, evening, bedtime, and night time. On weekends we freely nurse on demand.

I title this post "Stage Three" because when I thought about it, this change or milestone was really the third major milestone in the weaning process. The first stage / milestone was at six months, when we began introducing solid foods. The second stage / milestone was at fourteen months when I stopped pumping and we introduced cow’s milk.

Approaching this change I recognized what an emotional milestone this was, but failed to fully recognize the physical milestone. Emotionally, for me, the build up was harder than anything. Now that we are into our new routine, I am doing well. Leland has adjusted well too.

The first week or so was hard. He would cling to me the minute I would walk through the door in the evenings, insisting on nursing immediately. One night he got so mad at me for not sitting in the nearest chair available (in the kitchen), but rather walking into the living room with him before sitting down to nurse. Those first few nights he nursed every 20-30 minutes all evening and I obliged as I too had missed him.

One afternoon after my mom had picked him up at school, she took him to run an errand. They passed the bra section in the store and he about lost it. She said he just kept pointing and saying "mama, mama, milk". Thankfully she was quickly able to distract him.

Now, almost four weeks into our new arrangement, we are both doing well. There are still moments in the afternoon when I am overwhelmed with how much I miss him, but overall I am coping well. Leland still asks to nurse almost immediately after I come home, but usually it is after he shows me what he has been doing or playing with. He is also doing excellent with falling asleep for nap time at his new school.

When we approached this change, I failed to recognize the physical effect it would have on me. Generally, I only get my period if we medically induce it using hormones. But about a week after we stopped nursing at lunch, I got my period. Making the transition more abrupt was probably that fact that we had been together for about three weeks over Christmas nursing on demand, 24 hours a day. But still, I was shocked that my oh so defective reproductive system actually noticed the change. Then of course I began to entertain crazy ideas that somehow this meant that my reproductive system wasn’t as defective as I clearly know it is.....oh, how the psychosis of infertility is ever-present!

Bottom line, the transition is going well and we are still successfully - by the grace of God - continuing to breastfeed on demand when we are together.