Remember my post back in August about weaning? Well, I'm still nursing. I started dropping nursing sessions at the end of July so that I could go back to work one day a week without worrying about it, and dropped them all by the end of August. All but one, the before-bed-nurse. I'm still doing it. To be honest, after the haze of the first year started to clear, I realized that nursing didn't have to be horrible drudgery. Doing it only once a day for 10-20mins total instead of once every two hours, lasting from twenty minutes to an hour... totally different. I'm actually enjoying the one-on-one snuggle. I may never do this thing again. I don't want it to be over just yet. A bonus of this once-a-day extended nursing is that if they are teething or sick, I still have milk so I can nurse them in the middle of the night. On those rare occasions, it makes me happy I can comfort them in this way.
The girls seem to really look forward to it at night, and it's rare that we get one-on-one time in the day (rare as in close to never) so it's a really great way to end the day. Plus, whoever is getting nursed last gets to spend some one-on-one daddy time while they're waiting for me to be done with the first baby. Downside is, it does mean that I have to be home at 7pm every night (as I have been for the past five hundred days, minus once). And that's fine most of the time, although I do look forward to the freedom of someone else being able to put them down. I'm just not sure how this is going to end. Will they suddenly decide they don't want it anymore, or will it have to be my job to wean them from that last nursing?
4 comments:
I wouldn't worry too much about how you'll end it. I'm willing to bet that it will be FAR less traumatic than you think it will. One day, you'll just not do it. I'd have Orlando put them to bed that day, so they're not reminded of it by seeing you. But, when I dropped that last feed with Adele, I expected huge protests, but she went to bed without a peep and we never looked back.
One of my guys stopped nursing at 15 months, it was a nursing strike we were never able to recover from. My other guy continued to happily nurse. I gradually "weaned" him off of the first of the morning nursing and the after nap nursing by doing "don't offer, don't refuse.". It was completely painless for both of us. We kept the before bed nursing, and then all of a sudden about 5 days ago, my other, non nursing boy came and sat in my lap for our pre-bed routine and my nurser went to papa. He hasn't nursed since, hasn't asked for it, and hasn't missed it. For a few weeks preceding this event, he wasn't very interested in the nursing and would get pretty distracted. I was happy to keep going, and this has been a little bittersweet, but I'm excited about the opportunity to be away at bedtime.
Now I'm just curious when it will happen, rather than worried! Thanks for commenting!
I forgot to add that my guys are 20 months. I was really surprised how quickly it did happen once it did. Enjoy!
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