I knew breastfeeding might be hard, but had no idea weaning would seem impossible
I’ve come across the advice “If mom isn’t happy, then do something differently,” but that’s not all that helpful in the long-run. I’ve found a few gentle weaning tips online, but the prospect of a few more months of diligence and consistency seems daunting and exhausting. And my friends aren’t much help, either. While they’re in various stages of breastfeeding, we’re all trying to figure out when it’s right to stop breastfeeding and how to go about doing it.
How can I gently wean my breastfeeding toddler?
My son will be three years old in March and is still breastfeeding. He is VERY persistent, and I’m having trouble weaning him. The advice from family and friends (who think I should have cut him off a long time ago) and from the pediatrician is to make him quit cold turkey. I fear that he might perceive it as abandonment if I forced him to suddenly stop something he loves so much, but I have no other ideas about what to do.
Will my child still love me if we wean?
If you wean your child, will he or she still be close? Do you ever just feel like a “walking dairy rack?”
Exploring Baby-Led Weaning as alternative solids introduction
The task of feeding another human being is an enormous responsibility. It can really make you think about the foods you eat when you start considering them going into your baby’s mouth.
Using cabbage to make weaning less painful
While researching, I kept reading over and over again that cabbage can help you wean, but didn’t take it entirely seriously. However, at time of writing it’s been sixteen hours since Jasper last nursed, and the pain drove me from our friend’s house to my local grocery store to pick up a head of GREEN cabbage.
Breastfeeding was crazy hard, but weaning is sad too
My son Conan is pretty much weaned now, at 13 months. It’s been about a week since he last nursed, and he’s perfectly happy without it. I have mixed emotions about it — on the one hand, it is SO liberating, but on the other hand it’s the end of a really close part of our relationship, a connection we will never have again. But time moves on, and my little guy is rapidly metamorphosing from a baby into a toddler.
Thinking back on my early experience of breastfeeding, the thing that really jumps out is that I never, NEVER believed that we would make it through a whole year…