Friday, July 07, 2006

Ok, so the best laid plans sometimes just don't work out the way you planned them. I think I'm about ready to give up on my plan to nurse Jonathan until he self-weans. Pregnancy-sore breasts and a biting toddler are more than I think I want to deal with, particularly since I know he's not getting really necessary nutrients from it anymore. And besides, I think I'm just tired of nursing. 15 months is a long time, and I'm going to be doing it again in just over half a year. Besides, I'm tired.

I've been leaning this way for about a month, I guess, and since the pain seems to be growing, not diminishing, I think it might be a reasonable time to wean. Besides, he bit me!

Jonathan nurses three times a day right now: two naps and night-time. He always nurses to sleep (or just about to sleep) and putting him in a crib without nursing to sleep first results in a wailing banshee. I'm not willing to go the "cry it out" route, because frankly I don't think it will work with my very stubborn son. And I don't think it would be good for any of us.

He already has a "night night" cd which we always play when he's going to sleep (up to this point, it has played while we nursed.)

Has anyone read any good ideas or techniques? What has worked for you?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.drphil.com/slideshows/slideshow/3227/?id=3227&null=null

Amber said...

I hear you on the sore breasts- ouch!! You're right at about the same point where I finally went "ok, gotta get this kid to stop nursing" :-) I ended up just letting her nurse less and less each time she went down, from a couple minutes to a minute to about 30 seconds to the count of 10. After I nursed her, I would make a point of cuddling with her and holding her. Once I got to the 10 second stage (I think it was about a two week progression), we started just cuddling and she fussed a bit, but it really wasn't that traumatic. Of course, she was a lot older so we could talk about it too... but I had to be very careful so that she wouldn't blame the baby for being weaned. She did ask a few times though if she could start nursing again once the baby was born, which thankfully she had forgotten about by the time he came!

Good luck!!