This is a guest post by Mama2Cakes.

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I just finished weaning my almost two year old toddler.  Weaning has been the big thing I have been dreading practically since he was born. It wasn’t going back to work, nor sleeping through the night, not even the terrible two’s — the thought of denying my son the breast was the horror I dare not think of.

I suppose all of my concern stems from my early days of breastfeeding.  I was a first time mom, dedicated to breastfeeding for a one year.  I read all the books; I talked to the lactation consultant; I did everything to make sure we breastfed. It wasn’t an easy road, but we made it happen. Funnily enough, I owe so much of my breastfeeding success to the type of baby my son was.  He was DEMANDING.  If he wasn’t feeding, he was sleeping on me.  If he wasn’t sleeping on me, he was feeding. He never really seemed to be entirely full and satisfied, and would almost always cry if he wasn’t allowed to fall asleep nursing.  He ate every two hours for the first two months, he slept with us, and I carried him everywhere in the Moby. I was harried all of the time, but it got easier.

Around the 2-3 month mark, my milk seemed to come in much stronger, and he finally began to experience satisfaction.  Everything got easier at this point, but our dependence on breastfeeding wasn’t just nutritional; it was so deeply ingrained psychologically for both me and my son.

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His being demanding made me learn my son’s cues so quickly, but it also made me be hyper aware of everything.  I was starting to be afraid of making or letting my son cry.  Every little thing prompted me to offer nursing as the solution, and quickly this became the solution my son expected all the time.  As my one year breastfeeding goal was approaching, I knew there was no way either of us would be willing to let go of our breastfeeding crutch.  I imagined all of the screaming and crying it would take to wean this little babe that wanted nothing to with milk from anyone but mommy’s breast. It was just so much easier to keep breastfeeding.

After that first year of breastfeeding, his feeding habits slowly began changing.  He wasn’t nursing during the day, nor was I pumping to offer a bottle he didn’t want anything to do with.  He held on to several feedings for quite a long time — the one right when I got home from work, bedtime, and early morning.  We kept it at these 3 sessions for 6-7 months.  Every day I came home from work, he’d go grab the Boppy pillow, and attempt to carry it to me while saying “chee chee,” our word for breastfeeding.  Every night when he got tired, he’d ask for “night night chee chees.”  Every night the joke was that if he could ask, he was too old.  (It wasn’t so much of a joke because I heard it all the time when people talk about toddlers nursing, especially after Time Magazine’s recent breastfeeding cover story.) But breastfeeding still worked wonders. He fell asleep with no problem, and usually only woke up once or twice, but went back to sleep quickly.  We liked this system.  We were all sleeping, and no one, not even my husband who was constantly being kicked in the head, was sleep deprived.

At about 20 months old, the afternoon session was hit or miss.  Sometimes he’d ask, other times if he was distracted, he didn’t. This was when I decided I was done with our afternoon session.  I hid the Boppy pillow, and he never asked me for chee chee again when I came home from work. I was relieved; this freed more time for reading stories and getting dinner on the table without worrying if he was going to want to nurse.  This was also when I began to experience a change in my thinking.  My son was growing and didn’t need to be completely dependent on me for comfort.  It was also around this time when our bedtime routine of nursing stopped working. Getting him to go to bed was still pretty easy — he’d want to nurse, but wouldn’t fall asleep. He’d end up sitting up and horsing around until in some tired fit he’d pass out at the foot of our bed, and he’d sleep there until he woke up for the early morning session.  This carried on for about a month before we realized it was just time to stop bedtime nursing.

Night #1

We stopped on a totally random night without any real foresight about what we were doing.  It was a Thursday, and we just decided that I would say no and see what happened, the thought being that if it was horrible, I could just nurse him.  Well, I said no, and he cried. He even said, “no mommy, chee chee.”  This carried on for 5-10 minutes, he’d calm down, he’d ask again, and I’d say no.  Finally he threw himself down at the foot of the bed, and just fell asleep.  OK, not too bad.  Little did I know, he’d find his way around the night time session.  Around midnight when I was at my weakest, he woke up, I gave in, and he nursed almost constantly the entire night.  Needless to say I was sleep deprived the next day.  This surely wouldn’t work. That morning I talked with my husband and told him we would have to go completely cold turkey, bedtime, and night time, and for him to be prepared.

Night #2

That night we did the same thing at bedtime, saying no when my son asked to be nursed.  The crying and the fussing ensued, but only lasted 5 minutes before he calmed down, and fell asleep watching TV.  Of course he woke p around midnight looking for the same as the night before, but this time I said no, and with that the crying started, so much so that he woke up.  We even turned on the TV, and he later fell asleep snuggling up against me.  This was all repeated at 4 or 5 in the morning too.

Night #3

This night was a repeat of night number two, but all instances when he woke up were shorter than the night before.

Night #4

He fell asleep quickly at the foot of our bed.  I woke up at 5:45am to my alarm, something that hadn’t happened in nearly 2 years.  He slept the entire night through — something he had never done.

Since night number 4 he is consistently falling asleep within 10-15 minutes of going to bed, and is still sleeping through the night.

Looking back at my breastfeeding experience, I have learned that each and every mother-child pair must do what is right for them, in a time frame that works for them, and not what works for society.  When I started my breastfeeding journey, I was very logical and scientific about breastfeeding. It was something that I had to do for the health and welfare of my child.  It wasn’t something I enjoyed very much.  In fact at the beginning I thought for sure I would wean him around one year.  I never thought that I would breastfeed for longer than a year, let alone for 23 months and 5 days, but here I am.

I’m about to cry as I write this, but I miss that very intimate time I spent with my child, and am so grateful I was able to experience this journey him.  Looking back I realize how important that time was, and how it will forever shape me as a mother.

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