Weaning the Bean

This is a sensitive subject for some people. Don't read this post if you're weirded out by breastfeeding.

Lily will be 17 months old on Monday. She has 8 teeth and 4 more coming in. And she's still nursing. Depending on where you stand on the subject of breastfeeding, I'm either about to receive kudos or a stern lecture.

Quite a few of my mom-friends either couldn't stand breastfeeding or had decided to use formula when the pregnancy test came up positive. I had received a lot of props early on when I told friends that I was breastfeeding exclusively. When I was still nursing Lily at 9 months, they couldn't believe I was still doing it even though she was eating solids, too. I was trying to make it to the pediatrician-recommended year.

At about 10 months, Lily went an entire day without nursing. She had absolutely no interest in it - she wanted a cup. I couldn't believe she was ready to quit, especially because I knew I wasn't ready to give up that special time together. The next day, she had changed her mind. She had begun teething again and needed the comfort that came with nursing. She was hooked again.

Things looked were even bleaker when she turned a year old and decided that cow's milk must be poison. She must have been thinking, Why is she giving me this garbage when she's got the good stuff on her? After a couple months of pushing it on her, I discovered she liked skim milk. It took a long time, but I moved her up to 2%, then the pediatrician-recommended whole milk. She likes it now, gulping it down and saying, "Mmmm! Cup!"

I had finally cut out all of the nursings except at nap, bedtime, and the middle of the night when she'd wake up. She still needed it to fall asleep. I knew she could sleep without it, but it wasn't easy or pleasant for anyone. After Daddy deployed, I was ready to let her cry it out in the middle of the night, because then it would only be me who had to deal with the stress and consequences of listening to a very sad (and sometimes angry) baby. It only took about a week, and she was sleeping about 12 hours straight through to morning. Unfortunately, without her midnight snack, she became ravenous when she woke up in the morning, and she refused anything and everything but me. Rats. "Breakfast milk" had been the first nursing successfully cut out, and now it was back.

The other thing that makes weaning hard is that Lily says "please." It's relatively easy to say "no" when your kid is rude and throwing a fit. It's a whole lot harder when she's smiling expectantly, patting her chest, and saying "Bees? Bees ook? (Please milk?)" And when you do say "I'm sorry, honey. You're not having mama-milk. You can have cup-milk." her face crumples and tears pour down her cheeks, but she still says, "Bees! Bees ook! Beeeeeees!" That's hard. It's really, really hard.

Tonight was the 4th night in a row that Lily was not nursed at bedtime. Practically no fuss. Nap time and "breakfast" nursings, on the other hand, are still difficult. Lily is like her dad. Do not mess with her until after breakfast. She is always bright and happy in the morning after she nurses, but until she does, she is rude and crabby and grunts instead of talking. When Lily tells me she is ready for her nap, she then brings me the Boppy (nursing pillow). "Ress. Ook? Ook? Ress. (Rest. Milk?)" Every few days, I can get Lily to nap without nursing, but she either screams in her crib for 30 minutes before falling asleep, or she plays quietly in her crib for an hour by herself and then asks to get up.

My goal is to be done nursing by the time Daddy gets home. We want to spend a night at this fabulous hotel in downtown Tokyo. It would be great if we could leave Lily with a sitter overnight. But then again, that's a whole other thing that I don't know if I'm ready for....