Before my daughter was born, I knew it was really important to me to breastfeed. When she was born and started breastfeeding, it became even more important, to her and I both. Even so, I never dreamed I would still be nursing a 17 month old toddler. I just assumed that around her first birthday, she would be done. How wrong I was!!!
Somewhere along the way, I realized that I didn’t have to force her to quit. She has always been such a good baby, and if she was upset, she just nursed, sometimes only for a few seconds, then she was happy again. She has always been a comfort nurser and I never minded that.
Now I am 6 1/2 months pregnant, and realize that she can’t keep nursing whenever she wants, probably anyways, right? For the most part, she only nurses when she is tired to put herself to sleep. Once in awhile she will come up to nurse a few times throughout the day, but mostly, only for sleep and comfort. I am a little sad that she will soon be done nursing (I think), but happy she is nursing less often because it hurts! Not from teeth, just from the pregnancy.
Her dad was laid off, so I began nursing her downstairs and letting her dad put her to bed at night so they could have the time to bond. She did pretty good with that, took her a bit longer, and made me a little sad, but she would go to sleep without my boob. Now, most nights, she doesn’t nurse during the night, which is nice. She still wakes up and I bring her into bed with me, but I try to get her back to sleep without nursing. She will snuggle up halfway on top of me and touch our faces together usually, and she goes back to sleep on her own. When she wakes up at night, she looks for her sippy cup of water usually, thrashes around for a few minutes, and will go back to sleep. When she gets up in the morning, I can usually get a little more sleep in if I let her nurse right away. This works for us because it gives us morning snuggle time.
Honestly, I’m not going to force her to wean, at least not yet. I have a very strong feeling that I may be tandem nursing for a little while at least, so we will see how that goes. I know I will be sad when she quits nursing, but we will both be alright.
So, the answer to my title, is No! I am not strong enough to force her to wean. Probably because we both enjoy it and making her quit isn’t important to me.
Do you have a story about weaning that you want to share? Have you nursed while pregnant? Link up and share your story.
I am right there with you on all of this, except DD is 26 months, and I’m only 13 weeks. Since becoming pregnant, she’s cut way down on nursing, which I’m assuming is related. Not that I mind, because it is painful for me, too! I have told her “No” a few times, but really only when I think she’d be fine with something else, and she usually is.
I do want her to wean within the next month or two, just so she’s “used” to it and hopefully less likely to revert back to it once the baby comes this fall. However, I don’t think I have it in me to just force her to wean. I had planned on nursing past one year, but I honestly never had expected to still be going with it after two years. I’ve got plenty of hippie tendencies, but I never thought they ran this deep!
*hippie tendencies* giggling 🙂 I know I never expected to be breastfeeding still. When I would hear moms at the group talk about that, I was like…ummmm…then I understood it all. I know, it is too hard to force her to wean, I’m glad she is doing it mostly on her own.