My weaning journey with our 3-year old daughter

I have been so busy with everything lately that I haven’t had a chance to update the blog for a while. I just thought to write a little story about how the weaning process went with our daughter around her 3rd birthday. A user’s comment reminded me to post this story since I had posted about breastfeeding her prior.

When our daughter’s 3rd birthday was approaching, I started to feel like I was done with the whole breastfeeding process. It sounds horrible to say that but I just felt emotionally and physically done. Since I was starting to resent some of the breastfeeding moments, I realized that it was time to wean. I know it was going to take a lot of patience and time so I wasn’t stressing over it.

I started off by telling her that she was a big girl now and that nursing is for babies only. Babies that can’t yet eat real foods, need mommy’s milk and now that she was a big girl she didn’t need mommy’s milk anymore. I would remind her of that at every nursing. Not pushing the issue but just gently reminding her. Then I told her that it was starting to hurt me because my body wasn’t producing much milk anymore since she was not a baby anymore. I told her that we would count to 10 while she nursed and that would be it. I was suprised that she understood the whole concept and would always stop at the count of ten with no protest. Slowly over the course of couple of weeks, I would count to 8 then 6 and so on. Finally we were done with the counting part. I also avoided the situations/places that reminded her of nursing such as her favorite place on the couch etc. I made sure I was on my feet most of the day. She kind of forgot about breastfeeding because I kept myself up and her busy.

Nap times were the hardest. She had relied on nursing to go to sleep for her naps so I started to drive her around during her nap time. It took some time and effort but it worked. At night time she would fall asleep cuddling with me instead of nursing which was great. Right before she turned 3, I bought her a special big girl gift for  celebrating the fact that she growing up and not needing nursing anymore. It was a special doll and it made her feel like a big girl. I also baked her a cake and we celebrated her growing up. Then her birthday was shortly after that.

I was so surprised that the weaning process was relatively easy and she never cried about it. I would find other ways to sooth her and most of the time it was her cuddling with me and falling asleep with me. I  felt sad but also relieved when she was done nursing. Now that months have passed after that, we sometimes talk about it and she laughs about it. We talk about her nursing her baby once she is a grown up. I thought that she would never wean since she relied on nursing so heavily but I guess she was ready to wean, she just needed some help in the process. I know many women nurse past 3 years of age, personally that is my limit though. I can’t go past 3 years of age. I know every mother is different. It’s just how I feel. I’m now pregnant with baby number 3 and I’m interested in seeing how breastfeeding will go with this one. It will be a whole another journey and I’m excited to go through it once again.