Weaning Matthew

Matthew has been fully weaned from breastfeeding since November 9th.  We made it a full
year which was something I had a strong desire to do because of its medical, emotional,
nutritional, and developmental benefits including reducing the risk of cancer, providing
the child with better eye sight, and giving the child a higher IQ.

I had mixed feelings about weaning.  I knew it was an important developemental step for Matthew in gaining independence and research has not suggested that there are medical benefits to nursing beyond a year (not that breastfeeding beyond a year is not of value, it just hasn't been shown to be as important as feeding in the first year).  People often mentioned that Matthew would eventually "feel" too old or that I would want to stop for my own freedom, however, I never experienced these thoughts or feelings.  Eating is eating and people get freaked out by nursing an "older" baby and I just didn't see feeding Matthew that way.  And as far as my own independence, I was only nursing Matthew 3 times a day so it was far from a burden and because he was a year of age, he could always get whole milk if I was not present.  This is no so much the case with a 3 week old baby.  In conclusion, I could have kept nursing Matthew, but knew that it was time and it would always be hard to stop because of the connections made while breastfeeding.

I didn't expect for Matthew to have any of the problems with weaning that some do because he's always adapted to new things so well (a bottle, sippy cup, food).  That said, I'm a boy scout; "always prepared," so I read a lot about weaning (how to, potential problems).  The first feeding that we dropped was the daytime feeding.  He took to drinking the whole milk from the sippy cup wonderfully, but...he started waking up during the night (the one night Mike was out of town, Matthew was up for 3 hours and sobbed every time I tried to put him down), he was very clingy during the day, and was more fussy.  There was another night when Matthew woke up crying with a face wet with tears. I went and got Matthew but after a few minutes I handed Mattthew to Mike so that I could go the bathroom.  The entire time, Matthew was hysterically crying and lunging towards my side of the bed longing for me.  He stopped crying immediately when I took him back, fell asleep in my arms and was back in bed 30 minutes later. 

At our one year appointment, our pediatrician said that we did not need to stop breastfeeding, which was invaluable feedback because it allowed us to feel as though we could move forward at that pace which both Matthew and I were comfortable, rather than completing the task in a set number of days because it was "time."  Accordingly, we didn't drop another feeding for two weeks. 

I was really nervous about dropping the next feeding because the morning and night feedings seemed to be the ones that he needed most for connecting with me.  We decided to drop the night feeding, which most people save for last because it is a special time.  However, I felt as though the morning feeding was most important to Matthew, so we saved that one for last.  With complete trepidation, I sat down in the nursing chair with Matthew in my lap and placed the sippy cup down.  There is just something about going from cuddling with your precious son to handing him a cup.  And then, there was God.  As always.  Matthew picked up the cup himself and went to town.  Then, per usual, he got down from the chair and began to play.  Went to sleep shortly thereafter and slept through the night. 

Matthew did great with dropping the night feeding so, when I was physically comfortable a week later, we dropped the last feeding.  The morning feeding was the one that he longed for most from a nutritional perspective, for obvious reasons.  That first morning, when handed his cup of milk, he refused to drink it and just hugged me for 10 minutes and gave me a kiss (1 of 2 that he has ever given me) when tears fell down my cheeks.  He didn't drink anything until about noon but he ate his Raisin Bran.  He didn't drink anything, milk or water, the next day until about noon as well, but the third day he did.  And the whole time, he seemed to be getting enough fluids during the day and was not clingy and not waking up at night, so we were finished with breastfeeding and all was well.

Below are a couple of websites that I came across in my preparation phase that I loved:

http://www.letthebabydrive.com/letthebabydrive/THE_BOOTIES_PRINCIPLES.html
http://www.lalecheleague.org/nb/nbjanfeb04p4.html#.UJCJ4CKJH7Y.mailto