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I wanted to share my recent experience of weaning my 3 year old. Prior to this, all of my children self weaned as soon as I had a new baby. They seemed to naturally follow the logic that once baby came they didn’t want to be a baby anymore and so withing a month or two, they simply chose to stop nursing… not for baby #5!
When little sister was born, he kept right up. Every morning, every nap, every night… every bump, every fall, every upset… I thought he would want to stop… he did not… Just wait a bit longer… nope!
Soon, I stopped the bedtime nursing- you are big and can drink a glass of water. We will cuddle and read a book together instead! And so the routine changed… and we moved on.
He started to realize that other children didn’t run to momma to nurse when they got hurt. It wasn’t tough like the big boys… so he slowly stopped doing that and instead asked for a bandaid and a kiss.
Yay! Making progress! But still… the morning nursing was a constant…
When he turns 3 he will want to stop… right? Wrong… instead, it was as strong a drive as ever.
When I became pregnant again with baby #7, we had to talk.
“Buddy” I said, “I love you so much! I love your cuddles and snuggles. I love everything about you! But Buddy, nursing hurts now. I know you are gentle and share with sister. I know you love it so much… but why do you keep nursing? You are so big and soon the newest baby will be needing my breasts.”
He sobbed as he looked up at me and said “but it is all I can think about every time I wake up… I try to stop thinking about it… I just can’t until I nurse”.
I then teared up. I had not realized that his obsession with nursing was due to his OCD traits. I did not understand the depth of obsession even at 3 that he was struggling with on a daily basis. So we made a deal. Lets take it slow and find ways to break the obsessive cycle…
It started with getting a drink of water, cuddling, nursing momentarily, then reading a book together… then switched to a mouth fidget instead of nursing… and slowly that lost interest… now we just drink water together, cuddle, and sometimes read or sometimes just talk about the day. The obsessions are still there, but not as strong. He is growing and learning to listen to his body and his cues. He is learning to be a big boy and not need to nurse… Thankfully, he finally is weaned… and soon enough baby will be here and we will work to wean our next toddler.
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