Weaning a toddler - HELP! (long)

nark

First, hi. It's been a while. I am buried under an avalanche of work and my husband skipped the country for a month and I'm trying to survive two weeks in the same house as my mother. But the real issue:

How do you wean a toddler?

I've been sort-of-kind-of slowly weaning babynark for about 6 months. (Ha.) We've been down to 1-2 feedings per day (for only a few minutes each) for most of that, and sometimes skip a day. That transition was easy and just kind of happened naturally. But it is SO HARD to make that final break. She loves it so much that I feel evil for saying "no" when she screams her head off for it. But then again she screams her head off when I don't let her unroll all the toilet paper too. And I was originally cool with just nursing her discreetly at night until she "self-weans" or whatever, but at this point I don't see that self-weaning ever actually happening. I know her personality, and I'm going to have to make the push. Plus she has stopped being discreet. She has started tugging violently at my shirt and shouting "MILK-IES!!!" in public, especially when she's tired. This was once accompanied by exaggerated slurping noises and trying to give me a hickey on any area of exposed skin. So that kind of did it for me. 

Who's been through this at this age? What did you do? Do I just cut her off and say "no" and distract her until she stops asking? How long will that take? How much sleep will I lose? (We were up for several hours in the middle of last night eating snacks and singing to avoid "milkies")

Give me advice. Give me stories. Give me flames. Anything. Please.

AngelPack

All I can give is sympathy because I know.  Trust me, I KNOW.  He loves it.  He apparently waits for it and dreams of it all day because I get a wave as I pull the car into the garage and then as soon as a step out I hear "Nap!"  Yeah, I might have nursed him to sleep a little too often since he calls it nap, but it is a great code word My ILs think it is great that he starts leaning back and cuddling up and asking for a nap when he is sleepy lol.

I look forward to hearing if anyone else has advice though.

P.S. I even tried to bribe him with chocolate milk that he had never had before and he just screamed his head off.  Sugar cannot even wean this child!

ECUGirl2004

First off, kudos to both of you guys for nursing for so long!  That's awesome. 

There is some advice for weaning (or at least night-weaning) toddlers here: https://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html  I think you have to scroll down some, but once you see "Here?s what I recommend for older babies:" and read from there.

Also, you might try to AP forum here or check out the forums at mothering.com for advice from more women who have nursed into toddlerhood.