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Attachment Parenting
Cindy (or other gradual weaners)
How is the partial weaning going? Let's compare notes and see if we can help each other out. Anyone else who is very gradually and/or partially weaning feel free to chime in too!
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Cindy (or other gradual weaners)
Emmy sort of had no choice but to adjust- I have class from 8-4 two days a week and from 8-12 two other days, so I really just wasn't available to her 4 days a week to nurse her. She's adjusted pretty well though. My grandma watches her when I'm in class and they go for a walk around the block in the stroller (or around the living room if it's raining, haha) and Emmy naps in the stroller for her. She still won't take whole milk, but the pedi said if she's still nursing 2-3 times a day and eating cheese, yogurt, and a variety of solids not to stress.
I feel sort of like I "cheated" since I went from nursing her A TON to nursing her just 2-3x a day without really cutting back and didn't really have to deal with the fallout- I was gone! but my grandma reports that Emmy never fusses, so either she adjusted well or my grandma lies well
I should probably offer whole milk occasionally because next semester I'll be student teaching and I'll be gone more like 7am-5ish everyday so it will definitely only be 2 nursing sessions a day, but I never remember to buy it and when I do it always gets thrown out. But the pedi didn't seem horribly concerned.... I am worried that when I'm home over the summer she'll want to nurse more since I'll be home, but maybe she'll forget
I'll probably wean completely over the summer and be done when I start teaching full time next fall.
How did you night wean?
I have been weaning Moses off nursing except first thing in the morning, before naps, and before bed, and I managed this by teaching him all done (the sign and the word). At the end of each nursing session I say/sign "all done", so when he wants to nurse during the day I just do all done and then he knows its not time for milk. It actually works out really well, he doesn't fuss or anything, he just knows its not time.
He is fine falling asleep in the car or stroller without milk, but if we're at home he pretty much has to have it to go to sleep. I'm not sure what to do about that, he will not take a bottle AT ALL anymore, which is extremely frustrating. He also won't drink anything from the sippy except water
Oh yeah, Emmy wouldn't drink anything from the sippy except water until this week. Awhile back I had gotten some of those "fruitables" juice boxes- the watered down v-8 type stuff for toddlers? My thinking was maybe on days she didn't want to eat anything except pasta and cheese, those would get some more vitamins into her and she wanted NOTHING to do with them.
I took a few over to my cousins on Thursday to give to her since Emmy wouldn't touch them. She saw my cousin's DS drink some and kept pointing to it, so my cousin put some in a sippy for her... yeah, now she loves them! I think I'm going to try it with milk, too! Maybe if she sees other kids drinking it first she'll want it more. She still mostly drinks water, but at least there is something else she'll drink now I guess.
As for night weaning... we stopped bedsharing at the same time, and I think that was key for us. The first night I nursed her to sleep whenever she woke up and then would put her in her crib. If she woke up, I (or my husband) would pat her back until she went to sleep. She would try to stand up a time or two but we'd lay her back down and eventually she'd just roll over and go to sleep. The first time or two took awhile, after that it was less and less. The next night, we basically followed the Jay Gordon schedule- if she woke before 11 I nursed her back to sleep, but after that we just patted her. I think she only woke once between 11 and 4, and at 4 I nursed her again.
Once she wasn't in our bed, she woke up SO much less. She settled into a schedule of waking up once around 10ish right before we went to bed, and then once around 3:30ish. Which was completely doable for us, so we kept with that schedule. Right around 1 she started waking up ALL the time again though. We decided to try moving her to her room. We did, and she STTN for the first time ever that same night. I freaked in the morning and was terrified that I had accidentally slept through her waking up and she'd cried all night! But she's been more or less fine ever since. Occasionally she'll have a bad night, but it's pretty rare
Once she started STTN and I wasn't nursing her really at night, suddenly nursing her during the day seemed more manageable too! haha
We are down to 3x a day... morning, before nap, and before bed. I'm not sure when I'll drop the before nap.... maybe in a week or 2.
Callins... my DS also will only drink water from a sippee. No moo milk. I tried everything to get him to drink moo milk from a bottle, sippee, cup.. no go. I finally bought a sippee with a straw and it was like magic! Think it made him feel like a big boy : ) This is what I bought: https://www.amazon.com/Playtex-Insulator-ASSORTED-COLORS-PATTERNS/dp/B001QGMDHA/ref=sr_1_10?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285533584&sr=8-10
And literally after more than a month of trying milk daily.... all the sudden he loves it! I give him 4oz after nap in the straw sippee. We're getting there! Eventually I will give it to him after lunch/before nap and we'll wean from nursing and I'll just stick with morning and night for awhile.
I've been letting Ari drop sessions at his own pace. Given his allergies, he really needs BM until he's at least 2. We actually tried introducing yogurt last week - his pedi said if there was any dairy he could handle, yogurt would be it since the proteins are broken down so much. We had no luck with that, so he has to have 3-5 servings of BM per day.
I really don't mind but I often have a hard time pumping more than once @ work. Ari nurses more on some days, less on others, but for the last 2 weeks he seems to have fallen into a 4-5 times per day pattern. He's only been nursing right when I get off work 50% of the time or less, & honestly I'd prefer he drop the after nap session before that one so I don't have to pump. Plus I feel like that after work session is key to him not wanting to nurse at night.
We're working on night weaning right now. We've tried more times than I'd like to admit & it hasn't worked out well. This time is going much better. I've been using the "no more milk till the sun comes up" technique. We've had some teething set backs but overall it's gone well. Not that Ari's been like "yeah mom, I'm totally down with not nursing," but it's been relatively tear free. I think he's more ready than he was before.
I will say that now that I'm not nursing all.freaking.night, I'm not as annoyed/exhausted/resentful of day nursing. Ari also seems to be nursing better during the day instead of playing around or nursing for 3 secs then jumping on & off.