Nursing

I forgot to note that yet another side effect of the not-napping is the not-nursing.

This past Sunday was the first (and only, so far) day that Isaac didn't nurse at all. He had slept just eight and a half hours on Saturday night, and he didn't nap Sunday afternoon, so he was out-of-control with exhaustion by bedtime that night. Even though I asked him if he wanted milk, he chose to go straight to bed. (He was feeling contrary enough that I think he would have declined anything I offered, no matter how desirable.)

I guess if he can get too tired and wild to eat, he can also get too tired to nurse. This never would have happened in the past -- if he was exhausted he would have found nursing a pleasant comfort, although he might have fallen asleep as soon as he started -- but things are changing. He is almost weaned.

I like to think of it as child-led weaning, but that's not true, I guess, because although when Isaac was younger I truly did nurse him on demand, I eventually began to manipulate the relationship. He was encouraged to night-wean around the time he turned 20 months old, and at the same time we began nursing on a schedule: morning, nap, and bedtime. It was actually very easy to set a schedule. He was never one of those toddlers who demanded milk at inconvenient times, and I never had to deal with my shirt being yanked up in public. He was perfectly content to wait until we got home and the announcement that it was time for milk. (In fact, if I hadn't kept offering, I wonder if he would have weaned a lot sooner.)

He dropped the morning session on his own when he was 26 months old, and he also chose to let the naptime session fall by the wayside over this past month (along with the nap, unfortunately). So now we're left with nursing at bedtime, but there's not much to it. In fact, Trixie Tracker reports that at his current age of 33 months, Isaac's daily nursing average is 5.6 minutes; his seven-day average has been 4.1 minutes.

Actually, I'm in total denial if I think this was "child-led" weaning, because starting in late April I began purposefully shortening our two remaining nursing sessions. (I started by trying to keep the daily total under 20 minutes.) At first Isaac was disappointed, and the first few nights when I stopped him he said sadly, "But I wasn't done."

But now, two months later, he never complains when I stop him from nursing. And, increasingly, most times he stops all on his own.

- - - - -

He does still say, "Yummy milk, Mama."