Alright, so here's my story and you can feel free to yell at me through the computer screen when we get to the part where I act stupid 
My DD just turned two in January and I'd been working hard to reduce her nursing sessions. It started at the end of 2008, when I was pregnant. My hormones were making nursing pretty horrible and I decided to night wean so that I could continue nursing...I knew that if we stopped nursing at night that I would be okay with nursing during the day. Nightweaning was not fun, but I truly do believe it was 100% necessary for us to continue a healthy nursing relationship.
Then I lost the baby.
At first I found some amount of comfort in nursing through my grief. But after a while my feelings about nursing became really twisted around. It's like...it made me sad...it made me think about how much I was looking forward to having a small baby to nurse instead of a wiggly toddler. So I started trying to cut back more nursing sessions.
Then I got thrush for the third time.
At this point we were down to two nursing sessions a day. I was practically screaming in pain by the end of them, though. And I don't have insurance and my old home remedies were not working this time. So I cut back to one nursing session a day.
Then I found out I was pregnant again.
So I though...this is it! I'm going to stop nursing, she doesn't really need it anymore and she doesn't really even nursing every morning anyways! That's what I was telling myself, at least. I was completely ignoring the fact that she eagerly woke up every morning, shaking me awake and asking for "milkies", and that the only time she didn't was because I was already awake and would distract her by giving her breakfast right away.
So on Monday I told her that "milkies" were going away. And she didn't understand what on earth I was talking about, I may as well have told her mommy was moving to Jupiter. So she woke up on Tuesday and asked and I said no and easily distracted her. Wednesday was a crazy morning and she didn't ask...but she asked in the afternoon and I said no. She didn't ask on Thursday. But then Friday....she broke my heart. She'd been having what I was categorizing as a "bad day". She was crying a lot, whining a lot, not communicating with me well....she'd want me to hold her, but then push me away. It was like she was clingy but angry at the same time. Then when I tried to put her to sleep, she wouldn't lay down next to me, she needed to be laying on top of me (with her head right by my breasts) and she just kept saying "please....please....please". She wouldn't say what for, but in my heart I knew.
So DH and I talked and he was relieved that I decided to go back to nursing! He felt like DD's behavior had been deteriorating all week and that we just hadn't been connecting some of her behavior with weaning and kept contributing it to her "being a two year old" (which makes me wonder how many people do that?)
We nursed this morning when she asked and I will continue to nurse when she wants to
I'm reformed!
And if you actually read all this, good for you! I think I wrote this as a sort of therapy for myself so I can stop having huge amounts of mommy-guilt.
My DD just turned two in January and I'd been working hard to reduce her nursing sessions. It started at the end of 2008, when I was pregnant. My hormones were making nursing pretty horrible and I decided to night wean so that I could continue nursing...I knew that if we stopped nursing at night that I would be okay with nursing during the day. Nightweaning was not fun, but I truly do believe it was 100% necessary for us to continue a healthy nursing relationship.
Then I lost the baby.
At first I found some amount of comfort in nursing through my grief. But after a while my feelings about nursing became really twisted around. It's like...it made me sad...it made me think about how much I was looking forward to having a small baby to nurse instead of a wiggly toddler. So I started trying to cut back more nursing sessions.
Then I got thrush for the third time.
At this point we were down to two nursing sessions a day. I was practically screaming in pain by the end of them, though. And I don't have insurance and my old home remedies were not working this time. So I cut back to one nursing session a day.
Then I found out I was pregnant again.
So I though...this is it! I'm going to stop nursing, she doesn't really need it anymore and she doesn't really even nursing every morning anyways! That's what I was telling myself, at least. I was completely ignoring the fact that she eagerly woke up every morning, shaking me awake and asking for "milkies", and that the only time she didn't was because I was already awake and would distract her by giving her breakfast right away.
So on Monday I told her that "milkies" were going away. And she didn't understand what on earth I was talking about, I may as well have told her mommy was moving to Jupiter. So she woke up on Tuesday and asked and I said no and easily distracted her. Wednesday was a crazy morning and she didn't ask...but she asked in the afternoon and I said no. She didn't ask on Thursday. But then Friday....she broke my heart. She'd been having what I was categorizing as a "bad day". She was crying a lot, whining a lot, not communicating with me well....she'd want me to hold her, but then push me away. It was like she was clingy but angry at the same time. Then when I tried to put her to sleep, she wouldn't lay down next to me, she needed to be laying on top of me (with her head right by my breasts) and she just kept saying "please....please....please". She wouldn't say what for, but in my heart I knew.
So DH and I talked and he was relieved that I decided to go back to nursing! He felt like DD's behavior had been deteriorating all week and that we just hadn't been connecting some of her behavior with weaning and kept contributing it to her "being a two year old" (which makes me wonder how many people do that?)
We nursed this morning when she asked and I will continue to nurse when she wants to
I'm reformed!And if you actually read all this, good for you! I think I wrote this as a sort of therapy for myself so I can stop having huge amounts of mommy-guilt.
:
I'm sending you happy nursing and joyous pregnancy vibes.
