My girl nursed for the last time a few weeks ago. It was just a short time before we found out it was twins (and I think I would have encouraged weaning at that point, though I'd been open to nursing through pregnancy if I were carrying a singleton.) This ending was after a long, long process of cutting back. For many months, she'd just nursed at bedtime and first thing in the morning, but she had become less regular about both. That irregularity hung in for several months (she'd nurse one night, then not for two, then one morning and that night, then no mornings for a few days, and every other night, then a few days with nothing, then morning & night, then skipping nights & nursing only mornings for a few days....) and she was doing less, but still nursing at least once every few days. In the final weeks, she was having 5 or 7 day gaps between nursing sessions. Each time she did nurse, she maintained that there was plenty of milk and that it tasted the same, but for whatever reason, one day she latched and then unlatched after just a few seconds. She told me she was done.
My husband commented that he thought she was tuned into the situation, and that she somehow intuited that it would be better for me not to nurse through a twin pregnancy. That kind of claim would fit with "her" in general, but of course I don't know for sure.
She definitely seemed ready and somehow on the same page with whatever was happening, or needed to happen.
She has cried about it a couple of times, and wanted to be held in a "nursing position" and I thought for sure she would want to latch again, but each time it has been enough to snuggle. She was just 2 months shy of her fourth birthday the last time she nursed.
I think her fragility those times has had as much to do with my being less hands-on during weeks and weeks of hyperemisis, plus the stress of watching/hearing me throw up so often for so long, and just how out of whack the whole household has been. Her daddy is doing so much more (all the bedtime duty, all the cooking for her, getting her breakfast every day, reading stories and helping her get to sleep) and she also transitioned out of our bed in the last month. I wasn't surprised to have her randomly crying out and needing comfort, and missing the oldest standby for comfort. She's made several changes that she seems proud of, but still must be so stressful.
But as for the nursing, I am carrying twins so will be tandem nursing come summer, anyway!
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