Why Do You Nurse A Toddler???
I don't know if I qualify for your testimonial as my 3 yrs old has recently stopped nursing but maybe it will encourage mothers who are on the fence about weaning. When my son was 29 months old, I was 4 months pregnant with our second child. My breasts were SORE and at that point T was still waking me (he sleeps with us) at least three times throughout the night. As I was still working this was very exhausting. I struggled
with the descision to wean and finally decided I would. It was like tearing my heart out to do this. I felt as though I would lose all of our closeness. I tried several ways of weaning (all involving non accessible to breast clothing - he accessed - where there is a will there's a way!) Finally I told him all the ni-nites were gone - no more milk. This worked and we settled into lovely sleep filled cuddling!
Still filled with guilt and misgivings I nonetheless enjoyed my rest. But... soon I noticed that I was no longer the one he always turned to when he was sad, or frightened or hurt, etc.. Suddenly other people than Mommy could fix these things. I was DEVASTATED! By now my milk was dry and I wanted my baby back. To my eternal joy, when the new baby came home T resumed breastfeeding. Hooray! He was 33 months old. My friends and
family were horrified. They had lobbied since he was 6 months old for me to wean and when they finally had their way and had assumed I was once
again sane (their words!) here I was slipping back - it could only be those pregnancy hormones.
Anyway, J is now 7 months and happily breastfeeding,
this time I let T decide on his own he nurses very rarely and although I still feel like I am losing one of my precious babes I know that it is a natural course. I will ALWAYS regret my decision to wean T, I will not make that mistake with J. So all you Mommies out there who are taking a lot of flack about nursing a toddler - stick it out. The time in our
arms and in our beds is so short and so precious and so irreplaceable in our hearts and in our memories. Just live in the moment and let your heart lead you.
~ Patricia
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