The End of My Nursing Journey with my Daughter - 27 months

Well, I have successfully gently weaned my 27 month old from nursing, and what a bittersweet moment it is. Shan was never really into bottles and she stopped taking a binky at 3 months… so from that moment I have really been her only way to soothe. It’s been a long time and hard as heck/exhausting at times but I feel incredibly proud. Proud of my body, as well as Shan and I. I also feel grateful to have had many bonding moments with her over it. I also feel so lucky that I really didn’t get much judgement from friends or family over our extended period of nursing. I think that made it a lot easier to take weaning at our own pace. 🐌 

I didn’t intend to nurse for this long, but just like many things with parenting… things don’t always go to plan! 🤷🏼‍♀️My goal from the beginning was to be done by her 2nd bday at the latest. But with Shans obsession w/ booby, travel and then life throwing things at us like sickness, and miscarriage, our nursing window grew. I was ready to end at times, and then at the same time I didn’t feel ready, and I don’t think Shan was either. Nursing was hard as hell at times, but it also really came in handy when we were on the go and I needed her to quickly calm down and sleep! :) However now with our baby boy on the way, and some good signs from Shan that she could find comfort in other ways, I felt like it really was the right time. 

It took us a few months, but I really just followed Shans lead and we did it! The key for us… slow & steady. Daytime feeds for us (aside from the occasional day time feeds) ended shortly after 1. Then Shan was pretty much only nursing before nap, before bed and a couple times through the night up until she was 2. Then shortly after she turned 2 she started sleeping through the night. So from that moment I knew that if she had middle of the night wake ups it was probably okay to just snuggle her back to sleep. There were some tears, but I tried to remain as calm as possible and assure her that it’s okay to be sad and that what we were doing was hard, but that mommy could be there for her in other ways like giving her hugs, kisses and lots of snuggles. Some nights were exhausting, but eventually she stopped expecting it and she embraced the cuddles. Then we were down to before nap and before bed. What we did was slowly cut down the amount of time she nursed at nap and bed time, and how we did that was by listening to songs on my phone. We started with 3 songs, then eventually down to 2, then down to 1, and then to half a song or to me singing a couple songs. Something that helped too was to have Shan lay her head on my bare tummy and “touch booby” aka hold them. 😂 This provided her the comfort she got from nursing and actually has allowed her to settle and fall asleep quite quickly! Bedtime feeds were the first to fully go, after we started offering her some oat milk in a new sippy cup. We had a couple nights where she definitely still wanted booby but she eventually resorted to snuggles and fell asleep. Nap time feed then went and now our journey has officially come to a close. 🥹 I was really adamant about weaning Shanley gently. Because that’s what felt right for me, and emotionally I couldn’t do it any other way. I also liked the idea of now feeling incredibly uncomfortable by cutting her off cold turkey and having to wait for my supply to go down. This allowed my supply to drop gradually and has for the most part eliminated the discomfort almost completely! I think it helped a ton to wait for a point where she truly understood the words I was saying, and to wait until it was a time that felt right for us both. 💗 What a beautiful time it was, that I’m thankful to have experienced but am ready to move forward from. ☀️ 

Nursing is not everyone’s cup of tea, especially for a long period of time, but it was something that worked for us. So my advice to any moms out there… do what feels right for YOU and your child. Whether that’s nursing for a short period, a long period, or not nursing at all! You know what’s best… and forget the rest! 😁😏 You’re doing GREAT! 😘