Answer: It’s been a long time since I weaned a baby yet I remember those days with fondness. I would encourage you to find a La Leche League (LLL) group in your area that could help you on a personal basis. This site might be able to help you locate them: http://www.llli.org/ I was blessed by such a group when I was nursing a premie 17 years ago. You might also want to check with your local hospital and ask for their lactation consultant. If they can’t help you personally I am sure they can refer you to the person who is your local LLL leader.
With that said, I nursed my children for different lengths of time. Some for a year others for 2 1/2 years. It just all depended on when they were ready to be weaned, a few of the children were shorter times because of health issues. My first child wasn’t nursed very long simply because I didn’t know what I was doing.
How I weaned them? Well, I’m not saying that this is the best idea but this is what I did. I put band aids on and told them it was “broken”. Each of them were so sweet and would give me kisses and never cried or complained. They would often check on me a few days latter (so make sure you leave the band aids on for awhile if you try this approach) and when they saw that they were still “broken” they would just give kisses, we would hug and they would go on their way. I came up with this when I was nursing a little one who was almost two, pregnant and really feeling sore. (it felt like they were broken that’s for sure). I love the season of nursing a child and think if one of my babies would have ever acted like he wasn’t ready or complained I would of got them “fixed” real quick.
Make sure you get a hold of LLL and find the support you need to help you make this transition as stress free as possible. I know there can be days that it seems all we do is nurse and it will never end… it will! So cherish each moment!
With much love,
Mrs. Joseph Wood
It hasn't been nearly as long for me - my youngest is only two and a half. The longest I was able to nurse was only about eight months. I was blessed (and maybe cursed at the same time) with a high metabolism, so I lost weight fast. And of course the first thing to go when you loose weight is your milk. So I cherished every moment I got, because I knew it wouldn't last long.
ReplyDeleteThat LLL is great, too. I had problems with soreness and cracking with all four of mine, and they were such a help with getting me through that. I wasn't doing anything wrong, it was just really tough on me. But they had an abundance of ideas to help me with the pain and discomfort.