we weaned!

one day i was crying with a two day old struggling to get her to latch. and then one day i was 22 months in to breastfeeding her, crying because i was sad it was coming to an end.

disclaimer: i have never been someone that thinks breastfeeding / chestfeeding is superior. i firmly believe there is no easy way to feed a baby. choose your hard! fed is best. this is just what *i* wanted to do.

i vividly remember those early weeks (unfortunately lol) of struggling trying to get my baby to latch. it was incredibly isolating - i felt like a failure and i had no idea why it was so hard. i’ve talked about this before, but i did meet with a lactation consultant through the hospital two days after giving birth shortly before discharge (because they denied me until then) who spent about all of 30 seconds with me before shoving a pump in my face and telling me i need to start pumping immediately every 2-3 hours because i would probably not ever get my baby to latch. she also insinuated i wasn’t feeding my baby since giving birth to her and wanted me to stay another night even though the providers had already given me the okay to go. my baby had lost a little weight, but still was within normal ranges (less than 10% so no one else was concerned). and i obviously was feeding my baby, mostly through hand expressing and using a spoon or syringe at that point.

my doula was also supposed to come over for a few visits post partum, but was a full time teacher and it was the end of the school season and was super limited on availability.

long story short, my best friend (a seasoned mom of two who breastfed both) came over the first day we were back home and immediately helped me latch and gave me some actual helpful tips and we were on our way (with the help of nipple shields, my savior!). i was so relieved because i could not imagine exclusively pumping (hats off to those of you that go that route!).

it was still a difficult journey for the first two weeks until she got up to birth weight because i had a hard time shaking the panic and paranoia that lactation consultant instilled in me. but she did make it to her birth weight by her 2 week appointment and all was good.

errr mostly - we were still spending at least 30 minutes up to a full hour, sometimes even 1.5 hrs, each feeding session for months. thankfully we switched pediatricians to someone who also happened to be an amazing lactation consultant and she really helped us move from surviving to thriving. i would say by 4 months post partum, we were actually in a really good spot with breastfeeding. and it kept getting better and feeds got shorter and shorter.

my goal was to make it to a year, exclusively breastfeeding (pumping if busy or at work) and then i’d see where we were at then. well a year came and went and we were still thriving - she was nursed to sleep basically anytime i was helping her fall asleep (cassidy did a majority of the naps, especially when i went back to work and had no issues rocking her to sleep sans milk). it just worked well for us and i didn’t see any reason in stopping.

fran was never an amazing sleeper, so i just got used to the frequent night wakings (i would say 3 was average but sometimes as many as 6-8). we made it work.

but we started to want to try for another kiddo and the extended breastfeeding was causing my cycles to be super irregular and long (like 42 days) and i was also feeling ready and hopeful that weaning, especially at night, would help us all sleep better.

so at 20 months, my best friend was in town and we thought it would be a good opportunity to get a hotel so i could be fully away for a couple of nights and let cassidy soothe fran when she woke up (aka night wean). i thought it would be easier without me there because we have a small house and i can’t stand hearing her upset and not be able to help, so that felt like the best for us.

to my surprise, it worked! the first night was kind of rough, but they got through it. the next night went a bit better. and then when i returned home, cassidy just kept doing the night wakings and after about 5 days or so, she mostly stopped waking up in the night. and to this day, i would say she sleeps through the night about 80% of the night and if she does wake up, its usually just once and cassidy mostly rocks her back to sleep.

we did continue to breastfeed a bit during the day at that point (20 months+) because frankly she asked for milk like 10 minutes after i got home and i didn’t feel like saying no lol.

this was also like right when i found out i was pregnant, so i figured maybe my milk would dry up and she would self wean soon (i know this can happen during pregnancy). so we just took it a day at a time and nursed on demand for the next couple of months. when she was about 22 months, i unfortunately came down with an abscess in my throat (that i’m still dealing with) and needed to get started on antibiotics, as well as basically sleep for the next 48+ hours because i felt so so ill. i decided during this that i just had to wean because i was already feeling so depleted from pregnancy + nursing (plus also developed a slight aversion to it) and then this on top of it just felt like a sign. the antibiotics are technically safe to nurse and be pregnant, but i also just felt better not nursing since it wasn’t necessary.

i have encountered a ton of different weaning methods on tiktok and things, but ultimately i decided to try putting bandaids over my nipples and showing them to fran while saying “owie” and the all done sign, as well as saying “there’s no more milk.” (obviously with more context because i try to communicate honestly and thoroughly with her, but those themes)

she had recently learned what owie meant, so this worked well. i didn’t feel great about lying, but it wasn’t totally a lie because i *was* in pain and also i did feel like i had no milk left and it was getting uncomfortable. she actually totally understood the owie method and never cried - she would just ask/sign for milk and i would just keep repeating the same things. we also had been reading the booby moon book (highly recommend!) the last couple of months so we’d talk about it in that context as well. “the milk went up to the moon, for other babies, etc.” she would nod and wave sometimes, as if saying bye to the milk.

all in all it went super well, and my milk was basically gone i think because i never had to pump or got engorged or anything. it was just a gradual decline of whatever was left at that point i think.

i was sad to close that chapter with her, but i feel super at peace with it and we snuggle so much in other ways that i don’t find myself missing it as much as i thought i would. i’m just mostly in awe of my body, and mother nature for the last 22 months and felt so grateful to get to have such a journey that worked super well for us both in the end.