Weaned

It's been three nights since Madeline nursed before bed, and she hasn't asked for it once, so I think it's officially safe to say that she's weaned!

I am so, so thankful for the breezy transition! Madeline really likes her routines.  She thrives off a routine and when it's changed too dramatically, things don't go well.  My biggest concern with weaning her was that her wonderful bed time routine would go kaput, but it's been so smooth.

I've been over nursing for a while now. I don't want that to sound like I'm a bad mom or anything, but being pregnant and nursing is a drain, plus I want enough distance between her nursing and the baby nursing that there wouldn't be jealousy over "her" milk. I won't tandem nurse and the milk will be for the baby.  I'm hoping that six months in between will be sufficient. I'm sure she'll remember nursing, but I'm hoping that she won't want to nurse.

So how did I do it?

Well, thanks to Craig for working late.  No, really.  He had to work late all week and Craig normally takes over the bath routine. He just does it better, Madeline responds better to him (a.k.a. she doesn't work him over like she does me), and it gives me a break to either rest or lightly clean the ever-dirty downstairs. It also gives him one-on-one time with Madeline, which is so, so important. But seeing as he was working late, and my daughter still needed a bath nightly, I obviously took this task over. When Craig is done with Madeline's bedtime stuff, they both call for me. I come upstairs and it's not a minute until Madeline is asking for milk.  "Mmmmmm, milk. Mama's milk. Milk, milk, milk. Milk, pees!"  She says good night to daddy and is handed off to me.  I wager that since she didn't have the trigger to call for me after bedtime stuff, the trigger to ask for milk wasn't there. We sat and read books for a good long while. She hopped down and went to look for daddy (it was so cute, but sad at the same time since Craig wasn't here!) to say good night. When she didn't find Craig, she got distracted and saw a ball, picked it up and carried it to her room.  She went to her crib and tossed it in, so I picked her up and placed her in the crib with a menagerie of stuffed animals and the ball.

And that was that.  She hasn't fallen asleep with a ball every night, but we've done some variation of the same routine and she hasn't missed my milk. While I was over nursing, I admit that I will miss nursing her. It was our time. We had our rough spots, where I got chronic plugged ducts, where she would refuse to nurse (around 8-9 months) because she was so distracted with what was going on that I had to nurse her in the dark, with the sound machine on and NO distractions, where she would bite me because she was teething. But I think pretty much all of that is normal and every nursing mother experiences those things. Overall, it's been a wonderful experience and while I am grateful to be done with it, I have so many memories of just me and her, sitting in the glider together. In the beginning, her tiny body was so small that I had to prop her up. Four days ago, her entire legs were draping over the sides of the glider. I can't even guess how many days and weeks I spent in that chair with her. Such wonderful memories! But I'm happy to move on and I'm thrilled she's taken to the change so well. I'm so glad she was ready!