Long before bloggers took their little break and I went on vacation, I promised that I would start discussing weaning your baby. So far we’ve gone over abrupt weaning and some of the intense consequences there are for weaning your child abruptly. However, it must be said that generally, mothers wean abruptly because of uncontrollable circumstances like illness, or an emergency. While it’s not best for either baby or mother–it simply cannot be helped.
For the purposes of this article, we are going to assume that the ‘baby’ in question is over a year old. Babies under a year who skip feedings must be supplemented with food, or a bottle depending on the baby’s age and the circumstances. A baby who is older than a year can receive a sippy cup, a snack or sometimes be distracted into doing something else rather than nursing.
The Basic Principle
As is implied by the title, ‘Don’t Offer Don’t Refuse’ is mother led weaning but is kindler and gentler to both mom and baby. Another advantage to weaning this way is that you can use the principle to cut out a certain nursing session rather than cutting out nursing entirely.
Basically, when you decide that you want to wean, you purposefully don’t offer the breast–one session at a time. You may try a variety of distractions, like offering a sippy cup, offering a snack or offering a toy, but you don’t offer the breast or suggest nursing. However, if your child asks to nurse or cannot be pacified with other offerings, then you would nurse him.
Some babies have a much stronger need to nurse and so it may take a while to wean from a session. However, other babies are easily distracted and it may take very little effort from you to wean. I know for my twins, any time I sit down they construe that as an invitation to nurse. I am not interested in cutting back on any of their sessions at this time, however, I know that when I do want to cut back on a session the key will be to stay standing!
A Few Tips
1. Have a variety of drinks and snacks on hand. While toddlers generally don’t nurse because they are hungry, they do nurse because they are thirsty (among other reasons).
2. Distraction is the key. You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression, “Out of sight, out of mind.” If there is lots going on, your baby is much less likely to be reminded that he prefers to nurse.
3. Cut back one session at a time. You will likely find that certain sessions are more important to your baby than others. For example, my twins nurse once in the morning, once before a nap, once when they get up and sometimes before bed. Because their father is around in the evenings, the bedtime session is really optional for them. Start with the session that seems to be the least important to your child. (That will often be the first one or the last one of the day.)
4. Enlist help in comfort substitution. Breastfeeding is comforting to infants and toddlers. In fact, I have deliberately continued to tandem nurse an older sibling with an infant for this reason. It is important to understand that when you wean, you are taking away a ‘security blanket’. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it–each situation is different. It does mean though that some babies will need a substitute. Daddies are a great substitute and we have found that weaning is a very special time of bonding for my husband an our babies.
Look soon for a blog on child led weaning.