Weaning

I should have added this to my goals for the next few months. I want to wean Sean from breast feeding. He is a few days shy of 15 months, I feel satisfied that I did it that long. It maybe selfish, but I want to stop. And I'm okay with being selfish. I think that once I hit 12 months of breast feeding, I'm allowed to say I quit without feeling any guilt and I did more than that.

I nursed Ryan for 14.5 months. In some aspects he made things easier on me. He was a good sleeper in general--Sean is not. It was easier to "sleep train" Ryan because if he didn't like it he'd yell in anger and finally give up and go to sleep. Sean on the other hand cries out in what I'd describe as sadness and misery. He does not understand the whole give up and go to sleep thing.

Sean still does not sleep through the night. (He does the technical definition of 7 or 8 hours without waking up sometimes, but not straight through from bedtime to wake up time.) I think he's old enough now for me to get this straightened out. I've been dreading weaning him. I had intended to have him weaned before R & R, but I just didn't feel like it was right then.

Now I'm ready, and I think Sean is too even if he doesn't realize it just yet. I'm going to start by cutting out all middle of the night nursing. I will rock him instead if he wakes up. He probably won't like this, but when he's already sleepy he fights me less. I'm hoping if I can win that battle that the war won't be quite so hard at nap and bed time.

Wish me luck. And if you have any advice I'd love to hear it. While I've already done this once before, I really think each child is different. I know it will be hard, but I'm ready for the challenge.