Stopping breastfeeding a two-year-old

The time has come. I thought I would keep going until she chose to stop, as I did with RoRo*. RoRo stopped of her own accord at the same time as she dropped her nap, but she’d already cut it down to one feed a day – to get herself to sleep for the nap. LaLa has a bunch of ways to go to sleep – including the occasional dot dot (breastfeed) – and she still has a fair bit of dot dot. She has some in the morning – but usually two or three feeds. If I’m around, she’ll have some in the afternoon just before her nap and will often, but not always, fall asleep at the same time. She’ll have some in the afternoon, when she gets home. And she’ll ask for some whenever she’s upset. She tends to have more if she’s feeling unwell.

And, honestly, I can’t see her letting up of her own accord for a good long time. As she says “Dot dot is my favourite and my best.” She asks very nicely: “Please may I have some dot dot? Just a tiny bit? Please?” If I say no, for whatever reason, she’ll cry, but very briefly and it’s the same cry she’ll give if refused sweets or TV or other such stuff. So, yes, not about to drop it voluntarily.

Last night, I was up half the night with her. She woke up at just gone midnight and pretty much decided it was morning. She was asking for dot dot most of the time. She’s not allowed dot dot in the middle of the night – because it just leads to her waking up with the purpose of having dot dot, rather than sleeping through happily like she usually does. So I spent most of the night saying no and plying her with cow’s milk and juice and water and books and toys and TV on the netbook. The rest of the night was spent with her saying she wanted to go to bed and could I carry her upside down (one of her latest ‘things’) and put her in her bed, whence she would climb approximately one minute later declaring that she was ‘not tired’ and it was ‘time to get up’.

In the end I gave in – yes, I know, giving in is my downfall and I repeat it time after time, because I do not have the patience to deal with screaming and crying when I know I can avert it with the judicious (or not so judicious) application of dot dot, sweets or TV – and gave her dot dot, and she fell asleep – at four in the morning. But before I did we had a little chat about dot dot and I said that tomorrow (i.e. today) we would be stopping dot dot.

And she hasn’t had any since four in the morning. In the morning, I went back to bed and Chris took over, so it didn’t crop up. When she came home RoRo had a friend round and there were Friday treats to eat, so she didn’t immediately ask for dot dot. When it occurred to her to ask, I reminded her that we had said we’d been stopping and offered milk or juice instead and also reminded her of her sweets and the existence of people to play with. She was distracted for a while and then asked again, this time with a bit more vehemence. She was allayed by pink milk. Further into the afternoon/evening, she was fobbed off or distracted by the DS, some TV, the rest of her sweets, some pudding, a bath, bouncing on our bed… and then I disappeared to watch Pirates of the Caribbean with RoRo while Chris put LaLa to bed, so the issue was removed again.

We shall see how things go tomorrow. The mornings will be the most challenging, but I think if I work on the distractions and my high-pitched exaggeratedly cheerful voice we’ll be fine. Most reports of stopping at this point say it only takes two or three days. So, hopefully we’ll be done by the end of the weekend.

Wish us luck!

* In case you missed it, at my eldest daughter’s request the girls are now referred to by nicknames on the blog (RoRo = the eldest; LaLa = the youngest).