This is an excerpt from an email I sent that I thought had a lot of my thoughts on this process as it has been happening, which I would like to save.
Since Saturday we have been
working on night weaning Lawton. It has gone much, much better than I
expected. On previous attempts I lasted all of 15 minutes before I caved
in and said “screw this!” and nursed him. All week we discussed that the
nursing was going to go night-night and he would have to wait until the morning
to nurse. On Saturday night he woke up around 1am I held him and sang to
him until about 3am until he was out enough where jostling him did not wake him
back up again. Two hours seems long, but he didn’t cry much, just had a
hard time falling asleep soundly. Last night it only took about 45
minutes for him to go back to sleep, but he woke up a second time at almost 4am
and I could not get him to go back to sleep until I nursed him around
5:30. He got very close, just not totally asleep. I would really
love to nurse longer,… but we are talking about baby #2 and my body doesn’t
seem to want to make that happen (ie still have not had a period) unless we get
Lawton to cut back a little on nursing. It’s hard because he knows sign
language and he makes the sign for nursing (he still does not say many words)
but it just melts me when he starts signing. Funny, in previous attempts
I have had Todd go to him and that’s when he started screaming like he was
being scalped and I would cave. This time, I decided to be involved (I
previously thought I would be more stressful for Lawton if I was involved, like
I was taunting him with a carrot or something) and that did the trick for
calming him. Even if he couldn’t nurse, he was much happier if I was
there and singing/holding him. I hope tonight goes better. One wake
up and even less than 45m would be divine! We’ll see. It’s
been an experience.
