Weaning

For a while now Otto has been nursing just three times a day, a schedule he created and seemed quite happy with. Once before his morning nap, once before his afternoon nap and once before stories and bedtime. I planned on nursing him until he was one, and then seeing at that point how we should go forward. For a while I have felt like I was ready to start weaning, I haven't had garlic in over a year and I could really go for some. That isn't the real reason, but it does add to it. I started giving Otto milk (cow's milk, not mine) around his birthday. He sucked it down no problem. Great I thought, this will help weaning quite a bit. We had numerous starts and stops down the weaning road. He would drop a nursing no problem, go down for a nap fine and you would think, wow, we are really on to something here. He would wake up from his nap fine but then about 15 minutes after we came downstairs he would totally loose it. I couldn't put him down, he would scream, after marathon nursing sessions he would start to venture out of my lap but really it would take a few days to recover. Clearly not ready, that's cool, I can read your message, we'll try again in a week or so. And so it went, every few weeks I would try again only to have the same result. He seemed to do much better when I wasn't around, only problem is, I am always around. We are kind of like a team.
I was starting to think we would be nursing for some time to come, which I was actually starting to enjoy the thought of. I really like nursing Otto, it is our own special time together. If he wasn't ready to give it up, I didn't want to push it. I really did not want this to be a big deal. Then I got two HUGE headaches back to back. I can't take anything for them when I am nursing so that was really tough. I started to think again about weaning. For my birthday my mom and I planned a girls day out of shopping. We decided to go this past saturday. Pathetic as it may sound, this was going to be my first time away from Otto for more than 2 hours!! Eric was confident they would make out fine. Friday night we decided to give Otto a bottle of milk instead of nursing to see how he would take it. Otto sucked it down, went to sleep and slept the whole night through. The next morning he was happy as could be and showed no signs of regression. Eric gave him a bottle and put him down for his morning nap no problem and I headed out to meet my mom. While I was gone he took a second bottle of milk that afternoon and eric says they had a great day. He was in a wonderful mood the whole day. When I came home Otto was happy to see me, but again there was no screaming or anything. We seemed to be on a role so eric gave him a bottle that night too. On sunday I gave him a bottle of milk for his morning nap. I was sure he would want to nurse instead, but no. He drank the mild, took his NUK and went down for a nap.
Now he seemed to be doing fine but I was feeling left out. I was the one who wanted to start the whole weaning phase but I thought we would take our time with it, not go cold turkey. But since things were going so well I didn't want to back track. It is now tuesday and I haven't nursed Otto since friday afternoon. I wish I had known that might be our last nursing, it seems kind of sad now. He still loves to cuddle with me which I am doing a lot of now, I miss that bonding time. He seems to have moved forward all one his own. This is something we are learning about him, if he is not ready to do something we can't force him, but when he is ready he will do it on his own. It was the same with sleeping through the night. If only someone could explain this to my body which is still making milk to support a growing boy. If only I had more low cut shirts, they would really look good one me now!