27 months, 1 day

After my long lament on how horrid weaning felt, I undid it. When she woke the next morning, she nursed her little heart out and we both felt much more secure and happy. It was good.

After that, we began the slow process to weaning for real. I knew I wanted her weaned sooner rather than later. However, I also knew that I needed to do it gently.

We started off by keeping our no nursing after dinner requirement and adding to that that there was no nursing until 7am. She's getting decent at detecting patterns on the clock and I hoped this would work. It did. My frequent waker went to sleeping through the night on a regular basis. It was delightful.

After a few weeks, we added no nursing after lunch. That eliminated her nap time nursing. A few weeks later, we went to no nursing after breakfast which eliminated all but her first nursing of the morning.

The last step was, by far, the hardest. That first nursing of the morning bought me valuable sleep time and she kept moving it earlier and earlier. Eventually, though, we got her down to one side after 7am. We did that for a week or so and then we just started getting out of bed as soon as she woke. If she asked for milk, she was given (organic skim) cow's milk whenever I had it available. Sometimes, I just tell her that mommy's milk is gone.

When we were in Albany, she managed to find a breast and latch on. She was delighted, but I don't think she got much and seemed a little disappointed.

She still asks for milk sometimes when we're cuddled up. More often, she simply asks to suck on my fingers and I'll have to figure out a way to wean her from that, too. She switches comfort methods on a regular basis, but with me, that's always been the one constant. Right now, her favorite is holding hands or covering her ears. That's only when I tell her that my fingers have too many owies, though.

The last morning that she nursed, she was 27 months, 1 day. It was 3 months longer than my goal for her. I am happy we lasted so long and sometimes have a bit of remorse that we aren't nursing still. The remorse is usually countered by putting on a cute bra that's actually a little big in the cup these days and doesn't have any nursing hooks or one glance at the scabs on the backs of my fingers that brings on the utter delight that those aren't the scabs anywhere else.