I was extremely nervous about the weaning process with Jase. I asked questions months before I even planned to wean, because I didn’t know what I needed to do to lead up to that moment. I was nervous about how the transition was going to go, and I thought it was going to be so hard. It makes me laugh thinking back to it now because it was so much easier than I thought it would be.

I knew that I would want to have Jase weaned around his first birthday. I knew this would be the easiest time to do so, before he developed an understanding and the ability to ask to nurse. I also thought it would be good to have a break before we began planning for baby number two.

I began the weaning process at ten months by removing the dream feed from his schedule. Instead of nursing at 10:30 and putting him to bed, I moved his bedtime up to 8:30 and nursed him then for the last time. When he stopped taking his evening nap, he was ready to go to bed earlier. I decided to give it a try one night, laid him down earlier, and he didn’t wake to eat at 10:30, he just slept right on through until morning. I kept it simple with just this one step that entire month.

When he hit 11 months I decided to begin encouraging him to get his nutrients from table foods vs breast milk. So, when he woke in the morning I nursed him and then fed him breakfast. Instead of nursing again at noon, I fed him his lunch first and stretched him until 2pm before nursing him again. Then when he woke I gave him a snack instead of nursing to hold him off until dinner, then he ate dinner, and I nursed him before bed. This stretched out to six hours between nursing sessions (8am, 2pm, 8pm). He made that transition with no problem.

We continued that schedule for two weeks. This gave time for my milk supply to adjust to the changes with no pain. Then I decided to take away the 2pm nursing session completely, and I replaced it with a cup of milk. I started offering Jase cow’s milk in a cup once or twice throughout the day around ten months. I didn’t force him to drink it, I just left it out as an option. He didn’t drink a lot of it, but he wasn’t opposed to it. I figured he wouldn’t take much interest in it until he was nursing less anyways. When I took this nursing session away, he would drink quite a bit of milk before laying down to nap. This transition also happened pretty smoothly, and he didn’t seem to miss nursing at this time at all. (If your child seems opposed to cow’s milk, you can try to mix half cow’s milk and half breast milk gradually decreasing the breast milk in the mixture to transition).

We continued this schedule for two weeks as well. Next I decided to eliminate the morning nursing session. When he woke up, I didn’t offer to nurse him. I brought him straight to the kitchen, gave him a cup of milk, and fed him his breakfast. After he ate, he wasn’t even hungry for nursing. I just kept his attention distracted and fed his belly in another way. I gave him his cup of milk in the afternoon before his nap, and I continued to nurse him at bedtime.

This may have been where he started to notice a little. If I sat in the rocking chair with him, or held him in a way that reminded him of nursing, he would point and cry wanting to nurse. So I had to stay away from positions that caused him to want to nurse. He usually was very easily distracted by something else if he had a moment. He was a little bit more clingy around this time, but nothing unbearable or too frustrating.

We continued that schedule for two weeks. When I hit the two week mark, I wasn’t exactly sure if I was going to go ahead and drop the bedtime nursing session or not. Jase had been clingy with dropping the others and I wasn’t sure if he was ready. I happened to go out for the night and asked Chad to try and give him a cup of milk to lay him down for bed. Jase handled it perfectly and slept all night. The following day he didn’t even seem to notice he hadn’t nursed. So that night, we gave him some milk, then laid him down for bed and he went to sleep fine. It was like he hadn’t missed a thing. My nursing days with little man were done.

Weaning wasn’t half as stressful as I thought it was going to be, or near as hard as I made it out to be. We took it slow, which I think helped my milk supply decrease on it’s own. I didn’t have to pump for pain except for maybe once or twice. Taking it slow also helped Jase to easily transition forgetting about it, rather than taking it all away at one time. Having daddy put him in bed when I dropped the bedtime nursing session was also a huge help since that is usually the hardest session to drop.

It was crazy to me how emotional the process actually was for me. When I first began nursing, I couldn’t stand it. It was so hard and I didn’t know how I was going to make it a year. Then as I began to inch towards weaning, it broke my heart to not nurse my little man anymore. I knew that it was the first step in letting go, in letting my little boy grow up. We took that step just as we have taken others and will continue to take many more.