Hellobee

It happened completely by accident. The kids were home 2 weeks over Christmas, and I didn’t want to wean her when she’d be home with me all day, every day because I thought it’d be harder… on both of us. I thought we would wean slowly over a couple of weeks, dropping the night time session first, and then the morning session because that was the one she was more attached to. I knew naps wouldn’t be that hard since she was used to napping without nursing at daycare. I thought it was going to be a weeks long process, but it actually took a couple of days. Here’s what happened.

Olive hated the bottle as a baby and never drank any form of milk, though we tried to introduce several different kinds. But since she was still nursing, we never really pushed it. At 26 months she was nursing in the mornings and at bedtime, and before naps on the weekends. I’m not sure how much she was even getting from nursing anymore, but part of my weaning plan involved introducing milk as a replacement for the nursing routine. She was already familiar with the taste of cow’s milk because she’d had it in her oatmeal, so we decided to start with that. But eventually we’re going to try to switch her to hemp milk like Charlie.

One Friday evening before bedtime, I gave Olive a baby bottle with a couple ounces of milk during storytime. I thought that if I gave it in a baby bottle, she’d be more likely to drink it because it was in a special bottle rather than in a sippy cup. She wasn’t used to drinking large amounts of liquid in one sitting after all, so I thought a bottle would make it easier to introduce that concept to her. Olive drank all the milk and I nursed her to sleep afterwards like usual.

Saturday night I gave her a bottle of milk during storytime again. After I nursed her and put her in her crib, she protested and asked for more milk. I hadn’t planned to do this, but I handed her her bottle. She was upset — that’s not the milk she was asking for! I left the room for about 20 seconds and when I returned with the bottle of milk, she took it and laid down in her crib. She didn’t drink from it, but just held onto it and fell asleep.

Sunday morning when she woke up, we offered her a bottle of milk instead of nursing and she took it. She fell asleep in the stroller for her afternoon nap, so we skipped that nursing session too. That evening I had to go out, so Mr. Bee had to put Olive down. He gave Olive a bottle of milk during storytime, and she protested when he put her in the crib. She cried for 20 seconds and since it had worked so well the night before, he handed her her bottle and again she fell asleep holding onto it without drinking from it. Since then, holding onto the bottle has become somewhat of a lovey for her.

Monday went about the same. She did ask to nurse when she woke up in the morning, but we were able to distract her with Dora cartoons. Weaning was going incredibly well even though we pretty much went cold turkey! At this point we also switched out her baby bottle to this Nuk sippy cup, and since she wasn’t super attached to the bottle like many babies are by the time you make the switch, it was a seamless transition.

At this point I was feeling sad because I hadn’t been planning on weaning over the Christmas break, and I definitely hadn’t been planning on weaning so quickly. I just never thought that the first couple of days would have gone so well or easily, especially when I hadn’t been planning on weaning at that very moment in the first place! Perhaps the gradual process I had been planning would have been easier for me rather than Olive. I needed that slow transition to have enough time to let go and close that chapter of our lives.

I was the most sad that I didn’t know my last nursing session was going to be my last. I barely remember it because it was just like so many of our nursing sessions. Had I known it would be my last, I would have been completely present and made a conscious effort to remember it. Instead it was a typical session where I zoned out, played on my phone, and didn’t focus on Olive at all. That was definitely my single biggest regret.

On Day 4, Tuesday morning, Olive woke up wanting to nurse. She was crying and kept saying that she wanted to “go to sleep” even though she had just woken up, because I’d always nurse her when she said that. It was truly heartbreaking. I held her, told her I loved her and that I understood, but my milky was all gone. Eventually I was able to distract her with a Dora video, but that was when I really started feeling down. I felt so sad for Olive who had been nursing every day of her 26 month life, only to have it end abruptly. How was she to understand that? I thought about nursing her one last time so many times. But it had already been 3 days since she last nursed and she was doing so well. I thought that nursing her even once at that point would have just been harder on her, no matter how much I wanted to do it. She’d probably persist in asking, knowing that I’d give in again. So as much as I wanted to, I didn’t.

Over the next couple of days, every time Olive asked to “go to sleep” or cried,”I want Mommy” to Mr. Bee, my heart simply broke. I felt really, really down for a couple of days. But I knew that weaning could be linked to depression (plus of course my period decided to start that week making me extra emotional), so I accepted my sadness as a natural and expected part of weaning.

She asked to “go to sleep” less and less with each passing day. Now it’s been about 2 weeks and she hasn’t asked in almost a week. She does still ask for me, but Mr. Bee has done a fantastic job of distracting her. He used our Cloud B Constellation Turtle Night Light to come up with a “where’s the moon” game with Olive that she absolutely loves, and she’s adopted the turtle as her second lovey (her first is this burp cloth).

Mr. Bee still does bedtime and wake ups with Olive, and I don’t know how things will go when I do bedtime again. The routine is actually much faster with Mr. Bee doing it. He reads her a couple of books while she drinks milk in her bottle, they play “where’s the moon” with the turtle, he asks her if she wants to go in the crib and she usually says yes. Then she asks for her empty “baba” or her “stars” and goes to sleep. They’ve really bonded, which has been great.

Another positive is that I’ve been doing Charlie’s bedtime routine, and that’s given us a chance to bond as well. I’ve been doing Olive’s bedtime routine since she was born while Mr. Bee has been doing Charlie’s, and it’s such a bonding experience that Olive was very attached to me while Charlie was very attached to Mr. Bee. I have loved getting closer to Charlie because I find that when I feel super bonded to him, I am much more patient with him. And when Charlie feels super bonded to me, he is more likely to be better behaved.

In summary this is what worked for us:

• introducing cow’s milk in a baby bottle to make the milk more special, then transitioning to a sippy cup.
• introducing the Cloud B Constellation Turtle Night Light as a distraction/new lovey. Olive loves this thing and sometimes we can hear her talking in her crib at bedtime. I think she turns on the turtle and is talking to it.
• using cartoons for distraction. Olive got way too much screen time this Christmas break, partly because it worked so well as a distraction from weaning, and partly because 2 weeks at home with the kids in the winter is rough! But the kids have recovered from excessive screen time during trips in the past, so I think she’ll be fine with a media diet from now on. I don’t know what else could have distracted her so easily and thoroughly when she really, really wanted to nurse.
• having Mr. Bee take over all sleep routines. I can only imagine how much harder weaning would have been if I had to do all of Olive’s sleep routines. I think there would have been a lot more tears!

What I would have done differently:

• I wouldn’t have weaned her while we were together 24/7, but who knows… maybe it worked out for the best since we were there to comfort her.
• I would have been present at every nursing session if weaning was a possibility, and enjoyed, remembered and appreciated each one.

It’s been 2 weeks and I’m less sad than I was the first couple of days in. The real test will come when I put Olive down again. Will she ask to nurse when one month has gone by? Two? I don’t know. I’m still amazed that weaning was relatively easy. It’s just another testament to how you can’t underestimate kids, and how they never cease to surprise you.

I never in a million years expected to nurse this long. I was one of those moms who wanted to wean by 1. But looking back on our nursing journey, I have absolutely no regrets for nursing Olive this long. It has definitely been one of the best parts of motherhood yet.