Cold Turkey for the (Lovable) Leech

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but I've discovered a gap in the parenting advice market. Somewhere between The Contented Little Baby Book of Weaning and Super Baby Food is missing How to Wean a Nursing Addict. Which, if all goes according to plan at our house, might be the subtitle of a book titled like this post.

If you are a mother who has chosen to breastfeed her child, apparently you either intend to wean him or her before a year of age, like the majority of American mothers today, or you intend to let the child call the shots the whole way. Breastfeeding past one year is usually called "extended breastfeeding." Depending on whether the parenting book you are reading endorses or condemns this choice, you will find that it is either the path of an enlightened, compassionate mother who is giving her child all the best nutritive and emotional benefits by allowing the child to self-wean at age 3, 5, or even 7--as all these books remind you, it never lasts forever and as soon as it's over, you'll be wistful for this fleeting time in your life--or you are a hippie freak lacking discipline and impervious to good advice.

Nevertheless, tucked away toward the end of both kind of books, there is usually the brief section titled something like "In the Unlikely Event That You Want to Take the Reins and Actively Initiate Weaning in the Toddler Years, Here's How to Do It." In the pro-extended-breastfeeding literature, this section is inevitably prefaced by sorrowful reminders that breastfeeding is a precious relationship, that it means a great deal to your toddler's emotional health, and that it is unfortunate that you feel circumstances have brought you to this point. To wit, the type of guilt-tripping with which the breastfeeding literature abounds, all in the name of encouragement. By way of supporting your implicitly-understood desire to continue breastfeeding if only the Wrongheaded Public out there weren't talking you out of it, the author reminds you that nursing a toddler is a different experience than nursing an infant: the toddler nurses only a handful of times a day, and only for a few minutes at a time. She is open to reasonable discussions about nursing and can be made to understand that it only happens at home, or at certain times. She can be taught a code word for nursing that other people don't understand and can be readily distracted by alternative activities when it's not a good time. In the anti-extended-breastfeeding books, by contrast, the section on mother-initiated toddler weaning usually warns that this is going to be a pain in the ass, because you skipped the window where weaning your docile little baby would have been easy, and now you're in for it.

For all that the latter kind of book says it's going to be hard, in either case the section then goes on to give exactly the same advice: First adopt a don't offer-don't refuse policy, not offering your child nursing sessions for which he doesn't ask. Then begin to cut out one feeding at a time, slowly, a feeding every several days. This is for both your own physical comfort and the child's well-being. Cut the easiest feedings first; save those the child likes most for last. After two weeks or so, you will have cut them all out. Provide lots of extra hugs and cuddles during this time to make up for the withdrawal of the comfort that nursing provides. Then proceed apace with a diet now 100% from the supermarket. Voila.

This advice, as optimistic as it is unvarying, makes no sense to me. The idea of set feedings is unknown in our house. Edith nurses upwards of 10 or 12 times a day on the days that I am home with her, 6 or 8 times a day on daycare days. She nurses at the drop of a hat, inside, outside, because she's intimated by a new setting, because she's bored with the same-old same-old, because she's hungry, because she's tired, because she's upset, because she's happy and cuddly. She always nurses first thing in the morning, last thing at night if I'm the one putting her to bed, and immediately upon my arrival home from work. These particular sessions last 30 to 90 minutes. The rest is scattershot. I don't know when the on-demand feedings recommended in infancy were supposed to morph into a set and abbreviated nursing schedule, but we missed that moment.

Don't offer-don't refuse? For Pete's sake, who's offering? Nursing is at Edith's request. It is a poking, clawing, pinching, climbing, wheedling, yelling, crying, back-arching request when she is denied. And more often than not, a poking, clawing, pinching, climbing, wheedling, yelling, crying, back-arching request when we try to distract her with yummy snacks, fun toys, favorite books, or a proposed special outing.

Extra hugs and cuddles? I have scratches across my abdomen and a scabbed-over belly button from all the "cuddles" Edith gives me while nursing. When she is definitively denied, she lies on the floor sobbing and doesn't want to be touched. "Edith doesn't love Mommy anymore," she told me on one such occasion last week.

Missed the docile baby window? Edith was every bit as avid and determined a nurser at twelve months. She just couldn't pinch as hard then.

Wistful for this fleeting time when it's gone? Yes, wistful for the days some time after nursing ceased being painful around ten weeks and before it started being a wrestling match in the second year. Wistful for the moment every other day or so when Edith lies calmly while nursing and I have my sweet girl in my arms looking up at me, rather than standing, walking, switching sides every minute or two, climbing my shoulders, sticking her fingers in my mouth, or kicking at my face. Wistful for the easy conscience of the mother who hasn't "denied her baby" due to selfish desires of her own.

What I'm most wistful for at this point, however, is some bodily autonomy. A day when no one claws at me or pokes me in the belly button.

A day when my husband can cuddle up to me in the evening in the confidence that I won't plead off being touched by anyone else today.

A day when I don't have to embarrass our friends and neighbors by making them pretend they didn't hear the strident request, "I want my mommy milk!" and don't notice that I've hauled a toddler into my lap and am hitching up my shirt in public.

***

So, having scoured the sources for advice on weaning toddlers that reflects the nature of our nursing relationship and come up short, we are embarking on our own plan. This Sunday will be Cold-Turkey Weaning Day. The gradual phase-out just doesn't seem to make sense in this case. We have been talking up the big day to Edith. She is excited that we will have cake to celebrate All Done with Mommy Milk Day (that sounded better than No More Mommy Milk Day). But I suspect that she doesn't understand the rest. In fact, given the way our conversations have gone, I think she's expecting that there will be some particular nursing session that will end in cake, rather than that cake will signal the end of nursing for all time.

Tom and I know there will be significant changes in our family routine that will need to accompany this change:

(1) Edith still gets a great many of her calories from nursing. We will have to be much more on top of providing nutritious snacks all day long, toddler-style, and serving meals on a very regular schedule.

(2) Edith usually wakes up between 5 and 6 am, whereupon I bring her into our bed to nurse for 60 to 90 minutes. Tom and I realize that if she's not going to nurse during that time, one of us is going to have to get up with her instead. Which means going to bed earlier in the evening, cutting short our precious adult evening time.

(3) Knowing that this will be a struggle at first, we are going to have to be prepared to leave social events where Edith is preparing to tantrum unless milk is forthcoming. Which may mean lots of gearing up to go places that we wind up leaving in less time than it took to get there.

(4) Blissfully casual about what I've ingested for the past two years given the metabolic demands of producing milk, I know that I'm likely in for a hormonal thud, which even if it is not mood-altering will preclude unregulated caloric intake any longer.

So think of us all on Sunday and beyond. If this works out, I may have a marketable book for the parenting advice section.