(Here is my sweet
boy, Peter, after just waking up one morning since weaning.
It just goes to
show that when they're little, they love you no matter what!)
For two years I nursed my son Peter. Then
it came time to think about weaning him. My husband was ready, and I'd just
gotten pregnant with our next baby, so it seemed to be time. But I wasn't sure
how I felt about it, and was worried over whether Peter was ready. Then, a month or two into my
pregnancy, I was suddenly done. I was annoyed with having to nurse him to sleep
all the time, and through the night as I'd been doing for the past two years.
They'd been good years, and I didn't regret it, but suddenly I just couldn't
handle it anymore. So we moved into cold turkey weaning.
It was awful.
My poor son didn't know what hit him.
He didn't really have another way to help himself go to sleep, though we'd been
trying to be consistent about his bedtime routine and playing music each night
as he nursed to sleep to see if that would help. It didn't. He
suddenly started freaking out any time he heard the music turn on, and where
I'd used to nurse him to sleep lying down on his bed with him, he suddenly
wouldn't have it.
There was a lot of sleeplessness and
misery that first week, but somehow, quite certainly with the most thanks to my
wonderful husband, we got through, and eventually found a new routine to get
him to fall asleep rocking in our arms. Dad took over getting him to sleep at
night, and we experienced our first several nights of completely uninterrupted
sleep. It was so much better than I ever knew it could be! He didn't
consistently sleep through the night however. Oftentimes he'd wake up and I
took over night-time duty, insisting on just laying by him in his bed to get
him to fall back to sleep instead of rocking him every time. It worked, with
some tears, and things were going well.
Then Autumn came to Utah full-force,
with temperatures dropping as a rainstorm blew over the mountains. We went
about our bedtime routine as usual, making sure there were warm blankets for
all of us. The problem was, Peter had never liked blankets. He kicked them off
every time. So in the middle of the night he woke up crying and screaming, and
when I went to lay by him I found his hands and feet were freezing cold! With a
rush of fierce mothering love I immediately brought him into bed with my
husband and I for the rest of the night. He slept peacefully the rest of the
time.
I felt so bad about those little
hands!
My feelings as I brought him back to
bed with us were that I wanted him with us there still. Maybe not quite in bed
with us, since there really wasn't room anymore, but pulled up close on the
side in a side-carred crib or something. I realized that during the weaning I'd
been putting on some "tough love," and that while it had worked out
and been necessary, it had hardened me against him a little. I don't want that! I want to love and be close to my
kids. I want to always be warm, gentle, and cuddly. I know that can't always
be, but I hope I can figure out how to do weaning and everything else more
gently and gradually next time, so I don't have to put on a shell against my
child.
I've learned a little more about the mother I want to be, and I hope in
the future I can do better, bit by bit.
