Weaning the Little One

(Pic above of Syona at CDM with Ba and Nai Nai week of Spring Break)

So the time has finally come, I think it's time to wean Syona. I must say, I do enjoy the breastfeeding, having her close and cuddled, making inside jokes only she and I share and giggling away, plus the routine we have with bringing her in our bed and me just feeding her while I sleep was a pretty sweet deal for the last few months. hOWEVER, Syona asking for mum mum whenever we go out is getting pretty inconvenient. It is very sweet that she wants to be with muma, even if it's just a 10 second quick fix, but I think I can part with the good stuff for the fact that it will be nice to not have little hands squeezing my nipples through my shirt. It seems surreal to even think of a time when I can hold Syona worry free of her asking for mum mum, when she and I can just hug and play and be and she feels loved and comforted from me in other ways.

So we started the weaning process last night. We are sort of coupling it with the she has to sleep in her own crib now process, which is a lot of work all at once, but kind of goes together because she relates nursing with sleeping and the only way to disassociate that for now is to not have she and I cuddle all night long. Boo, I do miss that though, even though it has just been one night.

Last night was tough though. It reminded me of the early days when we could not get her to stop crying. She went to sleep with Paul just fine at 7:30 but then woke up shortly before 11 asking for me. I went in first and even though all the websites said stay strong, I folded in like 7 minutes. Haha. So I nursed her, but then took her off early. This she did not like at all. She cried and wailed and cried and cried so much, she was mad! I have never seen her SO mad. So I fed her again (bad i know!), and ended up feeding her like 6 times to satiate her. Every time she would say, "all done, right there" pointing to her crib, and I would put her in her crib, and then she would call for me moments after. She knew something was up. So Paul brought the big guns in and toughed it out with her for probably 1+ hours. I saw a pillow in her room this morning, so he must have camped out there for some time. Any case, I did not feed her through the night, but did feed her this morning once and then did not feed her ALL day! The cool thing is, we spent all day together because today is my day off, and she asked for mum mum in the morning but I explained to her that she is a big girl now and mum mum all done and that she should have her bottle (a few times) and then she finally took her bottle. I was actually kind of surprised. So then I played off that the rest of the day, and kept telling her how she is a big girl and muma is so proud of her and that she is drinking from her bottle, and I know she could understand because her eyes would move around to what I was referring to or talking about. Like when I said, "Muma's mum mum all done, Syona a big girl now, she drinking from bottle, wow, good girl!", she would like at my shirt and then look at the bottle and sometimes I could even see her little eyebrows moving like she was thinking hard.

In any case, Paul is putting her to bed tonight. I hear a few cries... but seems to be going fairly okay. I think this may be another long night...