Search Results for: blog what child led weaning is not

My Experience With Child-Led Weaning – The Conclusion

Last month I shared my experience with child-led weaning. A month ago, we were down to one feeding each morning, and that continued for a while. This past week, my son dropped the morning feeding. He simply woke up and said “eat,” pointing downstairs (where his high chair is), and was happy to have his rice milk, banana and cereal. For a few days he asked to nurse in the afternoon. Then, one day, he didn’t ask at all. He didn’t ask the next day either… or the next. On the third day I realized he probably wasn’t going to … Continue reading →

My Experience With Child-Led Weaning

So you’re committed to breastfeeding your little one, but you’re still in the throes of full-time breastfeeding and wondering if you’ll ever get your body back. Perhaps you have decided to let your baby self-wean, but you are not sure how it is going to play out in everyday life. Part of you is afraid your baby will never give up her “nanas” (or whatever your little one calls them). That’s one of the main reasons many moms decide to wean at a certain age. Not having a concrete end in sight is hard for some moms. For others, weaning … Continue reading →

Letting the Child Decide when He’s Done with Something

I cannot count the times that parents have lamented to me about two sides of the same issue—they are either upset that their child won’t give up something—a bottle, pacifier, sleeping in the crib, diapers, training wheels, etc., or they are upset that the child WANTS to give up something—the bottle, pacifier, sleeping in the crib, diapers, training wheels, etc. Instead of letting our child determine when he or she is ready to give something up, we parents seem to think we should exert more control and be the ones who choose when the child is done. In my opinion, … Continue reading →

“Momnesia” Is Not Just in Your Head

When my first daughter was born, I wrote a check for fourteen hundred dollars. The problem was that the amount due was fourteen dollars. The company very kindly called me, and to my embarrassment I found myself saying, “I’m sorry, I just had a baby.” While I’m sure I made the office bulletin board of loopy customers, it turns out that there’s something to this loopyness that we moms get after we have babies. Personally, I’ve always blamed the sleep deprivation. I am one of those people that needs at least a solid nine hours of sleep per night. I … Continue reading →

Challenging the Status Quo on the Age of Weaning

Most people who are around Families.com for any length of time know where to go if they have a breastfeeding question. Especially one that’s out of the ordinary. It’s true, I’ve been nursing for what will be 9 years in March. . .although not the same child. I have nursed twins, I have tandem nursed singletons. I even had one child stop nursing only to start again four months later. . .which I allowed. I consider the minimum age for weaning two years, (following recommendations by WHO) and I’ve mentioned before that I actively encourage breastfeeding until this time. The … Continue reading →

Baby Blog Week in Review: April 23 through April 28

Welcome to the baby blog week in review. We had a light week due to my ridiculously busy spring schedule. But if you’ve missed something, here are the links to the blogs for the week: Monday, April 23 Hospital Staff Bullies vs. Parental Rights Part 3 This was the last part of a series we started last week, talking about what happens when you don’t like the medical care of your child. Our 3rd daughter Meghan had significant trouble breastfeeding as a result of rigid hospital policies. Check out this blog to finish the story! Wednesday, April 25 When You … Continue reading →

What Child Led Weaning Looks Like

In my last blog, I talked about what child led weaning was not. In our culture it is not that common to breastfeed for more than a year and definitely not more than two years. Consequently, many of the things that we do actually encourage weaning when maybe that’s not our goal. Child led weaning usually takes place well after the child’s first birthday and occurs when the child is both nutritionally and emotionally ready. This means that he/she is drinking from a cup well, eating plenty of solid foods, and is at that stage of development where he’s ready … Continue reading →

What Child Led Weaning Is Not

We’ve recently been discussing how old is too old to be breastfeeding in the forums. As a result of this discussion, I’ve realized that there’s lots of misinformation regarding child led weaning. Since we were already talking about weaning in the baby blog anyways, I though it would be helpful to start our discussion with what child led weaning is NOT. It is extremely rare for babies to wean themselves before one year of age. I would actually go so far as to say it is not the norm for babies to wean themselves before 18 to 24 months. Yet … Continue reading →

Baby Blog in Review: April Thus Far

What can I say other than ‘oops’? I forgot to post a week in review for the baby blog last week. I was just coming back from vacation, had mountains of laundry and other sundry things to take care of and well, I just forgot. So this week, I will bring you the baby blog review starting from April 1st! Sunday, April 1 April started off controversially with a blog entitled Weak White Males and the Difference Race Makes in Preemies. This is a discussion on the statistical tendency for males, especially caucasion males to mature the slowest in the … Continue reading →

Weaning: The Introduction

I have written so much on breastfeeding for families.com that I think they could start their own little breastfeeding library between my blogs and the blogs of others who have also written on breastfeeding. However, I have focused a lot on how to get started and deal with problems. Indeed, this seems to be a much bigger issue for most women. However, someone recently pointed out to me that weaning a baby would be a welcome addition to the baby blogs. Sometimes weaning is from the breast to a bottle so that mom can go back to work. Other times … Continue reading →