In honor of breastfeeding week I want to share some thoughts that I keep thinking in my head. I planned on nursing my son for 1 year. He will be one in 4 days (OH MY GOODNESS!!) and the thought of not nursing him makes me a little sad, I would be lying if I said that I hadn’t cried over it a couple of times. I would not have a problem with him stopping if he stopped himself, In fact, I keep wishing that he just would and then I wouldn’t have to wean him. I don’t want to continue nursing just to keep him my baby or anything like that, but because of how right it feels for him and myself.
A couple weeks ago he went on a nursing strike for a couple days and wanted nothing to do with nursing , I didn’t cry, I just gave him a bottle with my milk and all was good but then on the third day he wanted to nurse every hour that night and since then it has been our normal nursings at nap time and bed time.
In addition to all the benefits and ease of breastfeeding there are three things that I love about it.
One is that it is my only “down time”. Some people might not look at it like that but every day around 2 p.m. I am forced to stop whatever I am doing to lay next to my baby and let him nurse. I lay him on his bed and as I get close to him he smiles and waves his arms in excitement and sometimes even yells out with laughter and joy. (fav thing number 2). Soon as I lay next to him he turns into me, laying on his side or his stomach and starts to nurse. Then it is time to relax. I get to curl up with him, kiss his head, hold on to him and look at him. Sometimes he will play with my hair or my shirt, but what melts my heart is when he rubs his hand on my arm (favorite thing number 3). I love his soft, chubby, baby hands. I like to think that it is his way of thanking me and telling me he loves me. Most of the day he is too busy crawling, climbing, exploring, and playing to give any kind of cuddles so I look forward to our down time.
I plan to start giving him a bottle to bed this week so he can get used to going to bed like that, so we will see how that goes. I know either way one day our nursing will end so I will just cherish every feeding until then 🙂
the crunchy mama blog 
So many hugs to you. Weaning can be an emotional and difficult time for both you and your baby. I know you wrote this post quite a while back, but I just was wondering how it went? Did you actually wean him at a year. I know lots of moms plan to nurse for one year, and then realize how much of a baby their little one still is and decide to keep going day by day. Whatever ended up happening, it seems like you and your little one had an absolutely gorgeous nursing relationship. That is such a special thing.
thank you so much!
It is actually funny that you just posted on here because it reminded me how bad I need to write a blog about this! We actually just stopped nursing a month ago!! So he made it to 2 years and 5 months! He weaned himself. I was very thankful I took a photo about a month before he stopped. ❤