First Weaning Attempt = FAIL

The best laid plans and all that...

So, I went to New York this past week for work. Before I left we had Oliver down to one nursing session a day (right before bed) and the plan was to get him used to not nursing at all while I was gone. I nursed him on Sunday night for what was supposed to be the last time.

I was gone from Monday to Friday and Oliver and Brian had a blast all week. Check out the pictures I posted on the Oliver Pictures 2010 page. They went to the Children’s Museum, to the UT campus, to the Umlauf Sculpture Gardens and to the park. Even better, Brian took tons of pictures and videos while I was gone so I got to see what all they were up to. 

Oliver took to the lack of breast milk like a champ - he went to bed without protest and was perfectly content while I was gone. All that changed when I finally got back to town late Friday night. All day yesterday, Oliver was crazy grumpy. He wailed and wailed at both nap times (he never did make it down for his second nap) and was completely inconsolable numerous times yesterday. He kept clawing my shirt and obviously wanted to nurse. So, finally I let him. He was immediately back to his old self. 

So, it’s become clear that he’s not ready to let all of this go. And since I’m not 100 percent committed to the whole weaning thing, I will continue to nurse him at bedtime (although today he demanded three nursing sessions, I’m hopeful that we can get back to the one time a day schedule we had going before I left). I’m not ready and he’s not ready so it’s not time yet. I feel fairly confident that one day (maybe soon) he’ll be ready to wean and that’s when it will be time. The one thing we will work on this week is getting him used to having Brian put him to bed while I am in the house. This will give me the option of not having to nurse him and put him to bed every night if I don’t want to.

This weaning thing really is quite the process...