A Boy and His Blog

Archive for April, 2008

A few months ago I was nursing Owen during the day, at night, and all morning from his first waking at about 3:00 – 5:00 am on until we got out of bed. It was making me feel emotionally and physically drained and I realized that not doing it would be much better for us both. After all, a two and half year old needs his sleep and so does his mother. He also needs his mother to not be burned out before she even gets out of bed in the morning.

Once I made the decision to wean, the first nursings to leave were the daytime nursings as these were totally unnecessary and I was just allowing them because it was easier than redirecting. He got used to this quick with a minimum of tears, and I kept us busy and avoided sitting in his nursing spot in order to keep his mind off of it. The next to go was the early morning nursings. I eliminated those, after a few weeks, with a few tears shed. I still allowed morning nursing, but I wouldn’t do it until it was light outside, and I kept it to only once. I got rid of the 3:00 – 5:00 am variety that kept us both from sinking into a deep sleep.

So, we were down to one morning and one night nursing. I even had Owen in his own bed for most of the night! Then we moved. For the first two weeks he was in bed with us again and I gave into a few more morning nursings than I should have. Suddenly, I realized how far we had slipped back and I very quickly put him back into his own bed at night, which was not very appreciated by him. Before he would sleep in his own bed he demanded a new pink bed. So, we bought him a new pink fitted sheet for over his mattress and I removed the side rail on his bed to change it up a bit. He fell for this and with a little protesting took to sleeping in his own bed again. It is in our bedroom right next to our bed, but he spends most of the night in it.

I then got more strict with those morning nursings. I decided to par it back down to one nursing, and there were some tears, but it was okay. He would sometimes crawl into bed with us and then cry for “boobops”, and we would offer water, and he would drink and then cry, and we would offer hugs, and he would say no and cry for “boobops”, and finally I would say, “you know what, if your just going to cry in Mama’s bed then why don’t you go back in Owen’s bed”. Somehow that felt kind of mean, but it also worked, and at 5:00 am you just do what works so you can go back to sleep. The crying was always just that protesting kind of annoying crying where he is trying to get his way, not the painful or heartbroken variety. We started holding hands a lot too. I had read that some kind of physical skin to skin contact is really comforting, so I always offered him my hand and he usually would take it. He would often squish it up against his face and fall fast asleep that way. Sometimes we would just fall right back to sleep holding hands with no tears at all. He would just crawl into bed and say, “hold Owen’s hand” and then the next thing I new he was sleeping again.

One day recently I was observing how big he had grown, and how old he was getting and I started to realize he was now ready for the next step with some things. I thought about weaning and how when I was pregnant I had never intended to nurse past age two, because that would just be weird. Then once my child was born I decided he could nurse until he weaned himself, as long as he weaned himself before age three. I no longer thought it would be weird to nurse a three year old, but, I just felt that age three was the right time. It is the right time for weaning, for potty training, for moving into his own room, for accepting a sibling. Age three to me is the age that babies turns into children, an age of reasoning and understanding, an age where the world becomes bigger than yourself and you begin to learn empathy. Age three was also the age that I had read that most kids wean themselves. Age three, to me, was the perfect age to stop nursing, and Owen will be three on May 14th.

I have since read that most kids wont wean themselves at age three. They will go to four, five, or six if given the opportunity. I know that in the natural family living community child led weaning is the ultimate ideal with nursing. However, I personally don’t think it is the most “natural” way of weaning. If you look at nature, animals don’t just let their young nurse until they get sick of it. You can see mama cats who give their kittens a little sip, then walk away, then allow another sip, then cut them off again. It is a gradual process, and one that is not done until the kittens are between 6 and 8 weeks old, but it is done. Kittens are weaned by their mothers, not by themselves. I’m not sure if any species allows their young to wean in it’s own time, and therefore, mother led weaning, in my opinion, is totally natural. Not that I am trying to live up some ideal of what natural is, but, we do believe in The Continuum Concept and I try to be respectful of what our species evolutionary expectations are. For example, six month olds don’t expect to be weaned, so this is not natural. This is why you have to wean them to a bottle as a substitute for the breast. A child who needs a bottle is a child who was too young to be weaned in my opinion.

Even though I am confident in my choice to wean him and I believe it is for the best and that we are both ready for this, it is still sad for us both. There is little to no milk left and it hurts now to nurse him. He gets no milk, so he barely nurses at all, but he gets sad if I hold him close and don’t nurse him. He’s asked me to get the milk out of my “boobops” with a machine, and some nights he wants a glass of milk too before he goes to bed. He doesn’t always ask for boobops, but I keep offering because it makes me sad to think the last time will have passed without me taking note of it and without recognizing that this was the last time I will ever nurse my little baby boy. Tonight, I nursed him, and then I laid him down in my arms and sang him two songs as he requested. His eyes started to tear up and his lips started to pout and he started to sniffle a bit. I asked him what was wrong and he said, “nufin”. I tried getting him to tell me what was the matter, but he gets really embarrassed by emotions and it was a lost cause. I think it was because I had pointed out that there was no milk left during our nursing session, and I had cut it short because it hurt. I had reminded him that we would soon be stopping, and he asked me to get the milk out with a machine. Then I put him into the nursing position by laying him across my arm to sing him a song and I think it made him sad that he wasn’t nursing right then and that our nursing days would soon be completely over. I felt so sad for him. He’s such a sweet little guy and he’s really been through a tough couple years with me since being born. I really wanted to give him an extra year of nursing to make up for that, but now I feel guilty, like I should be giving him even more. I feel sad knowing that it’s already too late to turn back, and also, that I don’t really want to. I want to wean him, even though it’s sad for me and sad for him, it also feels like it’s time, and I feel we’re both ready for this. We’ve done it very gradually and I really don’t think it will be that hard on him. It is going to be a year of milestones for him and this will be the first one.

If we haven’t done it sooner, I plan for his last day of nursing to be the day before his birthday. The day of his birthday will be a special day with lots of fun and excitement and he is getting one of his gifts that day too. James will have to put him to bed that night, and I will have to avoid holding him in the nursing position for quite awhile after that. I am not sure if we will make it until then though. I feel like I shouldn’t offer anymore, and his not asking sometimes is probably his way of avoiding the disappointment that there is no milk left. Even when he nurses, he spends most of the short time breaking away to talk to me, and he seems very disinterested in what he is doing. I think he may be weaning before his birthday, and that makes me a bit sad too for some reason. It’s all so complicated. I didn’t realize there would be so many emotions involved in the whole process.

Tonight while I was giving Owen hugs before bed he said very seriously, “Mama, does Owen have batteries in my body?”  I said, “umm, nope, you don’t”.  Then he said, “but other stuff have batteries in it”.  I said, “yeah, that’s true, but people and animals don’t have batteries.  But we do have energy, and that is what makes us go and move.”  Then he said, “But why other stuff have batteries to make it go?”  I said, “well, we get more energy when we sleep, instead of batteries we just go to sleep and then we get lots of energy to be able to move around and do things.”  He said, “Are there batteries on the bed?”  I said, “no, the sleep is what gives us energy, not the bed.”  He asked, “are there nails on the bed?”  I said, “um, no”  I think he was starting to lose his focus there, but, then Daddy came in and explained about eating and how when we sleep it turns our food into energy.  When he asks questions like this I am just amazed.  I mean, he had to be thinking, “hmm, batteries make things work, and I work, so I must have batteries!”

Owen is very comfortable in our new apartment now.  It’s his job to get the mail every day and he uses the key to open the mail box himself.  He also has taken on the task of helping with the Love Bird  and empties her food and water dishes every night.  He has started to recognize landmarks and knows all the stores we go to, and what street the park is on, and where the big apartment building by our building is.  He is sleeping in his own bed again after spending the first couple weeks here in our bed all night.

This month Owen has been using language on a whole new level.  He now says “me” and “my” often instead of “Owen”.  The other day we had cheese out that we were shredding and he asked for one “chee”, because you know, “chee” must be the singular of “cheese”.  He often asks why about everything.  He sometimes asks why about something before we are finished explaining why about the last thing.  Sometimes he’ll ask questions and then answer them himself.  Like he’ll say, “let’s eat dinner.  What it be?  It be noodles!”  or “Where we go?  It be Toy Store!”  or “Know what we fordot (forgot)?  The mail!” or “Know what we fordot?  It be Muffins.”  “Why we fordot to make the muffins? I don’t know!”  or “Why Owen say that every time? I don’t know!” or “Why Owen do that? Cause Owen just do that!” or “What she get? She get Owen a prize!”  He even talks to himself as he plays now, it is so cute!  He pushes his little truck around and says stuff like, “we haf go up there (on top of the table), it is up there, why we haf go up there?  I don’t know!  We just haf to go up there!” (as he is driving his truck up the table leg).  He also has the cutest way of saying he likes something.  He’ll try a sip of juice or a piece of candy or something and he’ll eat it and then say, “Ooo, Owen like this candy.”

Owen is very polite lately.  He often thanks me for things that I should be thanking him for.  Like I’ll have him pour the cat’s food into their dishes and he’ll say, “thank-a-you to let Owen help.”  He likes to say what he is thanking me for, and he says “to” instead of “for” so it just sounds so adorable.

He loves to talk on the phone now.  If we give him the phone he starts walking all around like an adult would do and he says stuff like, “well, hello” and if asked what he is doing he says, “just nothing”.  He sometimes heads to his room and I hear him say, “Soooo, let’s talk bout Owen’s toys.”  When Daddy calls he says, “You done makin’ money now?”

Owen went to his cousin Lyric’s birthday party at a water park.  He didn’t like the water park because it was too loud, and too crowded for his sensitive nature.  This event made a huge impact on him and now every night instead of talking “bout tiffis” (christmas) he says “talk bout Owen not like Lyrics pool place”.  He liked the birthday party part, just not the pool part, so we make sure to talk about the fun part too.  We got lost on the way to the pool party and James and I were talking about where it was as we were trying to find it.  It was on Washington Avenue, and one day out of the blue Owen said, “why that pool place on Washington?”  He then started calling every street we were on “Washington” and making wild claims that we lived on “Washington”.  One day on the way home from the store he said, “Washington mean washing?  Why washing and Washington?  Daddy, what Washington mean?”  Daddy said, “well, your right, the washing part means washing.  And then he said “what ‘tin’ mean?”  Daddy said, “well, ‘ton’ means “town”.  So now we hear, “Washing – ton, washing mean washing, ‘tin’ mean “town”, why tin mean town?  I don’t know!”