Weening

Last week I decided to start weening Caleb from breastfeeding. Caleb has never been great at sleeping through the night. Most babies use a binkie, thumb, blanket or toy to comfort themselves. Caleb didn't use any of that. He would get mad if I even tried to give him a binkie. The only thing that he liked was breastfeeding. Don't think I breastfed this kid all the time. I kept to a schedule and only breastfed him when it was time to eat.

Caleb is stubborn though. When it was time to not have feedings in the night, I would gradually try to get rid of one feeding at a time. We saw improvement but there were 2 feedings that he refused to get rid of. He would cry for 2 hours. And we saw only small improvement. Caleb is definitely a baby that would easily breastfeed until 2 years. But he really needed to sleep better. For himself and for mom and dad. As soon as we started eliminating feedings during the day, we focused on eliminating the 1:30 am feeding and saw huge improvement. He finally stopped waking up at 1:30 am. I only had two feedings left, his last feeding before he went to bed and early morning around 5 am. I stopped pumping at work which greatly reduced my milk. I shortened the evening feeding and eventually just kept distracting him and eliminated it.

At this point Caleb wasn't too happy about this change but was sleeping better because he now was learning to comfort himself. I got him to take his binkie, which he gladly takes because he isn't breastfeeding.  I still cuddle with him and rock him. Just with a binkie in place of breastfeeding. I noticed that he would whine and act more needy than normal. I could tell he really missed breastfeeding. I would just try to spend more time with him and hold him. I didn't want him to feel that because I didn't breastfeed him he didn't get that time with me. We soon replaced breastfeeding with a bottle at the 5 am feeding. he would take less and less and last night he went right back to sleep without us going in there. He was awake for 5 minutes at the most. There are things that I miss about breastfeeding. I'm just glad that he is sleeping better. It's better for his development. Hopefully last night wasn't a one time thing and he will continue sleeping 10+ hours.