These days, I keep thinking about a mountainous task that I have to attack. Weaning Xuan. This is something that I am dreading, but something that I really want to, no, I really need to do, to preserve some of my sanity.
Weaning Xuan, this would be a major problem. In this area, you can hardly find 2 pages on weaning in the breastfeeding books compared to the 300 plus pages on breastfeeding. In fact, I can just tell you here that when it comes to weaning, most book would just tell you (1) drop one feed at a time slowly over a couple of weeks per feed (2) replace the feed with a bottle of formula or cow’s milk if the baby more than 1 year old (3) give the baby lots of comfort in other ways (4) the mother should not feel pressured by others to wean and should continue this wonderful relationship until the baby is ready to wean.
Please tell me, what happens when it’s the mother who is ready to wean? Afterall, the breastfeeding relationship involves two parties, the mother and the baby. What happens when the mother is desperate to wean, but the baby is not? In cases where the mother is taking care of the baby day and night, it is very difficult to reduce the feeds slowly. The baby will always want to breastfeed when the mother is around. In Xuan’s case, I can imagine how confused she would be, why is it that I cannot breastfeed to sleep at 12pm, but I can breastfeed her to sleep at 5pm, 10pm and throughout the night?
Knowing that my problem with weaning Xuan is tied up with her not knowing how to fall asleep by herself, I armed myself with many, many sleep books by the various experts – Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Dr. Marc Weissbluth, The Sleepeasy Solution, The Baby Sleep Book by Drs. Sears, and The No-Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. In fact, these books are all sitting prettily in a row on my bookshelf.
These books mainly follow 2 schools of thought:
(1) Various Cry-It-Out methods: These methods teach parents to leave their babies in their cots alone to teach the babies how to fall asleep themselves. Some methods allow parents to go in intervals (every 5 minutes, then gradually increase the intervals to give the baby time to learn how to self-soothe) to reassure the baby. Of course crying is involved as the babies are not used to this new method of going to sleep. Eventually, the babies do fall asleep, either because they learn how to do this, or because they are just exhausted, I am not sure. Most experts mention that this method works faster for adaptable, easy-going babies compared to difficult, intense babies, who tend to cry harder and longer.
I was trying to find a less extreme method as I suspect Xuan would have a hard time with the cry-it-out method. She seems like an intense baby to me, when it comes to breastfeeding to sleep. For example, when she wakes up in the middle of the night and I try to soothe her in other ways, such as carrying her, she would still cry and arch her back until I breastfeed her back to sleep.
Just thinking about Xuan crying for me to breastfeed her so that she can go back to sleep tears me up inside. I can’t bear to see and hear Xuan cry. And thinking about weaning, which will definitely involve her crying and screaming in rage fills me with dread and despair. My fear is that I would just give in and breastfeed her once she starts crying.
Which leads me to the second school of thought:
(2) Attachment parenting style sleep methods: These methods are mainly baby-friendly and focus more on mechanisms to help mothers cope with late night feedings. There is a section where they advise the fathers to help put the baby to sleep by carrying (Cry-In-Daddy’s-Arms) instead of letting the baby cry-it-out alone. I was not sure how effective this would be as H has never put Xuan to sleep since she was 2 months old. If she wakes up at night after I have put her to bed and I am in the shower, even if H carries her, Xuan would cry and cry until I come into the room before she calms down. Aside from this, I think H might cave in even before I do and beg me to breastfeed Xuan just so that she would stop crying!
Some well-meaning friends have told me to just let Xuan wean naturally. These super mothers are still breastfeeding their 2 – 3 year old toddlers. Unfortunately, I do not wish to emulate them, I only initially planned to breastfeed for 6 months, and I’ve lasted for over a year now. Some books say that it’s better to stop breastfeeding early in the second year, before the toddler turns two as they can become more demanding and fixed in their ways by the time they turn two. So...that is why I am having this major headache, I really need to wean Xuan before she turns two!
The doctor has advised us that the best way to wean Xuan would be for me to go away for a week. At the end of that week, she would have forgotten all about breastfeeding. Mmm...who will take care of Xuan for that one week? H perhaps? If he would do this for me, I would love him all the more for it. However, knowing his love for his daughter, I do not think this is a likely scenario. I must be honest and face the facts, the only way Xuan will be weaned is if (1) I runaway for a week (2) I have to be hospitalised for a week (surely they won’t let the baby stay at the hospital with me?) (3) my untimely demise.
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