Weaning

I've been starting to wean Aaron for the last couple of months. I guess technically he started to be weaned as soon as we introduced solid foods, but lately I've been trying to get him to replace breast milk in his diet with cow's milk. It didn't start off too well, but after reading comments from other parents online, I tried mixing strawberry Kefir (drinkable yogurt) in with his whole milk. At first I did a 50/50 blend, using 2 oz of Kefir and 2 oz of milk. And when he drank that easily, I kept the amount of Kefir the same, but increased the amount of milk until I was just filling the 8 oz sippy cup the rest of the way with milk.

Usually he will drink the 8 oz mixture over the course of the day. He still seems to prefer water for quenching his thirst. (Yay! I was hoping to avoid the extra sugar of juice, so i'm glad he is a water drinker.) Some days, like yesterday, he drank nearly the whole cup of milk in one sitting.

We are down to just 2-3 nursings a day. I nurse him in the evening before bedtime and again in the morning. If he wakes up in the middle of the night (which he does slighly more than half the time right now), I feed him then, too. He doesn't fall asleep while he is nursing, but afterwards I can put him back down with his pacifier and he will get back to sleep on his own.

On the rare occassion, usually when he is teething and uncomfortable, he will indicate he wants to nurse during the day - either right after I get him up for a nap, or he'll come over to me when we are playing on the floor. (And no, he doesn't bite me - people always ask me that.) 6 weeks ago, it happened more often and I thought he'd never stop nursing. I follow the philosophy of never refusing if he asks, but I don't offer it during the day any more. But his requests are definitely tapering off and I think we will be done within a few months.

I'm going to miss nursing him. He is so sweet and I love holding him close when he isn't trying to get out of my lap. I'll miss how he slaps the back of my arm with his hand, how he plays with his hair with his other hand and sometimes reaches up to squeeze my upper arm or pat my chest. Or how in the middle of the night when I am sitting cross legged on the bed nursing him, he'll put his pacifier back in his mouth and then pat my leg or play with my toes. Then take his pacifier back out and finish nursing.