When I lived in Edmonton and was surrounded by an awesome circle of organic eating, co-sleeping, attachment parenting style moms, my decision to allow my daughter to self wean was made without any real thought. In that group of people, it was the norm and when we got together on a weekly basis it wasn't uncommon to see a mom tandem nursing their 2 year old as well as their newborn. Here, on the stark (and currently frigid) planes of central Canada, my decision has not been met with the same warm and fuzzy reception. In fact, upon finding out that I am still nursing a two year old I am often met with looks that are a mixture of shock and discomfort. In this part of the country, cattle lactate, not women and although a majority of the local establishments have those funky "breast feeding friendly" stickers in their windows I have yet to actually see a mom try it.
Despite my admittedly over opinionated views on the whole "breast is best" mentality (and I do understand that for some women, bottle feeding is the right choice - yes I know how conflicted that sounds, but hey, I'm a realist) I have a confession to make. I want mine back. It has, after all, been 4 years since I was able to buy a bra without having to consider whether or not it had "easy access". If you want to put it into a time frame, my total time breastfeeding thus far works out to 6.47 years.....not consecutively. That's a long time. The whole self weaning thing is all well and good if your child actually weans them self. My little darling must have been out when that memo came around and has made no motion to even attempt to gain some independence from "the boob". In fact she will regularly tell me that they are hers and gets downright indignant when I inform her that the bar is in fact closed. At the moment, I'm trying a gradual decline in the number of times in a day that I allow her to nurse and would consider it a moderate success thus far. I thought about cutting her off cold turkey but as there are no 12 step programs for 2 year old boobie addicts it seemed a little harsh. My goal is to have her entirely weaned by the end of February. It seems relatively far off, and I'm optimistic that I can do it without causing any undue emotional trauma. There is a part of my though, that has doubts and is afraid that we will someday end up on some cheesy daytime talk show discussing the logistics of breastfeeding your child as they enter grade 3. I hope it pays well.......
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