Read What to Expect the Toddler Years Online
Authors: Heidi Murkoff
What to Expect the Toddler Years (17 page)
If, however, he starts to have second thoughts and begins begging for a bottle (he might do so at bedtime, or at whatever time of the day taking a bottle has meant a lot to him), borrow back the bottle you’ve saved for play, wash it, fill it with water, and offer it to him. Tell him that he can have a bottle of water whenever he wants (water won’t damage his teeth). Stand tough, though. If he asks for his accustomed milk or juice served up in the bottle, say firmly that those beverages will only be available in a cup from now on.
Gradual withdrawal.
For most children, this multistep approach works best. (Do be sure to involve your toddler’s baby-sitter or other caregiver in the weaning process as well.)
1. Once your toddler is comfortable drinking from a cup, offer him beverages (milk, juice, or water) in a cup and solid
foods at meal and snack times before he starts asking for his bottle, not when he’s already whining for it. Sometimes a full tummy and a quenched thirst may satisfy him enough and he won’t press for the bottle.
2. Make drinking from the bottle less appealing. Insist that your toddler take his bottle while sitting on your lap or in a particular chair instead of allowing him to drink from it as he plays or explores. When he wants to get up, tell him that’s the end of the bottle session. Do not allow him to wander off with a bottle in hand.
3. Over the span of a couple of weeks, cut down on the number of bottles given. Drop the one your child shows the least interest in first, and the most beloved bottle last.
4. Make changes in your toddler’s routine that help phase out the bottle. Have him spend as much time as possible away from home, in situations that are not likely to remind him of bottle-feeding and in locales that are entertaining enough to keep his mind off it (a children’s museum, a mall, the playground, an already-weaned friend’s house). At home, keep your youngster busier than usual. Offer him more one-on-one attention and more diverting activities (finger-painting and ring-stacking will give him something to do with his hands; taking a nature walk will engage his mind and his body; free play outdoors will help tire him out). Whenever possible, try changing the rituals that have become associated with bottle-feeding. At nap time, for example, relax your toddler with quiet music instead of with a bottle. If he’s always taken a bottle at bedtime, substitute a snack of milk and fruit-juice-sweetened cookies. If you’ve always comforted him with a bottle after a fall or when he’s otherwise upset, put him on your lap for a finger-game session instead.
5. Gradually work down to one bottle a day. The most treasured bottle of the day should be the last to go. If your toddler is like most children, this will be the one he enjoys before going to sleep at night.
Before eliminating this last bottle, be sure you have a comforting bedtime routine in place (see page 68 for more on bedtime routines). Include in this a cup of milk and a nonsugary snack (before brushing the teeth), a bath, and a few quiet stories. Don’t offer the bottle automatically. If your toddler asks for it, distract him with an offer of water in a cup (“You can’t have milk now because we’ve already brushed your teeth”). Take a firm stand on the no-milk-in-a-bottle issue. If your toddler pleads for a bottle, give him one filled only with water. There are two benefits to this measure. One, you eliminate the risk of tooth decay because he won’t be falling asleep with milk pooled in his mouth. And two, you increase the chances that he will abandon the bottle on his own—most children eventually do when the bottle is no longer filled with milk or juice. If your child is an exception and he seems to like his bottle of water, allow him to continue with it at night for a few weeks. Then change the nipple to one with very tiny holes, so that sucking on it for water will hardly be worth the effort. That should get him to voluntarily abandon the bottle.
Expect your toddler to be cranky and out-of-sorts during the weaning process. He’s lost a dear friend and he’ll need lots of support as he tries to adjust to the loss and to the changes it brings. Offer him comfort, attention, and distraction in ample amounts, particularly during the times of day when he’s likely to miss his bottle the most. Encourage him to take a substitute comfort item to bed—a friendly old teddy bear or doll (or a brand-new one), a cuddly blanket or an old pajama top of yours.
HOW TO WEAN FROM THE BREAST
Sudden weaning from the breast at a year might not be as physically uncomfortable for the nursing mother as earlier weaning would have been. Since a toddler takes in more solids, milk production slows considerably at this time, making engorgement a less likely side effect. Still, gradual weaning generally works best for both members of most nursing teams because it allows mother and child time to adjust to the end of this very special era.
The adjustment will also be easier if you make a concerted effort to give your toddler extra love and attention during weaning. Replace the time you’ve spent together nursing with other one-on-one activities. Don’t show disapproval if your toddler replaces the comfort of breast-feeding with another comfort habit (such as thumb-sucking) or comfort object (such as a blanket or stuffed animal). Children need all the support they can get at this stage.
Weaning now may be relatively easy (if you and your baby are both ready for the step) or relatively difficult (if you’re both still strongly attached to nursing). In either case, the following guidelines will help:
Step One:
Be sure your toddler can drink fairly well from a cup (see page 26).
Step Two:
Choose the time carefully. Don’t begin weaning if your toddler’s going through other major changes (meeting a new baby-sitter, starting day care, gaining a new sibling) or when he or she is sick or otherwise out of sorts. Wait until all is relatively calm in your toddler’s life before beginning.
Step Three:
Save the breast for last (except at bedtime). When your child wakes up in the morning or from a nap or is hungry for a meal, offer a beverage from a cup, or a snack, or a meal of solid food first. When the edge is off the appetite, if your toddler still clamors for the breast, oblige. Gradually, milk intake will decrease, which in turn will reduce your milk supply, making you more comfortable as you wean.
Step Four:
Nurse before, rather than after, the regular bedtime routine (bath, pajamas, story, snack, tooth-brushing, and so on). Try to keep your toddler from falling asleep at the breast—by playing lively music, talking, singing, having other people in the room—and encourage a self-comforting route to dreamland (see page 143).
Step Five:
Cut back on the number of daily feedings. Start with those in which your toddler shows the least interest, usually the midday ones. This process will probably take several weeks. Changing your daily habits, which means taking your toddler to places where nursing hasn’t been routine (shopping, to the playground or a play group, to a museum, and so on), will make it easier. Eventually cut down to just one feeding—the favorite. In most cases, this will be the one at bedtime, though some toddlers are most attached to the first morning feeding. If at any point your breasts become engorged, hand express a small amount to relieve the pressure.
Step Six:
Drop the remaining feeding. One way to make this final stop easier is have Daddy or Grandma put your toddler to sleep for a couple of nights—while you’re out of the house. Or make the switch when the family’s visiting relatives or on vacation; if you’re in a place your toddler doesn’t associate with nursing, he or she may not crave it as much. Distraction—in the form of a new toy, book, tape recording, or special visitor—may also be helpful.
If you’re in no hurry to wean, you may prefer to put this final step off for a while. Many women and their toddlers continue to enjoy one breastfeeding a day for weeks or even longer. (In some cases, however, this isn’t possible because the milk supply quickly dries up because of inadequate demand.)
HEN TO WEAN FROM BREASTFEEDING
“I thought babies were supposed to wean themselves from the breast when they were ready. My daughter is past her first birthday and doesn’t seem to be showing any sign of wanting to stop.”
If you wait until your daughter decides she’s ready to graduate to a more grown-up source of liquid nourishment, you may have a very long wait ahead. Though some babies and toddlers cut back on or discontinue breastfeeding on their own, usually near the end of the first year, others never do. So unless you want to see her rush home from school for a snack at the breast, you should consider initiating the weaning process yourself. (See box, facing page.)
“My son seems ready to stop nursing, but I’m not. I don’t want to see his baby stage end.”
Watching a child move from one stage of development to another is always a bittersweet experience—filling you at once with pride (how grownup he is!) and with melancholy (he’ll never be a baby again!). Some rites of passage evoke more mixed feelings than do others. For many women, weaning their children from the breast is one of those.
Breastfeeding is an undeniably gratifying experience, but breastfeeding indefinitely because
you’re
not ready to give it up isn’t fair. If your toddler wants to move on, follow his lead. Don’t take his rejection of your breast personally. He isn’t rejecting you, he’s rejecting the babyhood he’s outgrown, and taking another step toward independence. As unsettling as that may be for you, it’s a step he must take.
It’s likely that at first you will miss the physical closeness to your toddler that nursing provided. But if you think about it, there are a host of other activities (hugging, cuddling, playing together, reading together before bed, and so on) that reproduce that closeness. Enjoy those more frequently instead.
Because the sadness you’re feeling may be intensified by the haywire hormonal changes that weaning can trigger, you should consider weaning gradually over a period of weeks or even months (see box, facing page). Give both your body and your mind plenty of time to recover and they eventually will.
“I’d really like to continue nursing my son for at least the next year or so. Why should I wean him when neither of us is ready yet?”
You don’t necessarily have to wean him now. In fact, most health experts encourage moms to breastfeed as long as they’d like to. And just as deciding to breastfeed is a very personal decision, so is deciding when to wean. Some moms and their toddlers are eager to continue nursing well past this first birthday milestone and find the experience worthwhile. But there are some factors you should probably consider before you make your decision:
Your toddler’s age.
For many, weaning at a year is ideal. Nutritionally and emotionally the toddler who has nursed for a year has already gotten the optimum benefit from breastfeeding. In addition, he probably has not yet reached the opinionated “terrible twos” and will be easier to wean than an older, more stubborn, and set-in-his-ways toddler. Finally, because his year-old memory is less retentive, he is less likely to cling to
fond memories of the breast, which could make weaning more painful.
Your toddler’s dietary needs.
Both the composition of breast milk and the nutritional needs of the growing child alter by the end of the first year. Breast milk alone can no longer meet a child’s nutritional requirements—in fact, some recent studies indicate that children who are nursed beyond this point may not do as well as those who are weaned. Though more research needs to be done in this area, it does seem clear that there are no nutritional benefits to nursing now. So if you choose to continue nursing during the second year, you can no longer think of your milk as your toddler’s main source of nourishment—but rather as a little something extra.
The effect on his teeth.
Though the problem is apparently more common among children who are bottle-fed, breastfed toddlers are not immune to “baby-bottle mouth.” The risk of decay, in this case caused by breast milk pooling in the mouth, is more likely if your toddler falls asleep regularly with the breast still in his mouth, and most likely if he nips on and off through the night (as those who are allowed to sleep in their parents’ bed tend to do). If you do continue to nurse, you can reduce the risk of decay by nursing only during the day, and by cleaning your toddler’s teeth after each feeding.
The effect on your toddler’s appetite.
Toddlers who feed at the breast (or bottle) frequently may drown their appetites for solid foods, which they need in order to thrive in the second year of life.
The effect on mother–child interaction
.
Sometimes mothers get so much pleasure from breastfeeding that they don’t realize that they aren’t spending enough time doing other things with their toddler—playing games, reading stories, going to the playground. Once your child is weaned you’ll have more time and energy for these fun activities.
Possible health risks
.
There is some evidence that feeding (from bottle or breast) while lying on the back results in an increased incidence of ear infections (otitis media) in babies and toddlers.
Possible overdependence
.
Of toddler on mother, and/or of mother on toddler. This isn’t a clear-cut issue. Although there have been no scientific studies to support this concern, it’s worth thinking about: Will prolonging nursing keep you and your toddler from “letting go” of each other and moving forward? Also worthy of your consideration: Does this exclusive relationship exclude Daddy, preventing the two of them from growing closer?
Forestalled development of self-comforting skills.
A toddler who can always turn to Mommy’s breast for comfort (when he hurts himself, when he’s tired, when he can’t have what he wants), may not learn how to make himself feel better when Mommy’s not available. Your child will undoubtedly need such skills later in life—particularly after weaning.
