Chapter 3: Four Jellybeans and a Show
I weaned my daughter with television and sugar. I nursed her long enough for her to say, “jellybeans!” when offered the choice between nursing and her favorite candy of all time.
Doctors and books tell moms to wean by replacing nursing sessions with food. None of the literature says what to do when your child closes her lips tight, turns her head to the side, and pushes the spoon away with her tiny hands. The books don’t address strategies for a child who adamantly says, “no food, na-na (code word for nursing).”
The World Health Organization recommends nursing for a minimum of two years. About 17 percent of mothers in the United States nurse for one year. Less than 6 percent of mothers in the United States nurse for two years. There are no statistics past two years in the U.S., because for us it enters into freakdom, even if your child is nursing just once a day.
I could handle freakdom knowing this was really important to my child. I could also handle it knowing that the longer I nursed, the longer I protected my child from allergies, obesity, and asthma. I knew I was also reducing the risk of breast cancer for both myself and my daughter.
But as my daughter nursed less and less frequently, the benefits began to be less important to me than the drawbacks. Twenty-five pounds on top of you at 6 a.m. hinders your breathing somewhat. A toddler asking to nurse very clearly at the playground is a delicate situation. I decided it was really time to wean, completely.
This decision was complicated by the fact that my husband is one of the rare husbands who wanted me to nurse forever. Most husbands want their wives to wean as soon as the baby starts smiling. My friends would go on and on about the pressure from their partners to get the kid in their own bed and on the bottle. Not my husband. He’s a softy for whatever our daughter is really attached to. In this case, that meant “na-na.” Weaning on her eighth birthday sounded about right to him.
Weaning would have to happen gently and gradually. The quiet gathering of strategies from friends began. The closet nursers began to come out of the woodwork. One mom stored fast food vanilla shakes in the freezer for early morning substitution. Another mom used videos for distraction. A mom who had full support for weaning from her husband planned a weaning party, complete with a petting zoo and a clown if her daughter would go more than a week without nursing. When my husband heard about this, he told our daughter, “weaning parties are very sad occasions.”
I decided to go the treat route - jellybeans. Those beautifully colored, tiny little candies could be doled out one by one to my daughter, making me feel less guilty for the early morning sugar load.
“Would you like a jellybean?” became my early morning mantra whispered into her ear. “Four jellybeans and a show,” my daughter would whisper back. I had no idea my daughter was so skilled at negotiating, but that sealed the deal. It didn’t take long. And it only took a month before my husband figured it out. His response? “Those are mine again?” Actually, they’re mine.
References:
Benefits of breastfeeding:
The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, Seventh revised edition. Published by La Leche League International, 2004.
Freudenheim, J.L. et al. Exposure to breastmilk in infancy and the risk of breast cancer. Epidemiology 1994; 5(3):324-31.
Statistics on breastfeeding in the U.S. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:
http://www.cdc.gov/breastfeeding/NIS_data/index.htm
The World Health Organization's infant-feeding recommendation
http://www.who.int/nut/inf.htm
As stated in the Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding (paragraph 10):
Breastfeeding is an unequalled way of providing ideal food for the healthy growth and development of infants; it is also an integral part of the reproductive process with important implications for the health of mothers. As a global public health recommendation, infants should be exclusively breastfed1 for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health.2 Thereafter, to meet their evolving nutritional requirements, infants should receive nutritionally adequate and safe complementary foods while breastfeeding continues for up to two years of age or beyond.
Top Tip #3
Bribes are an acceptable form of parenting. Your child will not be scarred for life by them and you will keep your sanity. If the concept bothers you, reframe it as part of the activity. Have a kid who won’t get into the car seat? Try, “I have some fruit treats for the ride home!” Well, yes, they have to get into their car seat to start the ride home, but that’s neither here nor there, is it?