Bye bye breastfeeding...

I have finally weaned Sally completely.

Some time before Christmas we replaced Sally's pre-bed milk with a cup of cow's milk, mainly for the practical reason that carting the steriliser and bottles to various families over Christmas would have been a huge faff. She took to that with no fuss and even enjoyed slurping her milk all over Daddy's trousers last thing before bed. I also thought that this would help her get used to the taste of cow's milk before we needed her to make the full switch.

I always planned to finish breastfeeding at about a year. Although I think it is vital that people breastfeed if they can (and I admit, feel very negative towards those who don't even try because they don't want it to interfere with their lifestyle - if you feel that strongly, don't HAVE a baby) I do think that after a year the greater percentage of the benefit has already been reaped. It will probably only be another seven or eight months before we start thinking about trying again, and in that time I would like to have my body to myself. I also think it is important that Sam and I get a weekend away, and I would like to start working in the evenings, and for all sorts of reasons it made sense to stop now. I would have done it closer to her birthday but after the house move and the disruption of Christmas I thought it was important Sally was on an even keel for a few weeks.

Anyway, two weeks ago I dropped the 6:30 feed and replaced it with a cup of whole milk. I didn't expect it to go well, but I wasn't prepared for the complete hysteria that occurred the first time I tried! Sally has never seemed that attached to breastfeeding and to be honest I was a bit taken aback by the screaming, the attack on the cup and the long trails of milk that dribbled down the wall! I was feeling a bit panicked about the whole process after that, so we tried a new tack. On the second night Sam gave it to her instead and she was completely happy. On the third day I gave it to her early, before she started even thinking about milk, and from then on we didn't look back.

We gave her a couple of weeks to get used to that change, and then yesterday I dropped her last feed - the in-the-morning, just-woken-up, sleepy-happy feed. I was going to do it on Saturday but she woke up very upset about something and I thought it would be mean to try then, so we waited until Sunday. Until yesterday the ritual was to get her up, bring her into our bed, I would feed her and then we'd spend ten minutes cuddling in bed - lovely! Instead, to avoid tears and tantrums about where the milk was, we decided to bring her straight down to breakfast in her pyjamas as soon as she got up. Not a whimper. She wasn't remotely fussed at the loss of the milk, and although on Sunday she took very little milk (in cup) with her breakfast this morning she kept waving at it and yelling for more. She polished off a vat of Ready Brek and a bucket of milk all before 7:45. I'll be honest: I miss the cuddling in bed with this new routine, but once she is used to it and doesn't expect milk as soon as she wakes, I suspect we can sneak her into bed for a bit before breakfast.

I feel slightly sad that it's the end of an era, and that that particular kind of closeness is over for us, but it is such a fleeting feeling. We have so much cuddling and closeness that we don't need the feeding, and she is old enough now to do without it. She really doesn't seem at all bothered that we have stopped and I am delighted because that is how it should be. A large part of me is also pleased to no longer be so completely tied to her. If we want to, we can go away for a couple of days and milk will not be an issue - unlike breastmilk you can buy it in all good supermarkets and even your local cornershop!

And what did I do to celebrate? A nice big glass of white wine - the first glass of more than a swallow size in two years. And very nice it was too.