Twinsight #8: Weaning twins

Gimmee your ear!

After all the work to get the girls breastfeeding together, I hardly believed there would come a day when I would be trying to figure out how and when they might stop. But sure enough that day came. And since mine recently weaned themselves, thought I'd share how it came about...

It happened somewhat gradually. They went from nursing 6 times a day at one year (morning, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, before bed) down to 5 times by 13 months (I dropped out the before bed feeding).

During that month they were getting used to drinking cows milk so in the following month (month 13) that we just dropped out their nursing snacks (the morning one first and then 2 weeks later the afternoon snack).

Then in month 14 I dropped their lunch time nursing until we were reliably down to twice a day by the end of the month.

So at 15 months they were nursing twice a day - when they woke up and then before their solid food dinner. I was pretty OK with doing that... especially because I knew that on the rare days my work kept my away until after their bedtime they were fine without that nurse and it wasn't the end of the world. (I work part time and usually from home).

I was fully prepared to keep nursing until they decided they were done. It didn't look like the end was in sight at all - one of my daughters was especially attached to nursing the other seemed to enjoy the company more than anything. But then when they were about 17.5 months I had to work late two nights in a row and they skipped their evening feed and it so happened the following two mornings I slept in and my husband got up with the girls and I was too tired to nurse them and they didn't clamor for it and after those 2 days of no nursing morning or evening passed, they just seemed to forget about it! I was shocked.

I kept pumping at night in case they wanted to do it again and one of them did say "pillow" and "nurse" about 2 days later (we always nursed on a pillow), but because it was at a time when we ordinarily didn't nurse at that point I felt OK saying, "no not right now" and she never brought it up again.

I hand expressed my milk in a hot shower for about 5 nights after that and that was the end of things. I was shocked, but happy. I think it was the right time for all of us.