Growing girl: weaned!

Back in January, I shared with you all my feelings about wanting to wean Ren before having a second child. Today, I believe that journey is finished! My friend Kari asked how I did it and in the interest of being lazy and not wanting to type it all out again. Here was my response:

So, the weaning necklace. I got the inspiration somewhere online, but kinda made it up as I went along, too. I started by telling Ren about the concept of weaning, and tried to make it sound really good, "you're a big girl!" and all that stuff. Then I told her about the weaning necklace, and I told her that as soon as she was ready, we'd go buy some beads and supplies to make a weaning necklace, and that once the necklace was finished, she'd be all done nursing. Very soon she told me she was ready to get started, so we went and bought the beads as a family. I let her pick them out (about 40 of them), and the cord, and she even picked out a little charm with an "R" on it that I told her we'd put on at the end. After that, every time she asked to nurse, I'd give her the choice of nursing or stringing a bead. Whenever she was mostly awake, she'd always choose a bead. If we were in bed and she was half asleep, she'd choose nursing. We started this back in February, and very quickly she was down to only a VERY brief nursing session first thing in the morning. She pretty much stopped asking in the day time. For a while, I even stopped asking her about the necklace, because when we're both half-asleep I'd rather nurse her than try to wake her up and get her interested in the necklace. ;) But since I got pregnant it's been painful to nurse, and there's no way I have any milk left anyway, so lately I've been encouraging her to string a bead now and then, even if she hasn't asked to nurse. I've always made it very clear that we're going at her pace and that she has a choice, but that once the necklace is done, that's it for good. These past couple days she's chosen to string a few beads each night, and tonight she was really happy to finish! Of course, she IMMEDIATELY asked to nurse, just to see what would happen and if I really meant it. I said no, you're all weaned now, and gave her some cuddles and hugs instead.

It's been a really gentle and fun way to urge her to self-wean, at a time when I needed her to be done. And I think she made a beautiful necklace, which will hopefully be a nice reminder of our nursing relationship for the rest of her life.

OK, me again. Of course I'm feeling awfully bitter-sweet about all this, even with Baby Jay on the way, and another potentially long nursing relationship around the corner. Then again, it's not really about the nursing, is it? It's about my little girl, who's growing up and becoming so independent. You all know what it's like: with one hand you want to push them out the door and with the other you want to clutch them to your heart. Anyway, I'm a little sad and a little proud and a lot relieved, but mostly I'm glad that I was able to give my daughter this time and closeness together and to make the end as peaceful as possible.

Here she is with her new necklace. Looks pretty happy, no?