Optimal Living

Are you ready to night wean your toddler? Have you scoured every source to learn the best way to do this and not cause irreparable damage (spoiler alert- you won’t damage them!)? Read the books, got the t-shirts, hashtagged about not getting good sleep for so long you don’t know if you could sleep the night through even if you do get your little bundle of joy to sleep through the night? Have you tried before and been unable to truly get them to wean? Me too! To all of the above.

My son was 2.5 (and I had a 6 month old nursling) when I FINALLY was able to get him to night wean. My son was and is a boob baby. Hands down he nursed around the clock since the day he was born.  Would still nurse all day if I let him.

This isn’t to say we didn’t have our challenges in the beginning. We were unable to figure out how to latch and for the first 6 weeks.  We ended up having to use a nipple shield to help us. I had massive oversupply that due to some misinformation took forever to straighten out. My son also turned out to be very sensitive to dairy. Even once I removed all that, he spit up until about 9 months old. Constantly. (An apparent affliction my second son shared as well- oh joy).

Here is a list of 5 things to consider when night weaning a toddler:

1. Is your child able to tell the difference between night and day? This was huge for us, as I would tell him he could nurse when the sun came up. When I attempted prior to explain daytime he didn’t understand. He would think it was daytime even when we were nursing to go down at night. At 2.5 he fully grasped daytime versus nighttime.
2. Can your child understand concepts in books? We got the book “Nursies when the Sunshines” and when we read it he understood it. So we casually read it in the 3 weeks leading up to the big day. Then every morning and night I would reiterate “look its daytime” right when he woke up. Then “its night time and time for bed” just to help drill home this concept of night and day.
3. Pick the parent that will be the comforter. Some people say it’s easiest if the dad takes over since we have the ultimate source of upset (aka the boobs) but I personally say you know your child. I knew that my son would only want me and taking the boob and myself away would be a double whammy. So I just wore clothes he couldn’t get access to me in.
4. Pick a day and include your child in the time frame. We chose a Saturday when I would be off work Sunday/Monday. Leading up to the event I would say at different times “next week we are going to stop nursing in the middle of the night” or “on Saturday we won’t nurse anymore in the middle of the night”. I could tell it was sinking in even though when I said these things sometimes he would just stare at me. There were random other times he would bring it up with no prompting and say something like “we don’t nurse anymore in the middle of the night” he also attempted to explain this new change to his grandma “grandma mama says no more nursing in the middle of the night”. It was sinking in at least conceptually.
5. Be prepared for him to be upset. This is a huge change for him and change is hard for everyone-adults included. We may not cry with all changes but we certainly do for some of them! Have compassion that though they understand they are still upset about the change. There is absolutely a difference between being upset with a transition and losing their mind over the change. In my opinion this is not cry it out- I was with my son for his entire upset, however long that took.  He always calmed back down and went back to sleep.

For us it looked like this: Day 1 he woke up 2 times and each time I stayed calm and when he asked can he nurse I would say in a calm voice “no baby, remember no nursing in the middle of the night.” He cried for a few minutes and I offered to rub his back instead.  He declined the first night but did go back to sleep each of the two times after some tears and me holding him. He did cry a bit while I held him and said “I want to nurse” I just continued to stay calm and quiet and empathize. “I know you do baby but no more nursing in the middle of the night”.

Day 2 he woke up 2 times cried for about ½ the time as he did the first night and did allow me to rub his back to get back to sleep.  Day 3 he woke up one time fussed for a minute and let me rub his back to go back down. Since then he has slept through the night except for a handful of times.  For a couple months after he would randomly bring up not nursing in the middle of night anymore. I would reaffirm for him that that was true.

One note on your mama intuition, if it doesn’t feel like it’s the right time take a step back and review. If you are in the beginning stages of just introducing the topic and it doesn’t feel like the right time. It might not be. Can this wait a few more months? At these young ages a few months can drastically change their capacity to understand.

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I was very interested in teaching my baby sign language. I mean what could be better than a little baby being able to communicate before they could actually talk? Sounded too good to be true! I read some concerns that by teaching them sign language they won’t talk as quickly but in my house this was not true at all. There is also, of course, research that says it helps them speak quicker. We used sign language as a segue to words. My then 3 year old could not stop talking and what’s even cuter is having watched him teach my 1 year old different signs.

I will say that I did not fully invest in teaching my children signs for every word. This is not to say you shouldn’t, I just chose to focus on the ones that would impact us the most. Below are 5 useful signs to teach your baby.

The 5 signs that Changed my Communication with My Baby

Nurse

First and foremost I wanted my baby to learn to sign “nurse”. I was a first time mom nursing my son when none of my family had nursed. I was used to a regimen of feed bottle then 4 hours later feed another. Well any breastfeeding mom can tell you that is NOT how breastfeeding goes. I was desperate for him to sign nurse instead of the guessing game of what’s wrong with my son? Whip out boob, thenbaby latches- 10 seconds later unlatches because it isn’t what he wanted then to fussing again to find out he really wanted be held and walked around or he was just teething and miserable.

I’m not sure I can adequately express the stress of just constantly whipping out the boob hoping that it would make them stop crying. I began signing “milk” which for us I called “nurse” at about 4 months old. The sign is very simply opening and closing of the fists while your hands are vertical. When he fussed I would sign nurse them stick him on the boob hoping for the association. At 9 months he got it! And it was smooth sailing after that. Can I also just say, watching him walk/run towards you opening and closing his little fists as fast as he can to get to your boobs about made my heart erupt with love.

More

It seemed to go easier once they learned one sign to learn another. The association that they could communicate made my boys just as excited as I was.  So the next sign we taught was “more.” This was not only adorable but it increased our efficiency in helping our son before epic meltdowns. He would take a bit of food then sign more. This is just putting all your fingertips together as close as they can from each hand and tapping your fingers of each hand together at the tips. We tended to do it repeatedly so both of my boys tapped their fingers together furiously when they were really excited.

They even transferred it to activities. We would read a book then they would sign more for us to read it again. All we did was every time they wanted more food or us to read it again we would sign and say the words “do you want more” until he made the association and would sign himself.

Eat

Eat. Once we dived into Baby Led Weaning-BLW at 6 months (which you can read about our journey HERE) we needed a sign for eat and nurse so we could tell the difference. He picked up on this one very quickly. Every time he would get frustrated and we would go through the laundry list of what he could possibly want we would sign and say “eat.” This sign for us was your fingertips together and brought to your mouth, and we would tap our lips with our fingertips.

All Done

Another very helpful sign was “all done” we actually taught him this a little incorrectly but the concept is the same. Our sons open their hands and spread their fingers, hold them up and do a waving motion with both simultaneously. It’s close to the actual sign.

We were VERY happy with this one as my son had a tendency to drop all food on the ground when he was done. Oh so joyful. So each time we said and signed “all done” until he would sign all done and not just throw his food. This took a good 3-4 months to fully solidify around 15 months.

Help

Lastly, my son struggled (and still does) in situations that he doesn’t have full control over or when things don’t go the way he wants them to. So to avoid the screaming toddler (well as much as possible) we taught him the sign for help. This one we taught correctly but ultimately led him to just putting his hand in a fist, thumb up in the air and quickly raising his hand in the air. This sign was the shortest lived one as he got older and his basic gross and fine motor skills improved.

All kids are different

My son’s first words were both at around 6 months (both were Mama!) For my first son even after he learned his signs he developed new words and sounds consistently. He said nurse since about 1 year old (initially just sounded like nuh nuh) but would also sign. He gradually stopped using signs at about 2 years old.

My second son (13 months at the moment) learned eat, more and nurse but has decided for nurse he will just open and close his mouth repeatedly. Honestly he looks like an adorable fish but he refuses to sign it.  It gets the job done- he doesn’t scream or cry and we have effectively communicated which is the whole point! He currently signs eat and more most of the time.

I think the key to remember is the point is to just help bridge that gap of non verbal communication until they can communicate. It doesn’t really matter if you teach “nurse” to be a head bob or the traditional sign for “milk”. Just be consistent and before you give them what they are asking for you make the sign and say the word. They’ll get it.

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Like many first time parents I was eager to learn healthy and natural alternative ways to feed my child (Read about Essential Oils HERE or BabyWearing HERE). I ran out and bought a Baby Bullet thinking I would puree all my own foods etc. Then I was introduced to a concept I had never heard of before- Baby Led Weaning (BLW).  This concept, once I read up on it, seemed more natural and intuitive than pureeing, certainly easier for us on the preparation side. I have 2 sons now and at the time of this blog they are 3 years and 1 years old. They actually both reacted to baby led weaning differently but ultimately baby led weaning has been our sole source of food for our toddlers.

Where to Find Resources:

I joined a few Facebook groups for supporting baby led weaning and the sharing of recipes. I tend to like to immerse myself in a subject before I jump in so I lurked in these groups for a couple months. I also found a Baby Led Weaning book by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett and read that.

When do you start?

A big question I had was when to start baby led weaning. After some research the magic number seemed to be 6 months or older. A few things I read referenced leaky gut syndrome with the possibility that their guts aren’t ready to handle anything but breast milk or formula for the first 6 months.

Here is a quick list we referenced after they hit 6 months:

• Can they sit up by themselves with no support?
• Have they started to learn that pincer grasp? This is the pointer finger and thumb grasp where prior you would have seen them grab things with their whole hands.
• The tongue thrust! Does your child still reflexively push out whatever goes in the mouth?

Once those are all yes’s which on average is about 6 months that’s when we started BLW.

What do you feed them in the beginning?

Another big question I had was what exactly can they eat? I mean it seems so simple right? But my experience was only with formula fed babies and jars of food combinations I wouldn’t think to ever eat together. As a personal preference in our family based on my husband’s research we did not do any grains until their molars came in (and even then very limited).

We ultimately offered one food and waited 1-2 days before introducing another one so that if an allergic reaction occurred we could better isolate what food may have caused it.

Here were our first 10 foods:

• Avocado
• Sweet potato lightly cooked- meaning not mush but not hard.
• Banana (my 1^st sons second word after mama!)
• Oranges (we did cuties and my sons loved to suck the juice out spit out the outside skin)
• Carrots
• Steak- this one may be controversial but we speared it into about 2 inch slices and he would just suck and gum it.
• Eggs ; we did scrambled and hard boiled
• Apples (you can softly cook but our son just like to suck on them)
• 2 ingredient pancakes (equal parts egg and ripe banana)
• Broccoli, lightly cooked

What can’t they eat?

Some of what they can’t eat is a preference (for us no grains, only natural sugars) and some is based on guidance from the book and other mom’s experiences. We now know that keeping allergenic foods away can actually create those allergies in your child. The current recommendation from our pediatrician was unless there was a family history of an allergy, no foods were off limits for the purposes of allergies, like no peanuts etc. Honey was the only limit to not have any until after 1 year old due to botulism fears.

There were, however, some cautions with foods:

• Be cautious of salt, and any foods with added salt. They really don’t need extra salt at this age
• Foods that are easy to choke on like grapes and hot dogs are either not recommended until a little older or, for us, we just cut them in super small pieces.

How much will they really eat?

In the beginning for us, the answer was… like none. Haha. But really- it appears as though not much is being consumed so much as it’s being smeared on the high chair and all over their face and body.

But some great skills are being learned.

• They are learning to refine that pincer grasp and other fine motor skills
• They are naturally learning their hunger cues and when they are done
• They are a part of the family dinner at the table
• In our experience doing BLW has led to both of my sons choosing healthy foods most of the time

Does BLW replace breast milk or formula?

No. It is still the recommendation that Breast milk or formula is primary until one. To help keep that as the primary source it is helpful to offer the breast (or bottle) first then a selection of foods. Like I said earlier, in those first few months of BLW they are consuming little. My sons are both boob boys and there is no food that takes the place of that. For my first son he didn’t really start eating any actual amounts of food until about 15 months. My second son has been very interested in food since right at 6 months (he’s currently 13 months).

Can your child eat both via BLW and some purees?

Sure. I’m all for- FED IS BEST.  I can say that between my 2 sons I had vastly different outcomes. My 1^st son wanted literally NOTHING to do with us helping him eat. Ever. My second son happily lets you spoon-feed him yogurt and applesauce etc. Sometimes he takes the spoon and does it himself and sometimes he doesn’t. Kids are all very different and I find it best to take their lead.

Won’t they choke??

This was probably my biggest fear. It’s scary to think of your child choking. In my experience we did not have any scary choking incidences. There were a couple of coughs while they learned to chew THEN swallow but on the whole we were lucky in this regard. To make me feel more prepared I did take an infant CPR class that included choking training.

All in all, baby led weaning has been great for our family. We don’t have to have special jars of food with us or on the go. At any restaurant you can get one of the top 10 foods as a side dish or pull parts of your meal to give them.  My sons both eat a very healthy diet of fruits, veggies and meats. We do have some treats of dark chocolate, some frozen banana-strawberry and coconut milk ice cream and gluten free pancakes. But on the whole they all eat very well! We don’t keep processed foods or sugars in our house so they simply aren’t an option.

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