My thanks to Fats Waller for the title -


As I mentioned earlier, I weaned Cora (sort of accidentally) over the weekend, and there I was agonizing over my tender boobs and getting all teary-eyed at that fact that my baby no longer needed me. And then I realized –

Hey, I could have a margarita right now.

When I first began looking at motherhood and making decisions, I knew I wanted to breastfeed. I decided I’d nurse for a year, and then begin weaning naturally. By a year, nursings had tapered off to snuggle times like early morning or naps or bedtime, and both girls were getting most of their nutrition from food.

With Maddie, I went easy on the weaning. I had a nebulous goal of 18 months, but didn’t want to force the issue since I didn’t have to. At 15 months, I forced the nap weaning because we had a big trip coming up, but otherwise let everything end naturally. Right around the same time Maddie dropped her morning nursing, and we were down to once a day by the time I was pregnant with Cora.

Since I’ve now nursed almost three continuous years, stopping for a few brief glorious months while I was pregnant with Cora and Maddie was weaned, I’ve got the nursing thing down – no fumbling hands, no tired arms, nothing. I can get into position in seconds – I’m telling you, I’m a machine. I’ve got it down to a science.

And let me say before I go any further that Cora is, for all intents and purposes, weaned: she’s only nursing a couple times a day, all snuggle or sleep-related. She’s got the early morning nursing, which usually (hopefully) gets her back to sleep for another precious hour; she has a nursing at nap time; and finally a nursing for bedtime. I settle in the chair, draw the boppy around my waist, nestle Cora on my lap, and pick up my library book. My routine’s a well-worn groove, and apparently I’m not the only one who’s got it down cold.

It seems Cora’s on to me, and knows exactly what I do while nursing, because she’s been a bit clingy and needy the past few weeks and wanting to nurse for comfort. How do I know this, you might ask?

She brings me my library book.

Cora’s 14 months now, and as misfortune of all kids with older siblings, I keep comparing her to where Maddie was at the same age. There a deeper blog about that somewhere out there, but today I’m thinking of one milestone in particular – nursing.

On some levels Maddie and Cora at 14 months are much the same; they’d both been pretty much weaned from nursing for meals by 12 months old, and it’s clear that from then on out the nursing’s been all about routine and comfort. Somewhere between 9 and 12 months nursing went from a mealtime thing to a snacking/sleeping/comfort thing, with actual meals and snacks creeping into those nursing slots. By the time we hit a year with Maddie, she was down to four times a day – early morning, when she’d go back to sleep for a couple more hours; nursing when she woke up; nursing for naptime; and nursing for bedtime. On paper, Cora’s been very similar, but in practice it’s a bit more difficult to pin down.