Stop breastfeeding a baby is a very complicated decision to make because you never know how the other interested party in the equation will react, that is, your child. It all depends on the age of the child and how dependent it is on the chest, because if it is too small or too old it will not have much problem (the one who is very small, for weeks, because he does not find out about the film and the oldest, of more than 3-4 years, because you can reason with him) and if he is very dependent he will take it frankly badly.
We will not go into the motives, because each woman has her own and sure that before making the final decision she has highly valued the pros and cons of weaning the baby, but we will explain the six tips to wean your baby you should never follow.
1. Take advantage that you are going to work and take off your tit
When the maternity leave is over, the first major separation between baby and mother occurs, sometimes several hours. It is a time of quite anxiety, because of what you go from being 24 hours a day with the baby to not see him in several hours and leave it with another person: the father, a grandmother, the nursery ... There are those who at that time milk is extracted in order to continue with exclusive breastfeeding, there are those who begin to give food or give a bottle and there are those who decide that it is already moment of weaning, because someone has given him dire advice: "Take advantage that you're going to work and take off your tit".
And why is it not good advice? First, because if we are talking about a baby from 4 to 6 months, the ideal is to continue breastfeeding, but this the mother already knows, so if she has decided to leave it, it will be for another cause. So it is not good advice because when the mother goes to work the baby suffers his first separation with the person who until then is his reference, with his main caregiver, with the person who has created a strong bond and makes him feel safer. True, 16 weeks to take care of a baby is a very short casualty, but not for the woman, but for the baby, who at four months is still a totally dependent baby and not yet prepared to separate from his mother.
But that's what there is; The world works like this. So as there is nothing to do, what you have to try is the baby carry it as well as possible, and this is achieved by falling in love with mom every afternoon, when she returns: "I've missed you so much, mom. Where were you? Come, hug me, take me, give me a tit, calm me down." The baby is waiting to do what he has done several months, intensely, as if in the next two or three hours he needs recover all the hours you have lost. That's why he asks for a chest and doesn't let go ("don't leave me again, mom"), and that's why it's a serious mistake to take advantage of the fact that you're going to work to remove his chest: "my mom is very strange. He wants to go home for several hours, without me, and when he comes back, it's not like before. Everything has changed. " Already, it is true, a baby does not make that reflection, but he does feel the loss. He does feel that everything has changed and that link is resented, that relationship.
2. Take it off suddenly and do not reverse
In Anglo-Saxon countries the word "weaning" does not exist as such. There is talk of weaning when the baby begins to eat and they refer to it as a long process in the time in which the baby takes less breast and more food. Here in Spain, we talk about weaning when the child is taken off the tit, either in one day, or in a few (I am weaning it). Doing so is a mistake because it is painful for the child.
Stop breastfeeding a baby or a child is not like removing a plaster from the skin, which although it hurts more if you do it quickly, you end up before. It is not that because breastfeeding is more than feeding: it is also relating in that way with your child, giving your skin, your warmth, your presence, giving you. And that is not something that can (or should) be eliminated at once.
For the baby to carry it well, and partly for the mother to also carry it well (especially since no mother wants to make her baby suffer), the ideal is that weaning is a more or less long, gradual process of weeks. Weeks in which if the baby gets bad and only wants a tit, the mother will take a truce and breastfeed whatever it takes, when it is okay to return to the mess. Weeks of replacing shots with other meals and, above all, with other activities, because not always that a child sucks it because of hunger. Weeks of looking for other ways to interact with him, to calm him down, to give him affection, etc.
3. Leave the baby with your mother and leave a few days
It becomes like the previous advice, but in the beast plan. There are people who give this advice: "go away a few days ... when you come back, you will have forgotten the tit." And yes, you may forget, but no child deserves an absence from his mother if it can be avoided, because it is very painful for them to spend several days without the person they love most.
4. Tell him "no, honey, no tit"
"Well, if you have decided to remove the breast you start replacing the shots with bottles or other meals and, if you ask, say no, that the tit does not, that what has to be taken is the bottle, or food." One of the recommendations when weaning a baby is "not deny". If the child asks you to breastfeed, which is something he does with you from the beginning, tell him that he cannot put "the fly behind the ear", and start worrying: "Why do you deny me? Why not? does it give me? " That he feels that your relationship is deteriorating and that he wants, consequently, to repair the possible damage that he may have caused, giving you more love, spending more time with you and Sucking more!.
5. Put spicy things on the nipples
Things that taste bad, spicy, whatever gets in your mouth and makes you reject your chest. So it will not be you who take away the tit, but he who rejects it: "But take a son, if I breastfeed you, don't you want to? Well, you know that it is you who do not want the tit, that I will would give". But is that He doesn't want to fuck, but he does. And he doesn't understand why his chest is bad, and he doesn't know why now mom has an unpleasant taste. I would like to be with you, I would like to take your chest, but suddenly mom doesn't know the same.
He actually leaves his chest against his will, and all at the cost of taking an image of you that is not such: Mom is not really rotten, but he thinks the tetis are bad or in bad shape.
It could work, I do not say no, but it is one of those things that children do not do because it is a kind of punishment for something that has been precious and magnificent until then: "If you want a tit that sucks, but it will be unpleasant". It is not better Always keep a beautiful memory of breastfeedingWhy did he leave it progressively and without traumas, what does he not always remember that everything ended in a "disgusting" way?
6. Tell him that the breast "is no longer because he is no longer a baby"
Many of the milestones that we want our children to fulfill are carried out because we consider that they are older: we remove the diaper because you are older, we remove the pacifier because you are older, we remove the tit because you are older, and when we see that it costs , that does not get it, that it is taking time to achieve it, we add "this is baby, and you are no longer a baby".
Is it bad to be a baby? It is not, so a child should never be ridiculed for doing something babies do. If we want him to stop doing it we must look for it to be more autonomous in general, get other tools that replace that action. Do we want him to leave the pacifier? Well, you'll need something to calm him in his absence, maybe caresses, maybe a story, to make him fall asleep. Do we want him to leave the diaper? Well, you will need to be able to go to the sink to pee and poop. And if he is not able, he should be able to continue carrying him without anyone telling him "no, you are no longer a baby".
Well, with the chest the same thing happens: if we want to leave it we have to achieve it because I no longer need it and not because someone tells him that he is doing some baby and that is ridiculous.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | Why weaning the baby at work is not recommended, Weaning (I): clarifying the concept, Weaning (II): when it is the son who decides, Weaning (III): when it is the mother who decides
