When to Wean
August 8th, 2009Even before a baby is born, parents have as many questions about how to stop breastfeeding as they do about how to start breastfeeding. We live in a forward-looking culture so it makes sense culturally that as soon as a baby arrives in our lives, we start thinking about what will happen next. But babies and toddlers don’t tell time by clocks and calendars. They grow and change in accordance with their own internal developmental clocks.
If you want specific numbers, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing for at least a year while the World Health Organization recommends nursing for at least two years. But it’s important to remember that those numbers were chosen as part of a committee process, taking into account social and cultural needs as well as developmental needs. The best we can offer is a range of ages. Just as many children learn to walk sometime between 9 months and 15 months, we can say that in cultures that don’t value early weaning children seem to wean sometime between the ages of 2 1/2 and 6, with variations at both ends of the spectrum. But weaning is a process, not a destination with a fixed endpoint.
So how do you know you’ve started the process? Think of the needs your baby meets by breastfeeding. Certainly physical nourishment. Perhaps calming down at naptime or bedtime. And some time at breast for social connection. Now think of how those needs will be met in other ways. Is baby ready for solid foods? Are there other parts of the routine for settling down for sleep? How does baby connect with the non-nursing adults in his or her life? The more strategies your baby has, the closer to weaning you have moved.
We usually apply the term “weaning” only to the end of breastfeeding. But whether you’ve already stopped breastfeeding or you never breastfed your baby, it makes sense to apply those weaning lessons to each of the weanings our young children face. Young children travel through many transitions as they develop: from being carried to walking, from bottles to cups, from getting dressed to dressing oneself (and eventually doing one’s own laundry!)
As with all human developmental processes, weaning moves forward and back, sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly. We may hope for a precise prediction of when we’ll be through, when we’ve done enough, and how well we’ve done. But parenting and precision don’t go together. Parenting is an unfolding relationship that is driven by the developmental needs of ourselves as well as our babies.