What the Weaning and Sleep Struggle in Children Can Tell You

So it begins - our daughter's journey from spoiled breastfed baby to cup-toting, individualistic toddler. She's 18 months old now and has been exclusively breastfed for the entirety of her short life, and while she has certainly reaped the benefits, life circumstances are putting a stop to her addiction to the breast. She's also been moved into her own room and learning to put herself to sleep, which is something she's not entirely fond of yet. In good time she'll be excited about her own bed and bedroom, and will have only fleeting memories of breastfeeding, although it cannot come soon enough for me.

She's been a doll all her life, only occasionally being sick and hard to tolerate. She has, however, never liked drinking from a bottle. We did attempt pumping and feeding her breastmilk from a bottle when she was very small, although she never grew fond of the bottle. Try as we might, she would cry and wail until she got the breast back. And since I was not employed and we had sufficient income to be stable, there was no need to me to rush off and not be able to breastfeed her. The bonding experience and emotional ties were something I will always cherish, but as she's gotten older, it's become a struggle to have her on my lap on and off all day. She'd reached the point where the breast had become her distraction when she was bored, her comfort when she was upset. It was really becoming a bad habit, and we decided it was time to put our foot down.

Our daughter has also slept in our room since birth. At the time, it was a matter of having no bedroom of her own, as living arrangements weren't easy. Eventually we got moved into a nice little home of our own, and the thoughts of her own room began. We finally got the house in order and her crib into its happy little place in her room. She was a bit baffled seeing her bed all by itself, not butted up next to ours, but was not overly upset by it.