Hello!
Hoping for some advice and some reassurance - apologies in advance for the long post.
We have decided to start weaning our almost 2.5 year old. Some background: he's been almost exclusively BF since birth (with the exception of one or two top-up feeds while we got the hang of feeding). We've successfully stopped the post-nursery feed with no trouble, but now are left with feeding to sleep (nap and nighttime) and through the night - yay, haha.
We had a bit of a rough ride getting feeding going so it's important to me that we stop in as gentle a way as possible, bar just letting him self-wean, as he is so attached to it now and I really don't have it in me to feed during another pregnancy, which is hopefully on the horizon.
Here is my question/guilt-trip. We tried last night to break the feed-to-sleep association. He actually did really well - he fed while we were reading, then we brushed his teeth and he eventually went to sleep with cuddles. He did protest a bit (tried to hit me a few times) but just grumbled, rather than cried.
Now the guilt - I feel like we went in too hard and I've ruined this before we've really started. We decided to try and tackle the night feeds too. The first wake he was upset, like really crying, but we hugged (we co-sleep) and I spoke to him and he eventually went off to sleep. The second wake-up he was hysterical. I offered water, I was with him, we ended up reading books and he calmed down after about an hour of on-and-off crying. I eventually gave in and fed around 4am because we both really needed to sleep.
My questions are - have I ruined this already? How would/have others approached weaning an older baby?
My plan now is to continue not feeding to sleep, try to not feed for the first wake-up and then feed for any subsequent wake-ups, until I feel like we're both ready to tackle it again.
Just feeling really upset today that I may have ruined this at the first hurdle, and just sad that our feeding journey will be ending with so much upset for him. As I mentioned, due to planning a pregnancy we are on a bit of a timeframe for this - I would rather have stopped feeding by the time another baby arrives so as not to confuse him, but curious as to what other's experience has been.
Thank you x