Now that’s one of the best conversation starters I have ever done!

“I breast feed a 2-year-old”… hehe. It’s not as uncommon as some think, there’s actually quite many of us but it’s not something you see a lot of publicly which is a shame. I think a lot of people are a little scared about telling others they choose the breast feed for longer than what it considered “normal”. Though I hate that word in relation to it though… it’s just natural. Natural term breastfeeding. Nothing abnormal about it, it’s just a natural thing to do.

All that said, I had been looking at some natural gentle ways of weaning Henry from ‘boo’ at night, night meaning when I go to bed or at around 2/3 AM. We bed-share so when I go to bed unless he is in a deep sleep his little alarm goes off and he want’s ‘boo’ and then he goes back to sleep again. This didn’t use to be a problem, but lately, I have started getting a little bit of aversion towards it. Which is sad at the same time, but his latch at the moment is also quite bad during the night which is leaving me quite sore. I also have to admit that it would be nice if I could come up to him when he wakes up, because like most other small children he wakes up during the night, and manage to settle him without ‘boo’. Settling him with ‘boo’ isn’t the problem when I come upstairs pausing the film that I and husbot are watching (as an example), it’s the leaving part that is the problem. He will settle very happily with some ‘boo’ and go semi to sleep, but it usually ends up with me having to stay up with him until he is once again in a deep sleep, and even then I sometimes struggle to leave the bed because he will not settle without being latched on. So when I try to move, even if he has unlatched, he will immediately snuggle up again and re-latch…and so it continues for longer than I would like as I would love to spend a little bit of time downstairs.

An argument towards this is that he is little and that they grow up so fast. And therefore I should not think about it as a bad thing.

But I’m not thinking about it as a bad thing. I love the breast feeding, I don’t want to stop breastfeeding him, I just want to wean him off night feeding, he can have ‘boo’ during the day, and for nap-time is my thinking. He goes to bed just fine with Daddy and no ‘boo’, instead, they have a story and he has a cup of water in case he is thirsty.

 

So what would be a gentle way of weaning him from ‘boo’ at night?

This book.

 

I was recommended this book by many who like me practice gentle parenting. It’s a beautiful book with beautiful illustrations, and it’s called ‘Nursies When the Sun Shines’ by Katherine Havener and illustrated by Sara Burrier.

 

The book is a bedtime story mode book, it’s a smallish size book. It’s got large illustrations and little text, but the little text there is coming from the heart and rhymes.
It’s very simple to read and both small children loved it.

 

 

 

A small taste of the book:

I think he will handle it very nicely. At the moment he really loves the book, so I guess we will see how it goes.

I really need to invest in more of these sorts of books, I don’t have many.

I have another book that isn’t about breastfeeding but more about gentle ways to help babies/toddlers sleep that I really liked and that I recommend to everyone who is looking at more damaging techniques such as ‘controlled crying’ or ‘cry it out’ and that is: The No-Cry Sleep Solution: Gentle Ways to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night, by William Sears & Elizabeth Pantley.
I don’t have the infant sleep book though, I have the “For toddlers & pre-schoolers”.

While we are on the subject of discussing books an author that is close to my heart is L.R Knost. Her book “Two Thousand Kisses a Day: Gentle Parenting Through the Ages and Stages (A Little Hearts Handbook)” is so so good. It’s helped us a lot, so I really recommend all her books.

Some other books now on my wish list are:

• A Ride on Mother’s Back: A Day of Baby Carrying Around the World
  by Emery Bernhard (Hardcover)
• Mama’s Milk / Mama me Alimenta
  by Michael Elsohn Ross, Ashley Wolff (Paperback)
• You, Me and the Breast
  by Monica Calaf, Mikel Fuentes (Paperback)
• There’s A House Inside My Mummy (Orchard Picturebooks)
  by Giles Andreae, Vanessa Cabban (Paperback)
• How you were born
  by Monica Calaf, Mikel Fuentes (Paperback)
• When You Were in My Tummy
  by Monica Calaf, Mikel Fuentes (Paperback)
• The Mystery of the Breast
  by Victoria de Aboitiz, Afra (Paperback)
• Your Daddy and Me
  by Monica Calaf, Mikel Fuentes (Paperback)
• My New Baby
  by Rachel Fuller (Board book)
• The Biggest Bed in the World
  by Lindsay Camp, Jonathan Langley (Hardcover)
• What Baby Needs (Sears Children’s Library)
  by William, M.D . Sears, Martha Sears, Renee W. Andriani (Hardcover)
• We Like to Nurse
  by Chia Martin, Shukyo Lin Rainey (Paperback)
• Amazing You!: Getting Smart about Your Private Parts
  by Gail Saltz, Lynne Cravath (Paperback)

All available on Amazon.co.uk

 

 

Now THAT is a lot of books! haha

\\Do you have any favourite books to read with the kids? \\