By Courtney P.

I had my son just after turning 40 years old. As an older mom, I wanted to give all my attention to soaking up every bit of motherhood, since I felt this might be my only child. Younger moms can feel that same pull just as strongly, but being older gave it a quiet urgency for me,– a sense that I didn’t want to rush any part of it.

I was living in Paris at the time and wasn’t working, so I really relished the time and nurturing I could give my son by breastfeeding. I breastfed him exclusively for a long time.

As he grew older and began eating a variety of food (baby-led weaning before I knew there was a term for it!), he was naturally breastfeeding less. Eventually, it dwindled down to just evenings, and as this, too, tapered off, I began looking for ways to support this weaning process before we stopped altogether.

I went looking for a book that could put pictures and words to what we were going through together. I wanted something to help him understand, in his own terms, why something that had always been there was starting to change. I didn’t find much, and what I did find were a few clinical pamphlets about how to reduce feedings gradually. None of it was something I could sit down and read with my toddler.

Living in Paris meant I was navigating the weaning process in a place where breastfeeding support isn’t always easy to find, but then I found and began attending local La Leche League meetings. I received specific support around this weaning transition and ways to do it in the most loving and supportive way I could for my son. La Leche League gave me the mother-to-mother support I needed, from people who had actually been through it. I’m still grateful for the reminder they gave me that what I was doing wasn’t strange, even when the culture around me suggested otherwise.

Still, I wanted to find a resource that could be both a comfort and a way of learning. Children get comfort and learn from looking at picture books. That’s how they are introduced to concepts when they’re young, especially bilingual children.

Not finding the story I was hoping to have for my son, I decided to write it myself for our own weaning journey. And without the visual aids I was hoping I would find, I created our own calendar that included stars to indicate days of the week we breastfed, until the feedings themselves grew farther and farther apart.

Some nights he was fussy, and some nights he was fine. What surprised me was how I felt guilt and grief as he moved on. I realized how much I loved this aspect of nurturing my son. There were moments I also felt relief. It took me a while to understand that both feelings were allowed to sit there together.

Fast forward more than a decade from our own weaning, and I finally had the chance to go back and finish the book I started, Saying Bye-Bye to Mama’s Milk: A Gentle Weaning Story. In the story, a mother and her toddler move through weaning together, one gentle goodbye at a time; so, a child following along can see what is coming before it happens. My mother, a retired elementary art teacher, gave the book the gift of her drawings. Working on it together felt less like finishing a project and more like something we were making together all over again, the way weaning itself had been something my son and I moved through side by side.

I am grateful I could wean my child in the way that felt the most natural for us, and I’m especially grateful to be able to offer other parents and toddlers a story that might help them too.

Stay tuned next week for more of Courtney’s story.

Supporting Breastfeeding Families–Today, Tomorrow, Always

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