How to Stop Breastfeeding a 2-Year-Old in Just 48 Steps

First, of course, you need to be breastfeeding a 2-year-old. Hang in there; this might take a minute…

1. Give birth to a preemie whose lackadaisical suck reflex requires at least one week of tube- and bottle-feeding in the NICU.
2. Acquire a good breast pump.
3. Google “how to breastfeed a preemie.”
4. Pretend you can’t hear your nipples screaming.
5. Google “baby won’t latch.”
6. Insert soothing gel pads in bra.
7. Google “baby falls asleep nursing.”
8. Grow to hate your breast pump.
9. Google “nursing lethargic baby.”
10. Bake lactation cookies.
11. Google “how much friction before breasts spontaneously combust.”
12. Finally fucking figure out breastfeeding.
13. Nurse on demand whenever your baby is hungry, thirsty, tired, fussy, or otherwise not 100% chill.
14. Go back to work full-time when the baby is not quite three months old.
15. As your work schedule ramps back up and starts eating away at your evening and weekend hours, cling desperately to the knowledge that breastfeeding is something that you, and only you, can provide to your baby, no matter how much time you spend apart.
16. Think smugly about all the money you’re saving on formula.
17. Ignore the fact that this money-saving calculation is based on the inherent assumption that your time — all the hours spent pumping, washing bottles and nipples and flanges, waking overnight every time the baby does, parking on the couch for hours as he suckles gently through a nap — is worthless.
18. Naively assume that he’ll start weaning himself around a year old.
19. Google “how to wean a baby.”
20. Try the following Google-approved weaning methods: distract; divert; discuss; delay; substitute.
21. Fail.
22. Naively assume that he’ll start weaning himself when he transitions to sleeping in his own crib at night.
23. Google “how to wean a toddler.”
24. Buy this book.
25. Tell everyone you know that you bought this book and you’re about to be finished breastfeeding forever.
26. After reading the approximately ten total pages that apply to your situation, and realizing they discuss all the same weaning methods you already discovered via Google, and the remainder of the page count is dedicated to explaining why you should NOT wean your baby, realize this book is trash.
27. Stew in your own simmering frustration for a couple of months.
28. Develop a too-expansive repertoire of jokes centered around the concept that your son will continue to nurse through primary school, middle school, high school, and possibly college.
29. Get way too excited the one night he goes to bed without asking to nurse.
30. Realize the next day it was just a one-time oversight on his part.
31. Realize nothing you do matters anyway, so why even bother?
32. Give up.
33. Think about maybe getting pregnant again.
34. Think about what it would be like to nurse a giant kid while pregnant.
35. Think real hard.
36. At approximately 2:28 p.m. on Sunday, August 9, 2015, hit the end of your rope.
37. Cut him off cold turkey.
38. Say no.
39. Say no.
40. Say no.
41. Google “how to stop lactation.”
42. Read multiple articles attempting to shame new mothers for wanting to stop breastfeeding.
43. Fight the urge to burn everything down.
44. Buy decongestants, diuretics, B6 supplements, and antihistamines.
45. Say no.
46. Say no.
47. Say no.
48. Win!

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article sponsered by Northern Michigan certified lactation consulting and Mother Hubbards Country Cupboard