Self-weaned

This may be more of a realization than something I learned, but realizing something means you didn't know about it before you realized it, so that's the same thing as learning something new, right?

Today I realized that Avery hasn't nursed at all for about week and a half-two weeks.

Since he still wakes up a lot at night, I thought night-weaning him might help him make the transition to sleeping better and for longer. The problem is, then he got sick, so we couldn't deny him liquids when he asked for them, so we started giving him a bottle at night. Eventually, he never asked to nurse any more during the day. Anytime we thought he was thirsty (because he hadn't had anything to drink in a few hours) we would bring him a bottle of milk and he was perfectly happy and content about this. I never once had deny him nursing because he just stopped asking for it. Next thing I know, it's been almost two weeks and he no longer nurses. I know that this is normal for a toddler to self-wean when their mother becomes pregnant. I wasn't actually intending to wean him any time soon, preferring to let him self-wean, but I had no idea it would happen so quickly and easily.

I am both happy and sad about this change. I am happy because a)it was beginning to hurt a lot due to me being pregnant and b) I was honestly getting tired of nursing him on and off all night. But I am also sad about this because he is growing up :( Obviously this was going to happen regardless of how long he nursed, but it was such a wonderful bonding experience that we've shared for the entirety of his life and it's sad that it's over.

Now, if only he would sleep through the night so easily...

What I learned: Avery self-weaned (well, during the day; we prompted night time weaning) in less than a week.