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Okay, I know this is a weird topic. But I think it's part of the issue of kids who are intellectually beyond where they are emotionally. I'd love to hear about anyone else's experiences.

Hanni is just turning 2, and she LOVES nursing. We are nowhere near weaning, unlike friends of mine who are successfully easing off. (I have no problem with extended nursing, but there's a medication that I really ought to go on.)

She is also very articulate about it. If she wants to nurse at night (which I don't do anymore), she will talk about it the next day. "Night, Hanni sad, cuz, no nurse." And she is clued in about rules and contexts. I don't nurse her in public anymore except for one very mom-friendly place, and when we go there she says "Nurse here okay," even though I've never been explicit about it. She also gets legalistic on me. The rule about nighttime is we can nurse in the morning, so at 10:00 in the morning when I wasn't nursing her because we had visitors, she pointed out the window and said "Morning! Nurse!"

On top of it all, she is an intense, driven, strong-willed kid. How the heck am I supposed to "ease" a kid like this out of it? Talking to her about it would freak her out -- precisely because she would totally understand me. I can't think of any way to do this without being brutal.

Anyone else been through this? I'd love to hear your stories.

LOLOLOL! This brings back memories. I went through the same with my middle child. He was 2 1/2 and loved to nurse, and luckily we were in a family-friendly, liberal university town. He would empty one side, and then would sit up and say "time for the other side now" -- he was really VERY articulate and aware, and he knew exactly what he wanted. Not surprising since he would be reading (well) not too much later. I finally had to come up with a plan. I went away to a conference for several days, leaving him with my husband. Then when I returned I told him the milk was "all gone" -- and somehow he believed it (thank goodness!)

I think just saying no to him would have been too difficult. I needed to go away for a couple days to break the routine. He was by then only nursing maybe twice a day (which helped). I think the physical separation (me being out of town) was critical to weaning him without too much distress for either of us. Good luck. BTW my son told me quite a few years later that he remembered nursing (maybe he was 11 or 12 when he said that) -- and he seemed comfortable with that memory, contrary to what some people seem to think. My other two sons wanted to be weaned around 12 months, and only this middle one really would have continued nursing I don't know how much longer.....

I don't know if you have any opportunities to arrange for a physical separation (for a couple days). Maybe you could come up with something exciting for Hanni to do with other family members, away from you? That might work even better than you going somewhere away from her.

With Harpo, I discussed the situation with him, got out a calendar and had him pick an end date. On that date, I told him it was May 9 (or whatever it was), and he said OK, and that was that.

The other two weren't quite so easy (they argued a certain amount for extensions!), but really, the date thing worked reasonably well for them, too.

With all of them, I made sure they had tons of extra cuddles and Mummy time (reading or whatever); we also took them to a store and let them pick some special "big boy" thing--I remember Harpo picked a brush and comb and Groucho picked a rubber snake(!)--can't remember Chico's item. We didn't--and don't--buy a lot of just "stuff", so they could see that this was a special landmark sort of occasion.

Hope that will help a bit--it's a toughie--and I expect you will miss it as much as she will, which is hard, too.

peace
minnie

PS Edited to add that I just noticed that in your case you don't think it's a good idea to talk to her about it--so my suggestion is not very useful, I'm sorry! I guess I'll leave the post up anyway, in case it helps somebody else later.

With my three, discussion has always been key--they want to understand the whys and wherefores of decisions that affect them. With weaning, I just explained that there were ages appropriate to different activities--that one gets a driver's license at 16, votes at 18, gets a pension at 65, and weans at 3 (in our case; our dr. advised extended nursing for various health reasons); oddly enough, this explanation really worked pretty well at our house.

I don't have any experience with persuading a child to stop breastfeeding really I'm afraid - we basically did child-led which meant I just barely missed getting my "breastfed a 4yo" medal :-) Sympathy, though - I remember enough about what my DS was like at 2 to be glad I didn't have to try stopping then.

What I do have is lots of experience with women thinking they have to stop because they need to take a medication when actually it's not necessary. Are you sure, in your case, that taking the medication is incompatible with feeding your DD? Have you looked it up in Hale, for a start? [I don't remember whether it's online these days but any bf community will have someone with a copy; if you need help PM me the details and I'll ask for you.] If you have and there really is a problem with this drug, another thing to consider would be how long it stays in the milk - e.g., if it's something you have to take once a day, would there be little enough of it in your milk by just before the next dose that nursing then would be safe? If so maybe you could keep that once a day nursing. If neither of these work, is there an alternative medicine that would have better characteristics? The main point is that most doctors have no clue about what's compatible with nursing, really, so many women get bad advice.

If none of that helps and you do have to stop, could you tell your DD the truth but not all of it? E.g. explain that you have to take the medicine, but if the reason is scary downplay it, and tell her the medicine is bad for children? (Point of advice: don't tell her it will make the milk yucky unless it really will, or unless you're positive you'd never let her find out otherwise, even if e.g. she broke her leg the day after you tell her this!)

When DD was 2 we'd been trying (still unsuccessfully) to conceive a second, and I believed (wrongly) that stopping nursing might help. I told DD that I thought it might help and asked her if she wanted to stop nursing. She said, "Okay." I thought perhaps she didn't really understand, or perhaps she'd change her mind, but she never asked to nurse again. I am actually still a bit sad about it. We used to joke that my breasts were her security blanket--and she clearly wasn't ready to give them up, though she did it willingly.

Great advice so far but I'd thought I'd share my experience for good measure

My DS self-weaned at 13 months. There was no fussing, he just looked at me one morning and said "No. Bottle." I was saddened at the time, but it really was so simple. He happily drank milk from a bottle and he always liked his pacifier, which we made disappear shortly after his self-weaning. He also had almost no separation anxiety, which was something of a blessing while I was working. I mention these things because the nursing experience with my DD was very different, much more like the way you describe Hanni's.

I stopped work when DD was born and I really struggled to get to the stage of day feeds only with her - she was SO determined! She never took a pacifier or sucked her thumb and wouldn't even look at a bottle. She was, and still is, very clingy. When she was nearing her 2nd birthday earlier this year, I had to go on a trip alone so DH and I decided that it was time to wean. I didn't want to exacerbate her separation anxiety by making her go 'cold turkey' when I left, so we started 2 weeks before. At snack time (immediately preceding her usual BF) I introduced a special drink in a new special cup. In our house, a special drink for the kids is just plain old fruit juice. After she'd eaten her snack and had her drink, instead of nursing, I scooped her up and we had cuddles, kisses and tickles - lots of close body contact. She noticed, tried to nurse and asked why she couldn't, to which I simply said "Lucky you've had your special drink so now we can cuddle/tickle/dance because its so much fun!". The first few days were tricky, but honestly, the hardest part was just being firm about our decision to wean. I thoroughly enjoyed nursing both my children so some of my worry about the weaning process definitely stemmed from my regret that this chapter was coming to an end.

FWIW, DD's little snack time routine is still a standing arrangement around here... Only difference is that she has decided DS, DH and I should all be involved in the fun!

Best of luck to you both, whatever you decide to do

Given how relatively unusual "extended" breastfeeding is, isn't it interesting how many of us there are here? I imagine it's more likely to be because parents of gifties tend to be bloody-minded likely to make up their own minds about what works for them regardless of what's usual in society, rather than because extended breastfeeding produces gifted children, but still :-)

Stubbornness definitely happened with me. I was oh so determined to nurse that we survived tons of pain at first, nursing strikes. etc. Now DD's totally addicted and I'm not sure how we're going to stop either. My game plan is go to 2 and see how it goes from there. Also, I *think* I was probably much more willing to do research and ask people for help than many of my other friends who ended up quitting earlier. Honestly, I don't really see 2 as extended nursing since the world average is 4... No real advice but I think we'll be in the same boat when she reaches 2. Good luck!

Puts my hand up. Yep, nursing still at 16 months, older DC went to nearly 2, but self weaned when I got pregnant.

I definately think 'independent thinking' (that's the term I like, it sounds so positive) that plays into it a fair bit. Cool to see so many here, when the average rates are so low.

Oh this brings back memories! I nursed two until they turned 2 and my middle one only till he was 18 months because I was desperately trying to get pregnant. None of them were ready to be weaned and it was really hard to do. I did explain it to them and yes, lots of extra love and snuggles will help. You could try cutting back on the number of times you nurse and replacing it with another ritual. Good luck!