He never really latched properly after he bit through his tongue, although he did start breastfeeding again some time after it happened, until my supply got very low during pregnancy with number 2. And recently he had been asking - almost harassing me for milk many, many times a day. And me feeling quite worn out with it and anticipating the painful latch, my response would be a sigh or a "Maybe later" or "Not now". And I felt so sad that this was the only response I could muster to my little chap's plea for connection. So I decided to give it one last week. During that week I embraced every request with a resounding "Yes, of course, I'd love to". I cherished each awkward feed, knowing it would be the last and feeling at the same time nostalgic and sad to let go of this baby phase. And at the end of the week we sat down and had a weaning ceremony. I pasted every breastfeeding photo of Zephyr into a large album and we sat and looked through them together. He sat in my lap, very sad and small and I told him all the things I had loved about breastfeeding him. Then he had a last feed, dressed as a tiger, of course. He was sad, I was ecstatic, I felt like a weight had lifted. And as the weeks have gone on since our ceremony, I have wavered about whether it was the "right" thing to do and he has asked me several times a day when we can talk about him breastfeeding again! He expressed a lot of sadness and anger and has been visibly in pain watching his sister feed. So this may not be the end after all. I haven't decided yet.
