Weaning baby from the breast and me from the web

I realized last week on my daughter's 22 month "birthday"—that weaning has got to be imminent for us. I was laying there, trying to put her to sleep. She was fidgeting around, nibbling at my nipple in a grating way. This happens most of the time now. During the past week, my feelings have only intensified. At first, I had mixed feelings. I am really into breastfeeding. Maybe I should say I was really into breastfeeding, but Ava is almost two and I am questioning whether the breastfeeding is holding back our relationship in other ways. Also, I am just kind of getting tired of it. I know that sounds horrible and it makes me feel like I'm on a slippery slope toward Hanna Rosin territory (not really), but after almost two years of it, part of me feels like I have done my time. All good things must come to an end, and all that.

I used to really, really love it. It was cozy and tender. I literally felt a wave of relaxation come over me when she latched on as the hormones started a-flowin'. Now, I still feel that from time-to-time, but mostly, I feel a 31 lb. toddler crawling all over me and switching from breast to breast every minute. Oh, and she usually likes to be grabbing the one she's not sucking on, just to make sure it's still there. It is really maddening. I feel almost used and abused by the way she goes about it. I resent it. Deep inside, I know I will miss nursing. I will miss the closeness and the tenderness of it. But, Ava's helping with that pain since there's not much of that cuddliness happening right now.

All this negativity is telling me it's time to wean. But I still want to do it kindly and gently. We leave for a week's vacation overseas next week, and we have a weekend in New York later this month, so I have to take a very slow and measured approach—not only because it is the right thing to do for Ava's feelings, but because it is the convenient thing to do for me. I have found that nursing is a great tool to have when traveling to help keep a child calm, satisfied and more manageable in unusual situations. With a toddler at the height of her headstrong and demanding phase, I need all the help I can get to avoid major scenes.

I've already technically started the weaning process by not breastfeeding "on demand" and instead trying to divert her attention, talk her out of it, tell her the milk is "not ready" and, once in a while, putting some vinegar on my boobs along with saying they're not ready in order to really give myself a break.

Sadly, I think I understand why she may have been so needy lately (now that she's over being sick, which was why she was so needy before) and its probably a combination of boredom and wanting more attention. I had some challenges work-wise this past week with my computer hard drive crashing and I had to spent time getting a new one, purchasing, installing and setting up software, re-doing work I'd lost, and doing more work I had due for a deadline this week. Admittedly, I was probably not as attuned to her as I should have been.

So, a big strategy of our weaning process—which will kick into high gear once we are back from Spain, then really, really high gear after New York—will be for me to make sure I give her alot of attention and love, and keep her busy and not bored. This is easier said than done, of course, because when I try to play with her, she still interrupts the play and grabs at my boobs, pulls on my shirt and says, "milkies! milkies!" And then I get frustrated and skulk off to lock myself in the bathroom with my laptop for a few minutes just to get some distance.

And, the laptop—that brings me to another issue about why it will be a new challenge to keep her busy and not bored which is related to keeping me not bored. I have, in the past, always kept the laptop at arm's reach and bounced back and forth between playing and doing stuff with her and doing stuff on the laptop. But, the balance has gotten a little off. It really hit home when my machine died Sunday morning and I was without a laptop til the following morning when I went out and bought a new one that I am close to being a web addict. (I still had access to my husband's PC and posted on Facebook, checked my e-mail, etc. still during this period of being "without" a computer.) But, I was so, so uneasy without my machine. It was an awful feeling. Like withdrawal.

Now, I am not as bad as some of the moms I read about in a recent article on internet addiction, where they don't clean the house or they take drugs to stay up late so they can be online more. I don't think I neglect my kid. After all, she is not even two years old yet and she already knows her colors—red, blue, yellow, orange, brown, black, pink—and we are working on numbers and letters, too, a little, but those seem a little ways off. Still, I think that by cutting down on my non-essential screen time (like I keep saying I am going to do) that will aid in the weaning process. It might also clear my head a little, too. It will help shake me out of the funk I am in and help jump start a new phase for my girl.

I'm glad to be getting away for a week, I have to say, I need something to shake things up in my life. I rarely go online when I am overseas, there's just too many other fun things to do, I don't bring a laptop so would be relegated to internet cafés or public machines in the hotel, so that will be helpful in weaning me from the web—just a little bit. Vacations always change me a little, change my perspective, help me shift gears. I really need that right about now. Then, I can help my child shift gears a bit, too.