Claire has woken up the past three mornings and requested "CRACKA!" "CRACKA!" It's really cute! She will now go to the table once I start setting it for mealtimes. She has signed for food for awhile, but now is saying and signing cookie and cracker in addition to drink, eat, and milk, which she has been doing for quite some time. She also requested a cracker at 2:30 in the morning. Odd. She has said other words randomly in the night, but this was the first for cracker! She was hungry though! She nursed well and went back to sleep, but got one when she woke up.
We say cracker for anything light and crunchy like crackers and these rice rusk things I found called "Baby Mum-Mum." We use cookie for anything harder to chew like a cookie, or more often--a teething biscuit! I have stopped offering her to nurse. That is of course a way to wean...don't offer, don't refuse. I'm not actively trying to wean her, but she will let me know when she wants to nurse. Of course she could always ask to do so by crying when a baby. (Of course for a newborn, that is a late hunger sign...rooting, fist sucking, etc...come first.)
Starting about 7-8 months I would try to feed her all the time, and I would think she wasn't interested...well...she wasn't...she was slowing down, and by 12 months I had stopped offering altogether as she is pretty good at knowing what she wants. At this point in time I do think I believe in child-led weaning. Haha. I know a lot of people who have said that early on, then changed their minds for various reasons. I definitely can't force Claire to nurse if she doesn't want to, nor would I want to. I often offer her a sippy cup of water or a cracker sometimes too, again, not trying to actively wean, but just let her know there are other options and things to ask for, which she is doing.
Why am I so passionate about breastfeeding? I think a variety of reasons...we had a rough start and I just feel strongly about things. Also, I went through several rounds of biting and broken skin from about 8 - 12 months and I was determined not to give up, although there were several times it hurt so terribly, I could hardly stand it. I now totally 100% know why women stop because of biting. After reading more about it now, I realized some of the things I was doing could have actually been encouraging her to bite. Ok. Enough on nursing for tonight!
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