After more then 3.5 years of nursing Kylie to sleep, she has started to fall asleep on her own. On some level I was not sure she would get to this point, of course I knew she would, but I just didn't see how it was going to happen. But over the past week she has successfully fallen asleep multiple times without me. For months now, she will fall asleep when we are taking her on a walk in the stroller, she drinks her bottle of milk, hands it to us and falls alseep. When Auntie Marta was here last week, she was able to read Kylie stories, then just rub her back and she fell asleep. I could not believe it! Auntie Marta worked her magic two times in a row. Then I was not by myself one night (Craig was studying) and Cooper was being a wild man while I was trying to get Kylie to sleep. She took her bottle, we read some stories, she nursed for about 1 minute until I told her I was going to take Cooper to our bed and try to get him to sleep. I gave her a couple books to read and told her I would come back once Coopie was sleeping. 40 minutes later, Cooper is asleep and I go to check on Kylie, she is snoring with a book in her hand, amazing! This has happened a couple more times and it happened again tonight. Cooper was tired and not letting Craig entertian him while I put Kylie down. I nursed her for a couple minutes and then told her I would come back after putting Cooper down. Cooper insisted that both Craig and I stay with him and before I knew it I was waking up 2 hours later. Craig and Cooper fast asleep. I went to check on Kylie and sure enough she was fast asleep too.
I have been having a hard time nursing her lately. I find it more annoying then joyful most of the time, and I am talking to her about weaning more and more. I was very worried about bed time, often people keep the bedtime feeding as one of the last ones to cut out when weaning, but for us bedtime seems to be one of the easier times. I didn't know how she would start falling asleep on her own, but here she is, doing it on her own, without any tears, without any arguing, without any power struggle. Tonight she even took it a step farther... she got out of bed and went to the bathroom, both Craig and I were worried that she would not go back to bed but instead start playing with her toys. But she climbed back in bed with out any help or instruction and read books until she fell asleep. I don't have any idea what time it was, but who cares. It's amazing to see her maturing and growing up so much. I am so happy this transition is happening smoothly, who knows we might be back to nursing to sleep tomorrow, but for right now I am feeling very encouraged and proud of my little girl. We will just keep going with the flow and supporting Kylie as she makes these transitions when she is ready. Now I can only hope she will naturally self-wean somewhat soon, since I'm feeling like it is that time for me :)
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