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Home › Articles › Weaning › Weaning After the Age of 2

Weaning After the Age of 2

Tips for Weaning Your Toddler

By Carma Haley Shoemaker

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The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends children be breastfed for at least two years. Although it is unusual to see many mothers in the United States and some other industrialized countries nursing for this long, the worldwide average age of weaning is actually closer to 4. For the mother that follows the WHO recommendation, nursing for two, three, or even four or five years, weaning doesn't have to mean an end to the mothering style that extended breastfeeding promotes.

Weaning a child after the age of 2 can be either a very trying experience for both mother and baby or it can be a smooth transition in which it seems as if the child weans himself. Either way, weaning from the breast is a process that takes guidance, patience and lots of love and reassurance.

The Different Needs of an Older Child
Children that breastfeed to at least their second birthday continue to do so primarily for the comfort of breastfeeding rather then the nourishment. The physical need for breastmilk is not as great as it was during the first days, months or year. However, it can often become vital to a child's security or comfort to breastfeed, so toddlers and preschoolers may be reluctant to give it up.

Kathy Richard, a mother from the Boston area, says, "I realized that at my son's age, just over 2 years, he wasn't nursing for nourishment, but for comfort. I said to him one night, 'Kev, why don't we just cuddle instead of nurse today.' From that moment on, whenever he felt the need to nurse, we would get in the rocker and I would just rock him and cuddle him."


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