Sleepy today after another long night with toddler son. Kid just wants to nurse, nurse, nurse. The more I put my foot down and try to nurse him less at night, the more time he wants to spend nursing by day. If I put my foot down there, too, I wind up with a kid who spends a huge amount of his time, day and night, whining and crying and clinging. And lately, as I continue to steamroll him with my desire to move towards weaning, his cries have started to sound less loud and annoyed (as had been typical for him), and more soft and oh-so-sad.

I spent some time over lunch (cornmeal-breaded tofu, roasted sweet-potato wedges, kale, garlicy barbeque sauce, then frosted banana cake) researching the matter. I am relieved to find he is really quite normal. He simply isn't ready to wean, and I am making things harder not only on him but on myself by trying to force him to wean early. His sleeping pattern (waking about every 3 hours to nurse) is also completely normal for a breastfeeding, co-sleeping toddler (which is to say, most of the toddlers on planet earth).

The problem really isn't him. It isn't even feeling tired--honestly, most of my missed sleep at night comes when I argue with the kid over nursing and periodically send him to timeout for yelling too much. The problem is the normal one of comparison and fear of failure. No one else that I am personally acquainted with has a kid who behaves like this. And when the differences would come up in conversation, other people reacted in horror to my situation ("you still sleep with him? you still nurse him every few hours at night?"), thereby causing it to become an Issue in my own mind.

The rest has followed from that.

So tonight I am going to go back to following my own instincts, and cuddle and nurse the kid freely throughout the night, whenever he wants. I'm not going to argue with him over how long or how often. I'm not going to scold him for fussing. I want that soft, whimpery, forlorn cry to stop. And I'll bet I find myself a lot more rested and productive, too.

Full disclosure: I was pretty much ready to give in anyway, before I did the research that validated the normality of his behavior. Last night, after a huge blow-out over nursing ("no more till morning. night is for sleeping, not nursing or tantrums."), complete with timeouts and everything, the little one settled down in silence, only demanding that I rub his belly. After a little bit, I thought he was asleep and withdrew my hand. He reached out and pulled my hand back to his little belly. This repeated a time or two, until he lay still and quiet and didn't try to take my hand back again. I lifted myself a little to look at him (I love to watch him sleep), only to discover him lying there with his eyes wide open, a very stoic expression on his little face. Of course, I melted, wrapped my arms around him, nestled him against my body and nursed him. He was fast asleep, for really and truly, a few minutes later. Poor, sweet little guy.

Parenting far and away trumps dissertation-writing in difficulty and high stakes.