Product Review: Learning To Wean

I don’t normally do product reviews on this blog, but when Bea Lorimer approached me with her book “Learning To Wean” I was thrilled to review it!! It fits right in with where my son and I are in our nursing relationship and I thought it would be the ideal item for me to look at, try out and review. If you have been reading this blog, then you have probably seen my “Journey Through Breastfeeding“ post, which is all about my journey with my son and the methods of “gentle weaning” that I have used to encourage his “child led weaning.” For me personally, I really wanted to let my son lead the way with our nursing relationship, but there have been little things that I have done to “help” us along the way. You can read our whole story here.

Where we are now: My son is 3 years 10 months old. At this point we are nursing on average one time per week or a little less. There have been two times where I thought we had weaned (in April he went 10 days without even asking to nurse and just last week, it had been nearly a month since he had nursed). Both times, just as I thought we were done, he started asking again.

Learning To Wean by Bea Lorimer

The Review: I received the book, Learning To Wean, from the author, Bea Lorimer, a few days ago. I immediately took it out and read it myself. I have since read it three times with my son.

What I like about this book: Learning To Wean is a very simple straight forward book. I like the fact that is has a gender neutral toddler as the main character. “Sam” can easily be Samuel or Samantha. I also like the fact that it helps your child address the emotions that they may be having by talking about sadness and feeling proud. It is an easy read and enjoyable for both mom and child. Another thing I really like is that the author includes a letter with each book. The letter gives you some other resources for weaning including a tip list and it talks about the book and how you can personalize it for your own situation. It is a very nice touch and shows that the author truly cares about your breastfeeding journey and wants to help you wean gently and with love.

Things I might like to change about this book: This is a wonderful book, and there is really only one change I would make if I had my choice. It was written by an author from New Zealand and uses the word “mum” throughout the book. When I read it to my son, I just substitute Mommy or Mom, but if I had the choice, I would rather have an “American English” version of the book that was available for those of us in the States to purchase.

My Recommendation: I think this is an adorable and very useful book for mothers with nursing toddlers who would like assistance in broaching the subject of weaning. My son is older and we have had several conversations about weaning already (as you can see my post on my breastfeeding journey). For us, I think this book would have been more helpful if we had it one or even two years ago. Right now we are at the stage where he often forgets about nursing, so reading this book makes him think about it more and ask more. But when he was two or even in his early threes, it would have been a very helpful way to start talking about the fact that he won’t nurse forever. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a nursing toddler and would like to be able to discuss weaning with their child. Learning To Wean is a very gentle, easy way of talking about this very delicate subject with your nursing toddler.

Bea Lorimer is a mother to a 6 1/2 year old girl. Although her daughter has now weaned, it was a long and interesting process. She is also a La Leche League leader, an artist and this is the first book that she has written. She blogs about the weaning process at All About Weaning and her book can be viewed and purchased at the Learning To Wean website.

ENTER TO WIN!!

Bea has generously donated FIVE copies of her book to be given away to Mommy News & Views Readers. To be entered, please leave a comment sharing your nursing experience and the age of your baby. (this activity is required in order to be eligible to win)

Extra Entries:
You can get extra chances to win a copy of Learning To Wean by doing any or all of the following activities. Please leave a separate comment for each activity so that you will be entered to win. We will be using a random number generator to pick the winner, so be sure to enter a separate comment for each activity:

• Follow @MommyNews on Twitter – leave a comment here telling us that you are a follower. Tweet about the contest up to once per day to earn extra entries. Be sure to include a link to this post in your tweet and leave a comment for each one so that you will get your extra entries!
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This contest ends at 5 PM on Monday, June 29th. Enter now and tell your friends to enter too!