Very little research has been done on women's physical reactions to weaning. For now, we must base our summary mainly on the experiences of women we know.

Unless your milk production has stopped before weaning is complete, you will probably experience some decrease in appetite when you stop breastfeeding. Some women report losing weight and feeling restless for a week or so after weaning. Others, perhaps because they eat according to habit rather than appetite, gain weight after weaning.

After any post-weaning engorgement and breast lumps dissipate, you will probably find that your breasts are smaller even than they were before pregnancy. The areola may look shriveled, from being stretched in the baby's mouth, particularly after several years of nursing. After six months or so, new fat stores may make your breasts fill out a little.

Your breasts will probably continue to produce some fluid, if you try to express it, for months after complete weaning. Some women notice continued milk production for as long as two years after nursing ends. And, for months after the last nursing, some mothers occasionally notice the tingling sensation of milk letting down. One mother, whose breasts had never leaked while she was nursing, said milk dripped from them one night when she was very worried about her child's cough, three months after she had stopped nursing.

If your periods didn't resume before the last nursing, they probably will within a few weeks -- and so, probably, will your fertility. If you began menstruating before weaning was complete, expect that your next period may be early and heavy. Heavy periods may continue for several months as your body adjusts to the hormonal changes of weaning.

With the resumption of menstruation may come an increase in sex drive and vaginal lubrication (Bricklin 1987). If your periods started while you were still nursing, your sex drive may still increase at weaning, though this may be partly due to the decrease in tactile stimulation from your child. Some mothers find, however, that their breasts are less sensitive to erotic stimulation after weaning than before.

In a few women who have personal or familial histories of depression, rapid weaning in the first year may precipitate severe depression or even psychotic behavior. This may result from the hormonal changes at weaning, perhaps in combination with feelings of loss of the symbiotic mother-baby bond. Extreme anxiety, fears, frequent tearfulness, insomnia, and loss of appetite are signs that medical help is needed (Susman and Katz 1988).

Normally, a mother's feelings after weaning can vary from grief to relief. Distress after weaning is more likely the earlier weaning occurs. Some mothers, who never planned to nurse for long or who were determined not to be "tied down" by a baby, have no regrets about early weaning. But one study found that 63 percent of women who weaned at two to three months wished they could have nursed longer, and 50 percent of those who weaned at four to nine months regretted weaning so soon (Rogers et al. 1987). If you have weaned before you were really ready, you may feel angry -- at yourself, for not being able to do what you feel should come naturally, and at other people, perhaps for encouraging you to breastfeed, for giving inconsistent advice or none at all, or for pressuring you to wean. You may feel rejected if your baby seems to prefer the bottle to your breasts or your mate's care to your own. You may feel anxious about the baby, who is no longer getting "the best," or about your own mothering abilities. You may feel guilty about your failure to live up to your own expectations. Such feelings will be exacerbated if you had romantic visions of nursing, if you nursed an older child successfully and so feel acutely what the younger one is lacking, if you just like to do things the natural way, or if you suffered through engorgement after believing you had too little milk. If you've learned, perhaps from reading this book, that weaning wasn't necessarily the best way to solve your problems, you may feel like a fool.

If you have such feelings, be assured your sadness will diminish in time. Appreciate your own courage and determination in persisting as long as you did with breastfeeding problems. Remember that any amount of breastfeeding benefits a baby, even if it's just one feeding of colostrum. Your baby will love being fed no matter what you feed her. And it is possible to minimize health risks and establish a strong mother-baby relationship when you must bottle-feed.

Even mothers who breastfeed for close to a year or more sometimes feel sad when nursing ends. Many women speak nostalgically of the "warmth," "closeness," and "cuddling" of their nursing years. A woman may miss nursing even if she initiated weaning and has no regrets about having done so. But she is most likely to feel sad about ending nursing if her child initiated weaning. Even if the mother had planned to wean soon, she may feel surprised and a little discouraged when her child rejects her in favor of a cup or bottle.

A mother may feel guilty, too, if a child develops health problems soon after weaning. Whether or not the antibodies in her milk could have prevented the child's illness, she may regret that she can't nurse the child through the sickness. If your child gets sick soon after weaning, you might offer your breast whether or not you have any milk. Even a few weak sucks on a dry breast will probably give some solace. Your child may take comfort, too, from resting his head or hand on your breast.

Guilt feelings may also arise when a mother has weaned for what she sees as selfish reasons -- to take a vacation without the kids, for instance. If the child adjusts quickly, seems happy, and is making developmental strides, guilt feelings quickly recede. But if a child regresses -- to wearing diapers, for instance -- or expresses unfulfilled needs in ways like thumb-sucking or carrying around a bottle, a mother may know her decision to wean was not in her child's best interests. If you find yourself in this situation, and if you can't or don't wish to start nursing again, it's probably best to allow relatively harmless self-soothing measures like thumbsucking, but to also strive to give your child a lot of love and attention in ways such as cuddling and playing together.

Perhaps most mothers have mixed feelings about weaning when they plan to have no more children. In this case the last nursing marks the end of a woman's reproductive years. The last nursing is, like the first menstruation, a momentous life event for which our culture provides no rite of passage. Other people, even a woman's own family members, may be blind to her feelings, which she may lack words to express anyway. Perhaps this is a time to make "a great feast," as Abraham reputedly did on the day that Isaac was weaned. Both mother and child should be honored, since they have each completed a major passage from one stage of life to another.

The Zulu women had good reason to fear, researchers found: All their children showed disturbed social behavior after weaning (as described in Chapter 4). As far as we can determine, no similar studies have been made of weanlings in the United States or elsewhere. Western children might not react to weaning as strongly as Zulu children, who one day have free access to the breast and the next day have none. Still, most children may have stronger reactions to weaning than their parents care to talk about.

In all but a few of the Zulu children, however, the disturbed behavior ended within a few weeks. In describing their children after weaning, Zulu, American, and other mothers may tend to put out of their minds the stressful period immediately after nursing ends, and focus on their children's later behavior. It is not until a child has resigned herself to the loss of the breast, after all, that she can be considered fully weaned.

Some psychologists believe that no child ever resigns himself entirely to the loss of the breast. This may perhaps be true, since even children who voluntarily wean may be reacting, for instance, to a low milk supply or a sore in the mouth, and they may miss the breast even if they don't show it. In children weaned beyond about the age of three, nursing never leaves even the conscious memory, and as the older child voluntarily gives up nursing he may express ambivalence about doing so.

But as parents we must judge our children's well-being by their immediate behavior. If a child is happy and healthy now, it makes no sense to worry about what she may say on a psychoanalyst's couch thirty years from now.

Our society's lack of shared standards about weaning is both a blessing and a curse. It is a curse in that it forces every mother to make the difficult decision of when and how to wean each child, and the resulting uncertainty she may feel can make weaning more of a struggle than it should be. But this lack of rules is also a blessing, in that it permits a mother to consider her child's needs over society's will. If a child is anxious, clingy, and sad during gradual weaning or soon after the last nursing, the mother can always start nursing again, at least as often as is necessary for her child's comfort.

Whether or not they are willing to postpone complete weaning, most mothers go out of their way to make up for the end of breastfeeding. They may be tempted to use the time no longer spent nursing in activities that exclude the child, but just-weaned children usually demand a lot of attention. After weaning, a mother usually finds herself in a transformed but still demanding relationship with her child. Feeding a baby with bottle, cup, or spoon is hard work, as are the talking, playing, reading, and comforting that a toddler or older child demands. The effort pays off, mothers find, as their weaned children venture into the world, making developmental strides in such areas as walking and talking, and perhaps becoming more independent, outgoing, and responsible. When these things happen, a mother knows her child has put any anger or sadness about weaning behind her; she is truly well weaned.