Food Poisoning and a start at weaning

I did something really dumb at work and ate some pizza of questionable age. That mistake cost me much trouble. I was violently ill with food poisoning which left me sick for two days and feeling queasy for at least a few more days after.

I had read that although you can nurse your child while you are sick, you should NOT nurse your child when you have food poisoning because the toxins from the poisons are passed on to the child in breastmilk. It made sense to me so I had no choice but to abstain from nursing Sasha while I was ill. She was not pleased at first and spent many miserable moments at my side sadly crying "mama! mama! mama!" while furiously signing milk at me. I was heartbroken and that compounded my misery. But eventually she carried on without me and eventually it seemed like she and her daddy were having a grand time without her mama.

So I guess you could say that the weaning process seems to have started. My milk production (and ahem... chest size) dropped and although Sasha was not happy to go to sleep without a nursing, she eventually seemed okay during the day. By the time I recovered, Sasha wasn't asking me anymore.

I wasn't quite prepared for a weaning like this, so we are back to nursing for naps and at bedtime, but otherwise we're now in the "Don't Offer; Don't Refuse" phase of weaning. If she does ask during the day, I offer her some juice or a cup of milk first and she is usually appeased by that instead. I did want to at least continue to nurse her at least once a day until the end of the cold and flu season, just in case. But I think I do want to have her weaned by her 18th month-old "birthday" in March.

Again I must note that with the decrease in nursing, Sasha's appetite has increased a lot. So I do believe that weaning will be good for her when the time comes to make the cut off. Until that cut off, we are in a state of reduced nursings, and I will have a month or so to figure out how to get her off her dependance on nursing to get to sleep.