My son finally slept through the night for the first time.

I always said that I would let him self wean, but my body had other plans. I lost my milk a couple of weeks ago and have been making a slow, but steady path through weaning.

My son has always relied on nursing as a sleeping crutch, ever since he was 3 months old. Until last night, he was waking every hour or two to nurse. Before I lost my milk, it was a good thing, because he's a little guy and doesn't eat real well, so the extra milk was good for him.

But with no milk, there was no point in letting it continue, especially because it had become extremely extremely irritating, like sandpaper or like he was scraping me with his teeth. He wasn't. It was just a side effect of losing my milk and being pregnant again.

My husband works 14-17 hours a day, 7 days a week in the heat and around dangerous equipment, so letting my son cry at all wasn't really an option.

I just started by trying to cuddle my son when he woke up instead of nursing. At first, he would rarely except that and would cry, so out would come the boob. Slowly he got used to it and would accept cuddles most of the time.

Then, I started replacing morning nursing with cuddles. Once my husband left in the morning, I enacted a no nursing, just cuddles policy. He took to it fairly easily considering he would spent 30/45 minutes nursing to wake up in the morning.

Last night, my husband worked late, so I was able to try for the first time to put my son to bed at night without nursing him to sleep. It's been over a year since he's fallen asleep without nursing. It took an hour of telling him "No, no boobies." He cried twice, but only for a few seconds. Really, it was just a side effect of being told no. My husband finally got off at 11 and after hearing his voice on the phone, my son snuggled up to me and passed right out. I expected a night of fighting for the boob, like always.

He slept straight through the night. I, however, did not. I guess my biological clock is now set to wake every hour or two. I mean, why not? I've done it for 15.5 months now.

But hopefully this is the beginning of a restful nights sleep for my son and I, instead of just a fluke.

It's kind of bittersweet. I really had plans of nursing my son until he quit, though I hoped he wouldn't before two. I had plans of tandem nursing him with his little brother/sister. But at least this way, I can get more rest while pregnant and not be waking up with a toddler, in addition to my newborn when he's born.

We still have an uphill battle in some places. He hasn't yet taken a nap without nursing to sleep, only gone to bed without nursing once, and I still have to figure out how to get him to eat more to replace his lost calories. I finally got him to accept almond milk, which is the first breast milk replacement he has accepted. He will only take the sweetened kind, but once he's gained more weight, I will mix it with unsweetened and slowly replace.

I'm definitely sad that our nursing has come to an end, but I'm finally starting to accept that. I am incredibly grateful that I got 15 months because I know some women get nothing at all. &I; do get to start a new breastfeeding journey with my second in 6 months, so I have that to look forward to.