There are far too few books to help toddlers deal with the more "countercultural" transitions -- while potty training and crib-to-big beds and becoming an older sibling books abound, it's incredibly difficult to find books about weaning an older child or moving from the family bed to a separate sleep space, probably because the stigma surrounding these parenting choices is large enough to make publishers believe there aren't many of us "out there" as a market. Nursies When the Sun Shines is a godsend to parents of nursing toddlers, exhausted from late night wakings for milk. Beautiful watercolor illustrations and a sweet, lulling verse help young children understand the concept of night and day. Night time, the book explains, is for sleeping. “Nursies,” on the other hand, happen when the sun shines. In Nursies, a toussle-haired toddler is snuggled up in bed with mom and dad, ready to go to sleep for the night, the family’s grey striped cat snoozing soundly at their feet. When the toddler wakes at night for “nursies,” mom shows her baby that it’s dark outside, and assures baby that she’ll have nursies when the sun shines. Later, with brilliant sun streaming through the window, the toddler knows it’s time for nursies. The book closes with a heart-warming illustration of a nursing family: the toddler, nuzzled up to mama’s breast, daddy kissing toddler’s head, and even the family cat purring a love song. Nursies is a groundbreaking children’s book, the first-ever to focus on night weaning. Its goal is to facilitate communication between parent and young child, thereby making the process of night weaning as gentle and easy as possible. On a larger level, it is my belief that the book helps lengthen breastfeeding terms because it gives an option to exhausted moms other than cold turkey full weaning.

My name is Katherine Havener. My book is Nursies When the Sun Shines and it’s a book that is meant to help moms communicate with their toddlers that nursing is for the daytime and that nighttime is for sleeping. Il existe plusieurs livres en anglais dédiés au thème du sevrage nocturne, et j’ai choisi celui-ci pour ses illustrations douces, presque féériques. Le livre est court, donc l’enfant ne perd pas le fil, et la couverture est toute veloutée. A la fin, l’auteure partage quelques trucs et astuces pour utiliser ce livre dans l’optique du sevrage nocturne. Incidentally, my third and fourth babes have been every-two-hour night nursers too so I have now used my own book to nightwean both of them. J

Hopefully, a toddler that sleeps through the night (or mostly sleeps through the night); a mom that is more rested and thus has more patience and sanity during the day; and a toddler that has come through the nightweaning process still bonded, attached and feeling loved. My second daughter, Elea, who was my first toddler nursling, woke up every two hours from birth until about 22 months old. At that point, even with co-sleeping, I was exhausted and crabby and not the best mother I could be – so I knew nightweaning was what I needed to do for our family. I wanted to do it as gently as possible and not change the family bed/breastfeeding-to-sleep dynamic that was so important to us. Nightweaning was challenging because it was so hard to communicate the concepts of day and night. I wished there was a book I could show her that would help her understand! One night, well after she was night weaned, the idea and text for the book came to me. I wrote it in pencil by moonlight while lying in bed next to my sleeping girls and my husband.

Nursies When the Sun Shines is a godsend to parents of nursing toddlers, exhausted from late night wakings for milk. Beautiful watercolor illustrations and a sweet, lulling verse help young children understand the concept of night and day. Night time, the book explains, is for sleeping. "Nursies," on the other hand, happen when the sun shines. In Nursies, a toussle-haired toddler is snuggled up in bed with mom and dad, ready to go to sleep for the night, the family's grey striped cat snoozing soundly at their feet. When the toddler wakes at night for "nursies," mom shows her baby that it's dark outside, and assures baby that she'll have nursies when the sun shines. Later, with brilliant sun streaming through the window, the toddler knows it's time for nursies. The book closes with a heart-warming illustration of a nursing family: the toddler, nuzzled up to mama's breast, daddy kissing toddler's head, and even the family cat purring a love song. Nursies is a groundbreaking children's book, the first-ever to focus on night weaning. Its goal is to facilitate communication between parent and young child, thereby making the process of night weaning as gentle and easy as possible.