Are you thinking about weaning your baby from the breast and not sure how to start? Our friend Jacky Souders from Mummies Nummies shares her weaning journey with us. What’s great about this piece is that it reiterates my point that parenting is not black and white but many shades of gray…I know that I can not breastfeed forever, I know that Kitkat can not be a teenager and still be breastfeeding. But why is it that I have such mixed feelings about weaning her down?! Now when I say weaning down… I do not mean weaning off…… As you might remember I am a scheduled nurser. I nurse my babies on a schedule….. same times every day. More or less Mommy Lead feeding. However, my girls do and did tell me when it is time to eat… which I still find pretty funny. Cranky baby?? Look at the clock…. oh well yeah it is time to eat! hehe
So 2 months ago I took away one feeding, which brought Kitkat from 6 feedings to 5. She did really well…. and so did I (hehe.) I then decided that at 15 months I would take away another feeding… well then at her 15 month well visit she had a cold and an ear infection…. so I decided to hold off on that plan. It is now 2 weeks later and she is healthy again. So 2 nights ago I stopped her 5th feeding. I am not crying over it…… but I still feel as though my heart is aching…. although that could be all the extra breastmilk that I am producing and not releasing!
Now to be honest, I did not plan this whole weaning thing out well enough. I should have staggered which feedings I was going to take away. But instead, so far, I have taken away her last 2 feedings of the day. Which means she last nurses at 4 pm and wont nurse again until 7 am the next morning! OMG I swore I had someone else’s breasts when I woke up day one.. someone with way bigger breasts and cement filled implants! (No I do not have implants but you get the image!)
So far though…. she is doing well. Since it was a “sleep feeding” (she would nurse while already asleep) I do not think she even notices the last feeding has been taken away. Luckily her night sleeping has not been interrupted and she is still sleeping all night. However.. funny story…. On the first night she was asleep and it was just about the time I normally pick her up and nurse her. She opened her eyes WIDE and looked at me. I got nervous, thinking she was wanting to eat…. but she went back to sleep within seconds. Hehe
My husband looked at me and said “What was that all about?” All I could do was shrug! Hehe.
She must have, subconsciously, known something was missing and knew it was time to nurse.
So now she is down to 4 feedings a day…… maybe by next week I wont have cement milk bags when I wake up! But knowing me………. prob not!
Maybe by next week my body will adjust to this change and I wont feel sore all day long! I swear it is all she can do to keep up during the day to the amount of milk I have. Like right now… it is 3:30 pm and I have 30 minutes until she nurses again. But I already FEEL my milk wanting to be FREED!
Mummies Nummies is a breastfeeding support blog a place where “mummies” can go to for support and share their stories with others.
Related posts:
