Well, we reached a milestone over the weekend. And it’s kind of funny, since I’ve been thinking about this so much lately and ended up not even being the one to decide how it was going to happen after all. D has stopped nursing. Wait, what, already? I thought I was going to tell her when we stopped, not the other way around.
Everything was going fine as usual Friday morning when I fed her before daycare, then R came in the room to get to his closet and she got distracted by Daddy. This always happens, so she stopped eating after just a little bit. But then when I tried to feed her when we got home from daycare Friday afternoon she refused, which was odd. Even if she’s not really hungry she’d never flat out refused to nurse before. Ok, no big deal, we’ll just try again later. Her cold was kicking in again, and we’re afraid her ear infection is back too (greeeat, gotta call the doctor again today to try to get it cleared up one more time), so I didn’t think it was totally bizarre that she wasn’t hungry. What I did find more strange, though, was when she refused to nurse before bed that night. She had eaten dinner at her normal time around 6:30, but she had no milk at all that afternoon or night, just some water from her bottle shortly before bed. I was convinced this wouldn’t cut the mustard and she’d be up at least once in the middle of the night, but I was wrong (not complaining on that error of judgment, mind you, just surprised). She slept through ’til her normal wakeup time of 6:30 Saturday morning, but then refused the boob once more. Now I was kind of perplexed – 3 times in a row of no Mommy eating? What’d I do wrong? She happily gulped down a bottle though, so at least it wasn’t that she had no appetite.
So, my friends, it appears my days as a milkin’ mama are drawing to a close. It’s pretty bittersweet too, surprisingly. I’ve become very ready to be done nursing lately, or at least be done pumping, I should say. Which is silly, since I planned on continuing to pump for a while even after D stopped nursing, just to make sure we had enough stockpiled in the freezer to last her to the one year mark on breast milk. She gets distracted so easily now too, sometimes nursing was almost a chore. Getting her to pay attention to eating without chewing on my necklace instead, or watching R as he walked by, or listening to R if he started talking, or looking up at me if I said something, was becoming a little tiresome, and I knew it would probably just get more so the bigger and squirmier she got.
But now I actually kind of miss it. That really is a special bond between mom and baby, something no one else but me will ever get to experience or know. Gazing down at my precious little angel, just a few inches from my face, knowing I’m the one providing for her. Even when she was a newborn and it happened all hours of the day and night, sometimes to the point where I was convinced there was no way she’d be able to get another drop out of there since it seemed like she had just eaten, yet always did. And now it’s gone. Just like that. I didn’t get that one last nursing that I expected to have and remember when I wanted to stop, it just came out of the blue. I thought maybe I’d still get the occasional nursing in if she woke up during the night, or possibly at bedtime if she was really hungry/overtired and the bottle just wasn’t cutting it. But she woke up last night and refused me again, wanting the bottle instead. *Tear*
8.5 months is pretty good though, so I can’t be too upset. And like I said, I was pretty much ready for this. I just didn’t think it was going to happen right.now. I was planning on nursing her through the end of next month, with just a few more pumping sessions after that so I was done with the boob milk factory by summer. I guess D had different plans. I’m still going to try to pump twice a day to keep adding to our reserves for that next month, but I can tell that only expressing once every 12 hours has already started to reduce my supply over just these past couple days. Hopefully my body is just getting used to a reduced schedule and I’ll still be able to produce enough to keep that going for a couple more weeks, because I really didn’t want to be completely finished with it all quite yet. That one year mark is a big psychological barrier for me – I’ve always heard before then babies aren’t supposed to transition to cow’s milk, so I really really want to get her there with my milk if at all possible. I counted up how many bags we have frozen, and right now we’re sitting on 57. I’ll have to do a little math to see how long this will last us if my supply does dwindle before I’d hoped. And hopefully as D starts eating more and more solids and drinking more water between meals instead of milk, she won’t need as much Mommy’s milk and we’ll make it through the summer for her.
I can’t help but wonder – why did she decide to stop? Was it something I did? I thought maybe my little “Stop biting!” shout Thursday morning scared her away from me, that she started associating nursing with me getting upset, but she did nurse fine Thursday night and Friday morning. I sure hope that wasn’t the reason why. I’d feel so horrible if I scared my baby away from eating from me because I tried to make her eat when she wasn’t hungry and then startled her when I got bitten, which was totally my fault. Ugh. Did she start sensing my increasing anxiety of a nibble with each feeding? That I was scared that as she sprouted more teeth the likelihood that I was going to get bitten when I fed her increased exponentially? I did notice when I tried to feed her Friday afternoon/evening that she looked like she was going in more for a nibble than a suckling, so I kind of shied away each time. I don’t know. Maybe she’s just ready to be done. I seriously do hope, though, that it wasn’t something I did that made her want to stop. Fortunately she’s happy as a clam when she takes the bottles still, so she does continue to get the great nutritional value of my milk.
8.5 months and she’s already asserting some independence. Aww, my baby is growing up so fast… *sniff, sniff*
I must admit, though, it was nice to not bring the pump to work today for the first time since I’ve come back. And I don’t have to wear nursing bras anymore, or worry about nursing pads for said bras. And I won’t have to tote the pump along everywhere we go if we’re gone for more than a few hours anymore. Maybe I’ll be ok after all.