Sometimes things in parenting are harder on the mom than the child. The topic of this post is weaning. Breastfeeding is something that I truly enjoyed. I loved that bond I felt with Ethan. Granted, I didn't not like when it hurt, but breastfeeding is something I am so glad worked for us. Honestly, it was what was "easy". It wasn't always the most convenient, but it worked for us. By the time Ethan was 1 we were breastfeeding morning, night, and 3 times during the day (when he was home with me). When he was at daycare, he did morning, night, and once during the day. When I went back to work in August I did not pump during the day any more and Ethan took frozen milk at daycare. Over the next few months we slowly took out the "after daycare" feeding. That was tough. Basically in order to do this we had to spend the evening out of the house. He was fine whenever we were out and about, but if we were home, he wanted to nurse. After about 2 weeks of going somewhere every evening, we finally weaned away from this feeding. One of the hardest parts of this was that Ethan learned the sign for "milk", so he would go over to the chair we nurse in and make the sign for milk. It broke my heart to see him do that and not feed him.
I honestly planned on nursing the other times during the day indefinitely. I planned on letting Ethan take the lead. Then, I found out that I was going to be taking a 4 day trip for school to Chicago at the end of November. I then decided that I wanted to wean by then as I did not want to worry about pumping and bottles and making sure he had enough milk, etc. I kept putting off the weaning, as I was not sure I really wanted to. Finally, the second night of parent teacher conferences when Patty helping Jed watch Ethan I decided that it was going to be the night to try to put Ethan down for bed without nursing. Usually when I was gone he would get a bottle of thawed milk before bed. That night they put him straight to bed, and he slept all night without fussing (just like normal). Since then (Oct 18) he has went to bed without nursing every night. Sometimes he will cry when Jed is taking him downstairs, but once he gets the pacifier, he is fine. This past weekend we did not nurse during the day either, and my mom put him down for naps without nursing. He slept great. Weaning off the night time and day time nursings has not seemed to bother him at all. Honestly this hurts my heart a little. I know how silly this sounds, but it makes me feel like I'm not as necessary anymore. We are still nursing first thing in the morning, and I am still debating on giving this up. Giving up nursing has been a lot harder for me than I thought it would be. I thought I would enjoy being done with nursing, but that has not been the case. I miss that special bond we have.
Anyway, I needed to get some of my feelings down on this topic. Breastfeeding has caused me to question my mothering abilities a lot in the past 15 months, but it has also made me feel so good to provide that for my child.
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