Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Weaning: Read at Your Own Risk

I was prepared to write this whole long post with questions about how to wean the little lady.  Her first birthday is coming up (she's 11 months old today!!) and I am planning on being DONE nursing on her birthday.  I want a giant glass of milk, with a Shamrock shake chaser, on her birthday, so weaning will have to commence soon so I don't mess this up.  And, though this is the second child I have breastfed and pumped for, I never had to actively wean Baylor; by his first birthday he was pretty much done with sitting down to be nursed and my milk was drying up quickly because I was already pregnant with Mollie.  Since I am NOT getting pregnant again, I have been actively trying to figure out how to do this whole weaning thing.

Then this morning happened.

Usually I get up early every morning, start my breakfast, start up the computer, and sit down and pump for an hour and a half so she'll have milk for her cereal (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).  I HATE pumping.  It is infuriating and boring, but I have been doing it for months since I knew it was best for her and I could physically do it.  I also got a fancy electric pump when she was born so I didn't have to use the evil hand pump I used when Baylor was a baby, and I felt pretty good about that.

This morning started out like any other morning.  The routine was enacted smoothly.  Until my pump died.  I think I actually killed the motor.  I tried restarting it.  It sounded so sad and then fizzled out.  This happened several times.  Then it wouldn't start.

Awesome.

So, I begrudgingly pulled out the hand pump and started using that.  After a few hand-cramping minutes I stopped and found I only had a half an ounce to show for it.

Even more awesome.

Yup, so long story short, I am officially stopping pumping today.  Because I have to.

If any of you out there have any advice on weaning a baby off nursing (since we're apparently going cold turkey on the pumping front), I would welcome it!

Now I'm off to do something ... no idea what, though.  I didn't expect to have two hands to myself at any point today.  Hm ...

1 comment:

Autumn said...

I didn't nurse...but to wean off the bottle I just started replacing each bottle feeding with a meal, sippy cup or cuddles. By 12 months they were only down to 3 bottles anyway...morning after waking up, between lunch and dinner and then before bed. Bedtime was the easiest to cut out. I don't believe in milk before bed. I just fed them a good dinner and then we had cuddles at bedtime. For the between lunch/dinner I just fed them a snack. And then in the morning I gave them a sippy cup.
I am a firm believer in cold turkey though and it's how I got rid of pacifiers. :)

Good luck!