Weaning: Vacation Ahead

I am bound and determined to be done with nursing by the time Amalia's first birthday rolls around.  She seems ready, having already decreased to one or two feedings a day and LOVING her water bottle.  And I am ready; I miss drinking milk and eating yogurt, and I would LOVE not to have to whip my shirt up at all during the day or have my chest ache from missing a feeding.

So, ready as we are to hop off the nursing train, I am a little unsure of what to expect when all this stops.  The last time I stopped nursing I was pregnant, so I don't really know how this whole weaning thing works.  When does your body get back to "normal"?  And what is my new normal going to be?  I already weigh several pounds less than I did before I got pregnant with Baylor; in fact, I am smaller than I have been in years, due to a combination of nursing, eating better, and exercising more.  So what happens after I stop nursing?  Will I gain weight?  Will I lose weight?

In short, as my sister so aptly put it the other day, I'm about as screwed as you can get when it comes to clothes right now.  Not only am I weaning (new bra size), but I am not pregnant or post-partum (new waist size) and I'm exercising (new hip and thigh size).  To sum things up, I have only a couple pair of jeans that really fit me well, and the rest of my closet is slightly baggy.  To compound the confusion, we are leaving on vacation a couple weeks after Mollie's birthday ... vacation in Florida.  Where I'll need shorts.

*sigh*

So, soon, I'll get to go shopping for new bras (smaller ones for my newly-deflated chest), a new bathing suit (a tankini to cover my belly - though very toned, my skin has not rebounded like I'd hoped it would), new shorts (my old ones are too big and outdated), and probably some new shirts (again, smaller chest).  It's the perfect storm of craptasticness.  Oh, and I get to do it in a total time-crunch, vacation looming large on the horizon.

I know I shouldn't be complaining; I know I am very lucky to have lost all the baby weight I gained (64 and 56 pounds per pregnancy) and then some.  And I get to go on vacation to Florida; again, nothing to sneeze at.  I guess what I'm looking for is advice and insight from anyone who has been here before me.

How long until my body fully done with nursing?  Meaning, when will I know where things have settled?  

Weaning: Do It Yourself?

I just put both kids down for a nap.  Baylor, being two and awesome and all, has decided he doesn't want to nap and is just going to make a bunch of noise in his crib.  *sigh*

Mollie, on the other hand, would not nursed.  Flat-out refused to.  I tried forcing her down ... nada.  Oookay.  So I read her a few books, thinking that might get her drowsy enough to want to nurse.  Nope.

Instead, she looked at her crib, said, "Nigh-nigh," and made a goodbye waving motion with her hand.

Riiiight.

Tried nursing her again and she responded the same way.

Fine, I thought, you don't want to nurse, you can go in your crib.

So, I put her in, she snuggled down with her pink bear (Dollie and Sleep Sheep were in the wash) and I haven't heard a peep out of her.  I really can't believe it.  Could she be weaning herself?!

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 ...

Breast Feeding

I knew I wanted to breastfeed my baby since before he was born, and since it is a natural thing to do I assumed it would be easy. Not so, in my experience. It took almost six weeks or so for it to feel "natural" and stop hurting. In the beginning my son actually lost weight - over a pound while in the hospital - and we had to see the local lactation consultants a few times before we got things right. Now things work more or less like clockwork, and I have a big healthy boy to prove it.

In my quest for comfort I tried lanolin, but it didn't seem to help ... and then the lactation consultant asked if I was allergic to wool (I am) and she told me that some people who are allergic to wool have a negative reaction to lanolin because it is derived from wool. No one ever said anything about it to me, so I thought I'd write about it here to let my very small audience know that.

While it was difficult at the beginning and it's not ideal having to nearly expose myself every time I want to feed him, I know the benefits well outweigh any of the pain or inconvenience to me. Hopefully the milk will help protect him against allergies and illness and give him a good headstart. I figure it's the least I can do.