End of an era

1 Sep

I was so excited when I weaned Hannah. She hadn’t been interested in the boob during the day for quite some time and her only feed was overnight. She was 1 year old and she drank cow’s milk quite happily. She did not want to waste any play time sitting in my lap with her face on my chest. Boring!

Hannah was also a loooooong feeder. She took ages to have a drink. When she was born, and for a few months afterwards, she took 2 hours each feed. I’m not even joking. I spent the first 6 weeks of her life mostly un-showered, and wearing only a fluffy pink bathrobe. With nothing under it. Usually I had to eat my meals while she ate hers, one handed and trying not to spill anything on her tiny little head. Pretty much everyone and their mother was quite familiar with my boobs since I had them out nearly 24/7. Ugh, I cringe at the thought.

When it came to weaning time, I slowly dropped her last feed, giving her less and less time on each boob every night. By her very last feed, we were down to 30 seconds per boob. And that was it. I never breastfed her again. I don’t even think she woke up at night after that. Not even the next night. She just slept through.

I weaned Daniel off his over night feed a few months ago. I’ve been cutting out other feeds every few weeks until I got down to the just-before-bed feed. The one that fills his tummy and keeps him sleeping all night long. I had intended to have him fully weaned the week after his first birthday. But I was lazy. Plus, every night after his bath, he would look at me all milky-eyed and try to rip my shirt off whilst he shoved his face in my chest. Needless to say, I wasn’t overly enthusiastic about cutting him off completely.

I just did the slow thing. Like I did with Hannah. 4 minutes one night. 3 minutes the next. Then 2. Then we were stuck on one minute for about a week.

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Because you know what? I like feeding him. When he’s drinking, he moves his eyeballs to the very corner of their sockets just so he can look at me lovingly. Then he puts his adorable, chubby little hand straight up and strokes my face (and by strokes, I mean tries to shove it in my mouth, pinches my chin, or just pokes me in general. Whatever, it’s affection all the same), or grabs my hand and plays with it while he sucks.

It’s nice.

As I started cutting down the feeding time, he was not impressed. The first time I took him off after a minute, he screamed. I felt absolutely horrible. But I still didn’t give him any more milk.

The night before last, I was going to give him one minute on each side. He was quite tired, whinging and throwing himself backwards (he does that when he has tantrums…). I got one of my girls out, but he just threw himself backwards on the couch, scrunched up his face and kept whinging. I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice the boob, but I took the opportunity all the same.

I put the boob away and gave him a banana instead. He didn’t try to pull my shirt off, or shove his face in my chest. He went to sleep just fine. He slept all night. No wait, he woke up. But that was because of his coughing.

Last night I gave him a banana again. He put his face in my chest for about 2 seconds, but that was it. No whinging, no tantrums. Possibly because Aaron put Gran Turismo on the play station in car demo mode and gave Daniel the controller. He loves cars. He was mesmerised and got to push buttons. Either way, he didn’t have a feed, and went to sleep just fine.

But I’m still a little sad.

Maybe I won’t be when the weather warms up a little and I can wear all of my summer dresses without worrying about how I will possibly breastfeed without taking the entire dress off.

P.S. Why was I giving him bananas instead of cow’s milk or formula? Well, he won’t drink those. He takes one sip, warm or cold, and then throws the cup on the floor in disgust as spits the sip all over himself. Don’t worry, he eats plenty of different foods, including yogurt and cheese, and drinks plenty of water, so the doctor said he will be fine. Doc does think that once he is completely weaned (which I guess is as of now), he will start to be more receptive of cow milk.

He eats plenty of different foods

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