The Life of Bon: Teach Me How to Wean

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Teach Me How to Wean




We're ready to wean over here.

Correction.

I'm ready to wean.

June's ready to guzzle down her breastmilk for the next eighteen years.  Maybe twenty?  Yah.  Twenty sounds good.

From the get go, June has been the one who has insisted on breast feeding.  While I was pregnant I decided that I wouldn't push breast feeding if there were issues. (I know, I'm like, the worst mom ever.)  I even recall saying that I was committed to breastfeeding as I was a hole in the head.  I had heard all the horror stories, every one, and I made up my mind that having a new baby was going to be stressful enough and if the breastfeeding was too tough, that was one I was willing to let go.  You gotta pick your battles, you know.

But June latched right on.  She knew what to do, in fact, even kind of showed me the way.  The milk came easily and freely, June let me know when it was go time, and we just kind of fell in to it.  We figured out pretty quickly how to nurse in public, and it became an easy and sweet relationship- me and June and my feeders.  For that I am extremely grateful.  Somewhere along the way I became sort of attached to our nursing jam and when my milk started to slow down a couple months into the process, I did everything I could to keep it coming.  (Thanks to awesome suggestions from blog readers!)

And it kept coming.
And June kept nursing.
And now, here we are, staring a year of breastfeeding in the face.




A year!  I have been feeding another human with my body for almost a year.

It is a feat and I am proud!

I am also ready to be done.

I don't know if moms are allowed to say that.  To admit that they don't love every dang minute nursing.  That sometimes they wish the man could pull out his feeders and nourish the child.  That it is frustrating to not be able to leave your baby for more than four hours- to have someone so absolutely and utterly dependent on your constant company.

Allowed or not, I'm saying it.  I'm done with nursing.  I'm tired of June crying when she sees me because she just wants what's under my shirt.  I'm tired of having to wear the same stretched out tees every day to feed her easily.  I'm tired of being the only one who has got the goods- the food and the comfort and the ultimate sign of peace.  I need other people to be able to give that to June, too.

The question is, how does one go about weaning?  Our doc said we could start introducing whole milk at 11 months.  June hates it.  She has always taken from a bottle, but the minute she tastes the cow's milk on her tongue, she cries and wiggles and grabs for my shirt.  I have tried to stretch out her feedings by giving her bigger meals and lots of water, but then my boobs ache like crazy after six or eight hours.  How does one just stop the milk from coming?

Of course I took the internet to try to find help.  A lot of articles said to let your baby decide when she's done nursing.  Sorry, but June's not deciding this.  Most articles said to do it gradually, and that one day you'd wake up and realize that you hadn't nursed for a few days.  I find that hard to believe that the transition could really be that seamless.  Nothing I read said to stop cold turkey, but I admit this is a tempting thought.  I figure it'll be one hellish week and then we're done with the whole thing?  One year olds have short memories, after all.

I'd love to hear how your weaning process was and if it really is possible to do it so easily.  I definitely want to be done by the end of the summer.  Greg and I are going on a vacation in August that June is not invited to.  I know I could pump for a week, but that just sounds horrible.  Also, I can't do another frantic year of running down to daycare during my prep to feed June.  That and I don't have a prep period next year, so yah... it's do or die.

Please send help.
But please don't send Dwight.


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