Thoughts on Weaning

A note: I've been working on this post for weeks and am still having trouble expressing myself. In that time, Laurie did a beautiful post on her thoughts and experiences with breastfeeding and weaning. So, if you find this post lacking and scattered, I highly recommend you check hers out and imagine that I just said: "Ditto." 

Before I got pregnant and in the first months of my pregnancy, when (or, more appropriately, if) I thought about breastfeeding I always thought it was something I would do for a short while but it wasn’t something that was all that important to me. I was of the “even getting breast milk for a few weeks is good enough” school of thought. As I got closer to Oliver’s birth I did lots of reading on breastfeeding and decided that it was something I wanted to do for at least a couple of months. I was prepared for the fact that breastfeeding was often difficult but felt committed to trying to make it work by asking for help in the first few weeks if I needed it. I still felt that it was something I would only do for a couple of months.  

After Oliver was born, I realized how lucky we were that breastfeeding came so easily to both of us. We “clicked” into a comfortable routine almost immediately. Sure, I had to deal with cracked nipples and painful engorgement in the first few weeks but those discomforts were to be expected and passed rather quickly. During my maternity leave, I came to love (most of) the hours I spent nursing (I never was crazy about it in the middle of the night). I figured out how to read while he nursed and loved the fact that it was built in cuddle time. No matter where we were or who we were with I knew I would get plenty of chances to hold him because I was where the food came from. 

Because we made such a great nursing pair, I quickly decided that my dream goal for breastfeeding would be six months although whenever anyone asked me how long I planned on nursing I would answer “one more month.” That is, I set myself the long term goal of hitting six months but tried to take it one month at a time. As we got closer to that six month mark I let myself begin to think that maybe this was something I could do for an entire year and made that my goal - although it was a goal I shared only with those closest to me. With anyone else, I stuck to the “one more month” answer. I was determined to see it through but I allowed myself one caveat. If after six months of nursing one or both of us were ready to throw in the towel, then that would be the end of it. I wasn’t going to force the issue after six months. Now it is eleven months later, and I'm surprised to find myself asking: "Am I really ready to be done?" For the past eleven months, my thoughts on weaning have been pretty abstract. At times I would be giddy thinking about reaching the year mark and leaving the breastfeeding days behind me. But as I get closer to the actual date, I find myself less excited than I had expected. 

I am going to miss nursing Oliver and when I think of that last nursing session (because there will inevitably be that "last time"), I find myself getting really emotional. Oliver and I share such an amazing bond and nursing is such an important part of our relationship. I struggle to imagine what our relationship will look like once nursing is no longer a part of it. Nursing has never been just about food for Oliver. He has never taken a pacifier, so I have filled that role - letting him nurse when he is fussy or needs help calming down before going to sleep. It is how we reconnect after I have been away - whether for a week or for a day. When I get home from work (regardless of when he last ate), Oliver demands to be nursed. I've also found that whenever he hurts himself (bumps on the head, etc.), that nursing immediately makes him forget his pain (I've actually gotten better lately about this and have found other ways to distract him when he gets the inevitable bumps and bruises). And, it's not just Oliver that gets more from nursing. I love that no matter how hectic my day is or how late I get home from work, that I will have twenty minutes of time just for the two of us when I nurse him before he goes to bed. He's not a cuddly baby with most people, but because of our nursing relationship I get to hold him in my arms numerous times a day. Nursing is a time for me to sit down, put my feet up and focus on nothing other than being with my child. I'm afraid that I'll forget to take those moments when Oliver is no longer nursing. 

I've also found myself weary of weaning at this point because of all of the nursing "propaganda"(I'm sorry, there's no other word for it) I keep encountering on pro-breastfeeding websites while I've been looking for information on how to wean. If you Google, "weaning your one-year old," you inevitably end up at a website that tells you that you are doing a horrible thing by "forcing" your child to quit nursing before they are ready. All of these sites recommend (or demand) that the nursing relationship continue until the child himself decides to give up the breast. Considering how attached Oliver is to the whole nursing experience, I'm guessing this will be sometime around his fifth birthday and I'm not really interested in nursing that long. But, regardless of the fact that I think these recommendations are ridiculous (and despite the fact that I feel cheated for getting berated for breastfeeding for a YEAR and wanting to quit now), I find myself at times wondering if whether they aren't right. Maybe it is unfair of me to expect Oliver to wean when he so obviously wants to continue. 

But, when all of these doubts start to creep up, I think of the Pump. Months and months ago, when my maternity leave was over and I headed back to work, pump in hand, I met new breastfeeding challenges. I hated (still hate) pumping. But I knew I was lucky. I have my own office, with a door that locks and no windows. A perfect pumping room. Plus, I almost always managed to come home with enough milk for the next day and even managed to build a pretty substantial freezer stash. (why is it, by the way, that I always felt so proud/competitive about my freezer stash? That's just weird.) I was very possessive/obsessive about my pumped milk. I hated wasting even an ounce of it and would often get mad at my mom and Brian when I would come home and find milk still left in the bottles they had given him. I will take this opportunity to apologize for that. Sorry I was so crazy. But now pumping has become an issue. In the last two weeks I have not been coming home with enough milk. Whereas I used to pump twice at work and come home with eight or more ounces, now I pump three times and come home with barely six. I'm not having any problems when I'm nursing him but my body is obviously giving up on the pump. 

I had been planning to drop one pumping session at work the week before his birthday and just give him breast milk from the freezer (I still have about 8 bags of milk left) and then the week after his birthday, I could go to work pump-free. But now I'm worried that my supply won't last that long and I'm looking to try and quit pumping sooner than that (though I'm still not sure how that would work considering I don't have the breast milk stashed). We have given him a couple of sips of cow's milk every day for the past couple of days but he's not that interested in it so, even if we wanted to, there's no way we could replace any of his breast milk feedings with cow milk any time soon. Maybe I could try to nurse him twice before I went to work so that he would only have to take one bottle while I'm at work? But, I'm digressing...

The pump starts off my list of things I'm looking forward to when it comes to weaning. Next, comes wearing a real bra. One that, as Laurie put it, doesn't "open like a barn door." I'll add the ability to go out every once in awhile without thinking about having milk in the fridge. The ability to send him down to his grandparents' house on a whim. Then there's the fact that this will make him more independent of me. I think that's supposed to be a good thing but at times I can't help but mourn that particular change. Oliver and I have been physically connected for 20 months and it seems weird that we won't be that connected any more. 

So, adding it all up, it's time to wean so wean we must. I will try to dump the pump as soon as possible but I will keep the first feeding of the day and the one before bed as long as I can. I have to leave for a one-week trip for work the last week of May. So, the week before that (if not sooner), we will drop the first session of the day, and the night before I leave for New York, I will nurse Oliver for what will (hopefully? probably?) be the last time. And, our new relationship will begin.