A Time to Celebrate-Part 2 (my nursing story)

I'm continuing my nursing and now weaning story of Paige.

In my last post, I left off when Paige was 3 months. For me, this is when nursing became easy and enjoyable. Paige was sleeping 12 hours a night, with a dream feed at about 9:30pm. I dropped the dream feed about 4 months cold turkey, and she did great.

At 6 months, we went to just 4 feedings a day, and I loved it!! I loved that I was still her main source of nourishment, but having 4 hours between feedings was life changing. I felt like I had so much extra free time and was really able to get out and do things. 

We introduced solids at 6 months and looking back, I would have gone slower than we did. I was so worried about her having enough calories, and now I know that there really isn't a huge rush. She did great with solids and continued on 4 feedings a day.

I knew that I always wanted to nurse for 1 year. Just to be honest, prior to having Paige I might have judged people who nursed longer than 12 months. I thought it was weird and strange. Now that I've had a baby, I realize how many things I said I would never do, and now don't even think twice about doing them!

So as her first birthday started approaching, I realized how much I had fallen in love with nursing. I absolutely loved it! Paige also seemed to enjoy it. As I thought about weaning, I realized that in my perfect world I would nurse till she was between 18 months and 2 years. But sadly, we don't live in my perfect world :( ha

Daniel and I had a lot of stuff going on with work and travel. I knew life would be very complicated if I was still nursing by this past May, and especially July. Just thinking about weaning made me want to cry. I had a really hard time with it. As I talked to my sister who had already weaned 3 children, she gave me great advice and told me that once you're on the other side you really don't regret it. I didn't believe her, ha!

There really wasn't a good time to start the weaning process. We were traveling a lot and there was a lot of transition. When Paige was 13 months I dropped her afternoon feeding and replaced it with whole milk. It took about a good week for it to really take and she still wouldn't take more than a few ounces at time. About 2 weeks after dropping the afternoon feed, I dropped the 11am. Daniel gave Paige her milk for a few days to help her transition. There were still a few hard days where Paige just cried because she wanted to nurse. It was difficult in the beginning to not just give in and go back to nursing.

I nursed morning and night for a few weeks. I knew that I wanted to wean slowly so it wouldn't be too traumatic for either of us. I was afraid that dropping the last two feeds would be the hardest. The morning feed went pretty well, even thought she still wasn't taking a lot of milk.

The last time I nursed Paige was so perfect. She was really tired that day, so when I nursed her before bed she fell asleep. It was precious! I just held her and watched her for several minutes. It was exactly how I needed it to end. I did cry. It was difficult to let go of something that we both enjoyed. But my sister was right, now that I'm on the other side I'm okay. It was the right thing to do, and i can honestly say at the end, it wasn't as emotional or as hard as I thought it was going to be. 

Dropping the night feed was actually the easiest, much to my surprise. She quickly took her evening milk without a problem. With the nighttime feed going to smoothly, made it much easier on me. After a few days of being completely on whole milk, Paige started increasing her milk intake. Right now, she takes about 15 ounces a day, sometime less sometimes more. I use to worry about her getting enough milk, but she gets a lot of dairy overall, so I know she's fine. 

Over the past several months, I've joked with Daniel that my new favorite Bible verse is Genesis 21:8, where it says that Abraham gave a great feast when Isaac was weaned. I think every mom should get a party after she has weaned, ha! So after talking and joking about it, somehow it came out to Daniel giving me a hotel night away to celebrate nursing Paige and weaning. 

So about 2 weeks ago, I went to a really nice hotel for 24 hours to celebrate. I went to the pool, Starbucks, took a bubble bath, watched TV in bed, slept in, ordered room service, and went shopping. All.By.Myself. 

It was lovely!!!! And such a treat!!! I'm so grateful to Daniel for making it happen!!!! 

I loved nursing, and even though there were hard times it was all worth it! I am so very thankful for this amazing journey Paige and I were able to have together!