Best for Babes

Saturday, May 29, 2010

3 years of co-sleeping & breastfeeding....good-bye?

As I deal with the emotions of having a 3 year old, we are in, yet another, transition period in our life.   Maybe tomorrow I'll post about how I'm feeling about how my life changed 3 years ago...but, today, I'm going to share with out our new adventure!

For quite a while now, Miss A has been telling me she's going to quit having milk on May "thirtya". As  we approached the date, we kept asking if she knew what was coming.  I kept asking, are you sure?  When are you going to quit having milk?  Her response was always, May thirtya.  Always.  And, guess what tomorrow is? May 30.

I've been dealing with my daughter saying she's going to stop having momma's milk on her birthday.  And, now that I'm in school and working night shift, I am SOOOO tired all the time.  She likes to have milk for nearly an hour before she drifts off.

In sense, I was getting desperate.  I needed help.  My husband agreed to help me.  The past two nights he's taken Miss A to her bed.  Just like that.  There were 5 seconds of tears last night, none the night before.  She just fell asleep.  Now, she did wake up both nights.

But, Miss A fell asleep in her bed without milk the past two nights! Wow!  And, tonight, she's spending the night with her grandparents, so no milk tonight either!

While I am very excited about this transition, it saddens me too.  We starting our nursing relationship when she was less than an hour old.  I've had bleeding, cracked nipples; delayed milk production; decreased milk production; engorgement; leaking milk; plugged ducts; and mastitis.  Yep, I'm pretty sure I experienced every breastfeeding issue there could be.  Oh, did I say biting?  Because she bit!  Every new tooth caused Miss A to bite me.

I pumped for over 15 months.  When I went back to work, as a nursing manager of a mother/baby unit, I couldn't listen to the babies cry or I'd have to go pump.  Pump, pump, pump.

While I don't think she's totally done, I think we're headed that way.  I'm ready.  I'm more than ready.  I think Miss A could totally do fine without milk.

Just like every parenting transition, it may or may not be smooth.  Only time will tell!

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