Monday, September 8, 2014

Weaning Continued!

We are towards the end.  I don’t feel like I thought I would when this moment arrived.

People have told me that they wish they would have known when it was the very last nurse and I might feel that way one day, but not right now.  I’m ready for a break.

Here’s my timeline of how this has gone down:
June 12 is when I wrote the last blog about weaning.  From then until July 8th I kept the same pumping schedule and was packing 7oz bags.
July 8th I started packing 5 oz bags.  I did this because I was thinking that Jessica could mix it with the milk she was planning on moving Tayla to once she no longer had breast milk.  Tayla didn’t really have any issues switching over to raw milk!!  YAY!!
July 9th I moved my pump times down to 15 minutes and still nursed Wren at night.
July 21st I moved my pump times down to 10 minutes and started packing in 3oz bags to continue Tayla’s weaning.
July 22nd I had a realization that if I was pumping 2 times for 10 minutes maybe I could skip my afternoon pump and only do my morning pump for the full 20, so that’s what I did!  This was my first day to move down to 1 pump a day.  And I was still nursing Wren at night.
July 28th – 30th I went on a business trip (without Wren) and only pumped twice a day for 15 minutes.
August 2nd – 5th Wren and I went to the beach (without Gary) and I nursed her on command, but didn’t have to pump the entire time.  Except that one time in the car…
August 6th I moved my morning pump down to 10-12 minutes and still nursed Wren at night.
I started noticing that she wasn’t acting interested in her nighttime nurse.  I didn’t push her.  I would sometimes fix her a sippy of frozen breast milk, but I was fine to skip those nighttime nurses.  My body would make up for it the next morning.  My supply had started to dwindle, which is what we were going for, and if she nursed at night I would pump 3 oz the next morning.  If she didn’t nurse, I would pump 6 oz.
August 13th I decided to skip my morning pump and only try to nurse her at night.  That was the very last time I pumped!  Whoa, that’s crazy! I hadn’t really thought about that until typing it out!!  I haven’t pumped for almost an entire month!!

As of today, we are still nursing at night (most nights).  She takes one sippy of breast milk during the day, but she hasn’t been taking it very well.  My mother-in-law watches her and actually didn’t have breast milk for a couple of days and gave her almond milk (which is what we want to switch her to) and she took that ok.  I’ve tried giving her a sippy at night of breast milk and just like during the day she doesn’t really care for it.

I’ve heard of other kids who just don’t drink milk.  They get their calcium from greens, yogurt and cheese.  I have a feeling this is the route we are about to take.  It kind of makes me sad that I worked hard for Wren to have milk well after she turned 1 and now she will barely even sip it L.  There’s a few mommies in a Facebook group that I’m in who need some donated milk, so I’m sure that’s where the remainder of my milk will go. 

Until the final nurse,

Kimberly

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