Thursday, June 07, 2007

I quit!

Nursing, that is.

I wanted to hold on until a year. But, between the biting which has increased in frequency again and let me tell you is fricking painful when it’s eight teeth coming at my poor tender lady bits, and my complete failure to let down for the pump about 50% of the time, I just can’t do it.

I find myself getting upset and angry with Ant when he bites me, which I hate. I know that he’s not doing it out of any kind of malice, but I’m finding it very difficult not to let those emotions bubble up despite logically knowing that they don’t make sense. He’s also taken to popping on and off, which also exasperates me, as do the times when he seems to nurse endlessly.

Pumping used to be very easy – 5 minutes and I’d have somewhere around 5-6oz. Now, it takes me much longer to let down for the pump, if I even do. When there’s no let down I only get an ounce or two, or sometimes (like this morning) even less. I know there’s milk there – this morning he only ate from one side so I should be able to get at least 3oz from the other side. But when my reflex doesn’t cooperate, what I should get and what I do get are wildly different. So I’m finding that incredibly frustrating as well.

On the whole, I now dread nursing and I dread pumping. He doesn’t seem to care one way or the other whether he has the bottle or the breast. So I’ve decided that it’s okay for me to stop.

Although I started to write an IM to my sister this morning to ask about what kind of formula she’d recommend, and started getting all teary. Which is funny because I never thought of myself as emotionally attached to nursing. I guess I am to some extent. But I’m also feeling a big sense of relief with my decision.

I guess it will really depend, though, on whether he’ll take formula or not. We’ll find out this weekend!

(I’m not going to quit cold turkey – I’ll switch to formula for the daytime feedings first, then probably morning, then bedtime last. Any idea how long I should wait in between cutting out each feed?)

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ouch! Biting sounds bad. Congratulations on doing whatever is right for you and the adorable Ant.

Em said...

I'm going to be sad when we wean, but I am getting closer to wanting to be done. I also have let-down issues when pumping so I identify with your frustration. M only has two teeth and they can do a number on me. I can't imagine a mouthful of sharp baby teeth. Let us know how the weaning goes.

Katie said...

Oh. I dread the biting. Because I love nursing so much. And Cricket is teething right now. I'll be reading more with interest!

Bon said...

we just finally weaned over the past two weeks, though we'd been down to two nursing sessions a day for months. these last ones were hard for me to give up, though the others, not so much...like you i got a little tired of doing it all the time.

i was quite heartbroken during weaning week, but am in recovery. :)

as for advice, we spread the process out over so long that my experience probably won't relate to yours a great deal...but i'd sub one session at a time, perhaps one a week? and personally, i left the first thing and last thing ones for last because i loved taking O into my bed first thing in the morning, lying down with him, and i loved the snuggle at the end of the day. my body was able to keep making milk for those two sessions for a looooong time, even with no pumping...but i may just have been lucky.

and O did bite a bit around eight months, when he had a lot of teeth coming, but then he eased off.

however you decide to do it, i wish you luck.