Well, it’s weaning time.
Compared to where I was when I started feeding Brynn I’m surprised we lasted this long, but now I’m surprised I stopped this soon. :)
Brynn and I have a bit of a rough time getting in our feeding groove, so making it to 6 months seemed like a lot, and then a year. The WHO recommends two years, but I was starting to have some issues again and it just seemed like the right time.
Also I don’t know about anyone else, but man they (doctors, nurses, literature, etc) pile on the guilt on new moms if you do anything other than breastfeed, which is ridiculous. No one gets life long illness from a bottle of formula once in a while or has severe issues from pumped milk when mom needs a rest (although I would argue that pumping is not a break).
In any case, we’ve been down to about one feeding a day for a while now, but I think it’s the hardest one to get rid of… the one that puts her to sleep at night.
Now I know a lot of people have strong opinions on, well, everything about how you raise your kids, but yes, I half rocked, half fed her to sleep at night. Brynn was never a pacifier baby and was never a just go to sleep baby... you lucky people out there who can use those to put your baby to sleep!
And for those of you who say just put her in her crib and let her cry… I used to think that, and I tried it a couple of times and after an hour of crying the first time, Mike and I decided not to try that again for a while. Then the next time, well, she fell asleep crying standing up and then woke up, stood up, cried and fell asleep, standing up again any time she fell down or we tried to put her down, and just didn’t sleep well at all (us or her)... geez, justifying much hey?
Well, like any parenting thing, through trial and error, it turns out, go figure, that just like the rest of us she likes to fall asleep with someone else around or being cuddled, so even if Mike is just sitting in the chair beside her crib, she goes to sleep better. After all who likes feeling like they are being dumped in a big room by themselves in a bed with bars? And if she wakes up in the middle of the night crying, if he gives her a hug, and puts her down she almost always goes right back to sleep. So we decided to take a more ‘progressively moving her towards falling asleep on her own’ approach. This way we get to sleep through the night almost every night, so if that means an extra ten minutes of cuddles (which aren' too bad) I think we can live with that. :)
So for the next couple of weeks, Mike will probably be putting her to bed until she get used to not feeding, since she doesn’t try to feed off of him, and then we’ll probably go back to sharing.
Compared to where I was when I started feeding Brynn I’m surprised we lasted this long, but now I’m surprised I stopped this soon. :)
Brynn and I have a bit of a rough time getting in our feeding groove, so making it to 6 months seemed like a lot, and then a year. The WHO recommends two years, but I was starting to have some issues again and it just seemed like the right time.
Also I don’t know about anyone else, but man they (doctors, nurses, literature, etc) pile on the guilt on new moms if you do anything other than breastfeed, which is ridiculous. No one gets life long illness from a bottle of formula once in a while or has severe issues from pumped milk when mom needs a rest (although I would argue that pumping is not a break).
In any case, we’ve been down to about one feeding a day for a while now, but I think it’s the hardest one to get rid of… the one that puts her to sleep at night.
Now I know a lot of people have strong opinions on, well, everything about how you raise your kids, but yes, I half rocked, half fed her to sleep at night. Brynn was never a pacifier baby and was never a just go to sleep baby... you lucky people out there who can use those to put your baby to sleep!
And for those of you who say just put her in her crib and let her cry… I used to think that, and I tried it a couple of times and after an hour of crying the first time, Mike and I decided not to try that again for a while. Then the next time, well, she fell asleep crying standing up and then woke up, stood up, cried and fell asleep, standing up again any time she fell down or we tried to put her down, and just didn’t sleep well at all (us or her)... geez, justifying much hey?
Well, like any parenting thing, through trial and error, it turns out, go figure, that just like the rest of us she likes to fall asleep with someone else around or being cuddled, so even if Mike is just sitting in the chair beside her crib, she goes to sleep better. After all who likes feeling like they are being dumped in a big room by themselves in a bed with bars? And if she wakes up in the middle of the night crying, if he gives her a hug, and puts her down she almost always goes right back to sleep. So we decided to take a more ‘progressively moving her towards falling asleep on her own’ approach. This way we get to sleep through the night almost every night, so if that means an extra ten minutes of cuddles (which aren' too bad) I think we can live with that. :)
So for the next couple of weeks, Mike will probably be putting her to bed until she get used to not feeding, since she doesn’t try to feed off of him, and then we’ll probably go back to sharing.
After all, you can’t not smile when you give the baby a kiss and she says ‘nigh nigh’ ... that’s just something you have to share, along with the difficult nights. Soooo cute.
3 comments:
'nigh nigh' is just about the cutest thing ever. I'll try to recreate it for myself as I look at the pictures.
And don't let anyone feel guilty about anything. There are probably almost no 'norms' when you are raised a kid (spoken with conviction, but zero experience =0).
Yeah, it's extra cute because she does the sign for it at the same time (which is using one hand to show a setting sun over the other arm). Of course, sometimes she does that whenever we give her a kiss on the forehead, which is pretty amusing too.
:)
hey Christie - life is so short and this time too precious to be anxious about what others say is best - you have been gaining confidence as a parent and are developing approaches based on your love for and knowledge of your child and her needs. Be curious about others' ideas but always honour your own ideas and beliefs as well. Your daughter is beautiful and she glows with happiness and self-confidence ... you're doing great. Take care, Joc.
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