Milk

As of last Saturday, Kayley (9 and a half months) isn’t getting any more milk from me. She’d been weaning herself for a while now. For the past two months she had only been eating mama milk in the morning, and right before going to bed. Over the last three weeks or so, she’d been losing interest in even those two feedings.

What do I mean by this? Well, she’s been very easily distracted, not really seeming interested, pulling away a lot while eating, and cutting her feeding time really short. It really seemed like she was just not going to latch on one day. That’s not exactly what happened though.

Let me back up a little. When people asked me how long I wanted to breast feed Kayley for, my answer was always along the lines of “I’ll nurse her until she weans herself, or she is able to verbally ask me to feed her (milk please, mama?), or she bites me.” Right now I’ve been hoping she would nurse through cold season, since there are a lot of benefits she can get from breast feeding to help fight colds, etc. But we obviously didn’t make it that far. Can you guess what happened?

I’ve been nipped a few times in the past couple months as her teeth have been coming in. It wasn’t too bad, though it always did make me slightly afraid to let her latch back on again. Her nipping slowly got harder though… I would flick her in the mouth and tell her no, but that wasn’t really working. Friday night she bit me pretty hard, but I thought I would continue trying. She then bit me harder and I was done feeding her for the night. She barely ate anything.

Saturday morning I thought I’d try again since it was a new day. Two minutes into the feeding she bit me hard. It hurt. But I lovingly forgave her and tried again. She latched on, ate a mouth full or two, and then bit me really really hard. No blood was drawn, but ouch!  I was done. I hurt really bad and I did not want that to happen again. I forgave her of course, but no more mama milk for Kayley.

Kayley has adjusted really well so far. It doesn’t seem like she misses her mama milk at all. At night we have just given her a small snack of warm oatmeal so she goes to sleep with some food in her belly. She has always slept better on a partially full tummy. Since it’s only been a couple days I am sure she’s transitioning. I know I am. Emotionally I’m fine, but my body still has to get used to it.

That all being said I’m happy Kayley loves eating her solid foods! My baby girl is growing up so fast!