Nursing Update

Disclaimer: While breastfeeding is a wonderfully natural part of motherhood, I realize not everyone enjoys reading all the details about my experience. If that's the case, you need not read on.

So it looks like breastfeeding Hayden has come to an end. Before vacation, I was down to just nursing him in the morning and pumping in the evening and supplementing the rest with formula. My milk supply was rapidly dwindling. On vacation, I brought the handheld pump and couldn't even get 3 oz. total each evening after 20 minutes of pumping. My hand was sore and that's really not a fun way to spend an evening on vacation. I've pumped a few times since we've been home and can't even get 2 oz. out now. In the mornings, my let-down can take up to 5 minutes and Hayden is usually too impatient to wait for it. And lately, when the milk finally lets down, he sometimes gags and coughs like it's poison. Maybe the taste has changed or he's just getting so used to all formula now that the breastmilk tastes bad to him. I am down to just a 5 oz frozen bag and then we'll be done. If my milk come backs or I get engorged, then I will pump and add that milk to formula for him to benefit from the nutritive content.

I have mixed feelings about it. I wanted to nurse Hayden as long as possible. Breastmilk is SO beneficial for a baby, and the World Health Organization recommends all babies be breastfed until age 2. Most of the moms I know were happy to make it to 1 year. That was my goal originally, too, until Hayden had that whole issue with dairy. Hayden can't just go to whole milk or even regular formula. He has to have a special hypoallergenic formula that is $30 a week! Breastmilk is FREE!! :) Not to mention much better for him too! But what can I do? My milk is drying up, and he doesn't want to nurse.

We have started slowly introducing some dairy into Hayden's diet. Starting last week, he had some yogurt made with Whole Milk. Something about the chemical properties of yogurt makes it have less cow's milk protein and therefore least likely to cause a reaction. The yogurt seems to be going fine, so tonight, he had a tiny bit of cheddar cheese on his egg & spinach scramble. Since it can take up to 3 weeks for his colon to become so inflamed it bleeds, we may not know he has issues with dairy until we see blood in his diapers again. So we are taking things very slowly and in very small amounts. The goal is to have him drinking whole milk by 18 months.

The upside to weaning is that now I can eat dairy ALL I WANT!! And wine, and anything else I want! I'm sure I'm about to gain 10 lbs on the cheesecake, quesadillas, and milkshakes I been deprived of for the past 10 months! I already treated myself to the tiny bag of Cadbury Mini-Eggs I stored up since Easter as a reward for avoiding dairy all this time. Yum! And last night for dinner I had lobster Mac n'Cheese. Yes, I need to be very careful or start going to Stroller Strides 6 times a week!

And finally, the biggest plus of all... no more pumping. My breasts can belong to me again and I won't feel so much like a cow (until I gain all that weight! Haha!).

Sorry there are no photos for this post.