If you don't want to read about breastfeeding, you might as well stop reading now.
We are about one month from Brennan turning one! (Whoa!) As of the first of the year, he was nursing four times each day. His meal times are approximately 7, 11, 3, and 6. At three of those meals, he also eats solids. He has always been a fast nurser, but lately he has become very distracted. If he nurses for five minutes per side I consider it long, so I have decided it is time to start weaning him. I think Brennan could do it cold turkey but I'm not up for that, so we are dropping one feeding per week. I also pump every night to have breast milk I can mix with his cereal, so there are technically five "feedings" throughout the day. Pumping at night has given me a good supply of frozen breast milk I can use as I start dropping feedings.
I thought I'd go ahead and blog about our weaning adventures so a.) I can remember what I did and how it went and b.) others might get some ideas that may work for them.
I got the majority of my ideas from here. I was going to do one big weaning post when we were all done, but I think it will be a little long-winded, so I'm going to do it weekly. So lots of reading about boobies coming up!
Week One - Stopped pumping at night
Jan. 1 - First night of not pumping (Hallelujah!)
Jan. 2 - Woke up with no discomfort at all (very surprising); nursed Brennan at his four regular times throughout the day.
Jan. 3 - Woke up with quite a bit of discomfort, but it passed after the morning feeding; nursed B four times during the day.
Jan. 4 - Woke up with a little discomfort, but it passed after the morning feeding; nursed B four times during the day.
Jan. 5 - Woke up with no discomfort; nursed B four times during the day.
Jan. 6 - Woke up with no discomfort; nursed B four times during the day.
Jan. 7 - Woke up with no discomfort; nursed B four times during the day.
Yesterday was our first day to drop one of his feedings during the day. I'll write all about that at the end of the week. I dropped his 11am feeding first since he gets solids with that meal. My plan is to drop the 3pm feeding after that, followed by the nighttime feeding, and finally the morning feeding.
Wish us luck!
1 comment:
Congratulations to making it a year! That is great. I weaned Isaac really slowly like you, took me about 4 weeks because I would drop a feeding and pump for that feeding for 3-4 days, then totally stop pumping and wait 3-4 days then move on to the next feeding to drop. Didn't have any problems! Benjamin I stopped pretty much cold turkey and had no problems, but I don't think I had very much milk left.
Goodluck!
Post a Comment