Hanging Up My Pump

my office door

It's been three weeks since I last pumped.  It's amazing how much longer my lunch hour seems every day.  And I no longer have to worry about freezing milk and cleaning pump supplies every night, so I have a little extra time every evening, too.  Today I brought home my pump and hands free pumping bra, and took down the sign that's been on my door since August, warning people not to come in if the door was closed.  (The blue sign was one of the million welcome back signs my nurse put up in the office when I came back; I can't bring myself to take that one down.)

It was definitely time to stop pumping.  Finn pretty much refuses to drink breast milk out of a sippy cup, and he's not too interested in drinking it out of a bottle, either.  So I have a huge supply of milk in my freezer that's not being used; I really didn't need to continue adding to it.  I've seen others mention using breast milk in baby food recipes like yogurt - maybe I should do that so it doesn't all go to waste.

If I weren't going to try for baby #2, I'd be happy to continue breast feeding.  Well, not exactly happy, but I'd do it.  I'm so glad I've been able to breast feed this long - he got exclusively breast milk until he was 6 months, and I continued pumping until he was 11 months old.  I never thought I'd make it this far!  But...I'm tired of my enormous boobs and not being able to fit into all my tops.  I miss my regular bras.  My left nipple tends to be just a bit sore all the time, since that's Finn's favorite and something about the way he latches on now is little irritating.

On the other hand, it's so nice to be able to comfort him with a little breast feeding. When he was sick a few weeks ago, he didn't want food but he was still able to nurse.  If he wakes up in the middle of the night, I can offer him my breast and he usually calms right now.  Now that he usually sits up and plays for a bit after nursing at bedtime, there's always at least one laugh out loud moment at bedtime.  My favorite is when he's been sitting up for a few minutes, and I'm still lying down, with my shirt pulled up.  He'll look around the room and suddenly his eyes land on my breast.  His entire face will light up, and he will lunge forward, mouth open, and fall face first into my boob.  He's such a boy.

The pros do outweigh the cons.  And so, if I weren't going to try to have another baby, I'd continue to nurse at night, and let Finn decide when he was done.  But I do want to have another baby, and I'd like to start trying this summer.  Since I'll need to take medications to do that, I have to wean Finn first.

Before we moved, he was nursing 1-2 times a night.  He went back up to 3 times a night after we moved, but the past week or so he has been moving towards twice a night again.  Now I need to find a way to help him move to none at all.

To start with, Nanny M and I are going to change his eating schedule, starting next week.  She usually feeds him his dinner around 5pm, and then (if I eat dinner), he has a little snack with me while I eat. Monday, Nanny M is going to give him a snack around 5pm, and then he's going to eat dinner with me around 6-6:30.  (I haven't quite figured out the timing - I'd like to be able to go for a 30 minute walk when I get home at night, but I'm not sure he'll want to wait to eat until 6:30.)  I've decided that he's going to eat what I'm eating for dinner at night - what better way to force myself to start eating more healthily?  I'm going to cook a large dinner on Sunday night, and have leftovers for a few nights.  If I make something big enough, I'm going to freeze a few servings to have on other weeks, later in the week.  I should also try to find some crock pot recipes to have later in the week, too, so maybe I'll only have to cook two meals a week, and can live on leftovers the rest of the week.

I'm hoping that having a bigger dinner a little later will help keep him from wanting to nurse as much at night.  The next step will be to try to get him to take a bottle of breast milk before bed.  I have no idea if this will work, but it's worth a try. Aren't babies supposed to get milk every day?  Finn eats at least one yogurt every day, but I think he should be getting another serving of milk - either from me or from whole milk, right?

I also need to stop letting Finn latch on whenever he wants to at night, especially when I know he's not hungry.  I have offered him his pacifier a few times with variable success, so I should probably start doing that consistently.

There has to be a huge hormonal effect still going on here, because the thought of weaning makes me incredibly and unexpectedly sad.  (But oh so thankful that tonight I'm worrying about weaning and not about cancer!)