Well, we have made it past six months!
If anyone remembers, way back when, we had SO many problems. My milk supply never picked up to more than half of ds' needs (even with domperidone and MMP and pumping and the Lact-Aid and the works!) and working full time... we had a really rough go of things. So many times I wanted to quit.
But we kept nursing. Even through two rounds of thrush, one bout of mastitis, and multiple nursing strikes, we kept going.
We found a balance that worked for us (I stopped pumping every hour, then at 5 months, gave up pumping at work entirely. Malachy rejected the Lact-Aid repeatedly around 6 months, so we finally gave that up, too.)
Now, at nearly 7 months old, he nurses every morning, snuggled up in bed with me. No Lact-Aid, but he is still getting milk from me. I can hear him gulp it down.
While I'm at work, he gets bottles from his daddy. I could never make enough milk to fill them up, but I kept pumping to supplement his formula until his stomach matured and tolerated the formula better. It was really tough to make myself pump 3 - 4 times per day getting only an ounce or two each time, but I did it, because he needed all the breastmilk I could make, then. When he started handling the formula better, by 5 months, we cut down to just nursing at lunchtime, and a month later, he started rejecting that nursing session, and I decided to let it go.
Every evening, before bed, he gets his nurnies again. It's a nice time, snuggled up together for a little snack before going down. When he is sick or hurts himself, we nurse. Most of his nourishment now comes from formula in a bottle, but he's still my little nursling, and I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it when it was really hard.
I'm hoping he'll keep nursing into toddlerhood, and I'll do my best to ride out the tough times between now and then, but I'm just so amazed that we really made it past the six month mark without weaning.
So, here's to my little nursling, and to all of you other mums who struggle to nurse your little ones! Stick with it - it's worth it.
If anyone remembers, way back when, we had SO many problems. My milk supply never picked up to more than half of ds' needs (even with domperidone and MMP and pumping and the Lact-Aid and the works!) and working full time... we had a really rough go of things. So many times I wanted to quit.
But we kept nursing. Even through two rounds of thrush, one bout of mastitis, and multiple nursing strikes, we kept going.
We found a balance that worked for us (I stopped pumping every hour, then at 5 months, gave up pumping at work entirely. Malachy rejected the Lact-Aid repeatedly around 6 months, so we finally gave that up, too.)
Now, at nearly 7 months old, he nurses every morning, snuggled up in bed with me. No Lact-Aid, but he is still getting milk from me. I can hear him gulp it down.
While I'm at work, he gets bottles from his daddy. I could never make enough milk to fill them up, but I kept pumping to supplement his formula until his stomach matured and tolerated the formula better. It was really tough to make myself pump 3 - 4 times per day getting only an ounce or two each time, but I did it, because he needed all the breastmilk I could make, then. When he started handling the formula better, by 5 months, we cut down to just nursing at lunchtime, and a month later, he started rejecting that nursing session, and I decided to let it go.
Every evening, before bed, he gets his nurnies again. It's a nice time, snuggled up together for a little snack before going down. When he is sick or hurts himself, we nurse. Most of his nourishment now comes from formula in a bottle, but he's still my little nursling, and I'm really proud of myself for sticking with it when it was really hard.
I'm hoping he'll keep nursing into toddlerhood, and I'll do my best to ride out the tough times between now and then, but I'm just so amazed that we really made it past the six month mark without weaning.
So, here's to my little nursling, and to all of you other mums who struggle to nurse your little ones! Stick with it - it's worth it.
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