No more

When Hailey was born I had this perfect vision of nursing her. Boy was I wrong, she had a mind of her own and was never interested she would scream (turns out it was because she is tong tied) so I ended up pumping for 3 months which was exhausting. I got to a point where I was miserable and starting to resent her which made me feel like a horrible parent. On top of that feeling there are so many people who make you feel that if you do not nurse your child you are somehow less of a parent. ( Not getting into that debate right now) At 3 months I stopped pumping and switched her to formula. That was the best decision I could have made at the time. The minute I switched her to formula she was a happier baby and I was a happier mommy.

When Ryan came along I was determined that things would work out differently this time, I would be able to make it work. I knew what had not worked the first time and I was not going into it with a romanticized vision of what how perfect it was going to be. Form the beginning he was totally different than Hailey had been but there were still challenges. We had switched pediatricians to a new office that had am amazing LC on staff ,we met with her when Ryan was 3 days old and she was such a great help.

I went back to work after 12 weeks and kept pumping at work and sending bottles to the sitter at one point my deep freezer looked like a milk bank but eventually it all got used up. As Ryan approached a year I decided that I was not ready to stop nursing him like I had originally planned but would keep going for as long as he wanted. I stopped pumping at work  just before his first birthday and just nursed him in the morning and at night which seemed to be working out. My husband kept asking when I was going to stop doing that but I wasn't ready to quit yet.

When we went home for the funeral last month Ryan decided he was no longer interested in nursing. I don't know if the disruption in his schedule is what did it or not but every time I tried to feed him he would just bite me and push away. After three days I decided that maybe it was time to stop and while it was hard for me Ryan never really seemed to miss it.

It has been almost a month since the last time Ryan nursed and I feel like it was harder for me to quit when the time came. I still feel a twinge of sadness every time I hand him a sippy cup full of milk and he smiles a take a huge gulp and runs away.