Our Weaning Weekend

Lilah had her last breastfeed on Friday, October 15th at 11:30 am.

She and I were laying down in bed and I was explaining to her that this would be the last time that she will have "mommy's milk" and that she needs to tell it bye bye. She was smiling and being silly, and she kissed it on the side like she normally does when you ask her if she loves her "milk milk". I felt so sad and didn't really want to wean her, but this has been my deadline date for several reasons. First I wanted the transition to be successful on the first try and I knew she would put up one heck of a fight. With Kim and I going away for a mini vacation it presented the perfect opportunity to do that. Secondly, she had some really bad habits that I could not break and she would constantly pinch and scratch me while feeding and would "tweak" my other nipple and I really really didn't like it. Ouch!!! And last, we are planning our third pregnancy for later next year and it would be nice to give my body a rest from being pregnant or feeding before I jump head first into it all again.


In preparation for this weaning weekend I bought the Mimijumi "Very Hungry Baby Bottle" in the "Keep Going Package" that contained all the nipples. Slow, Medium, and Fast. I read lost of reviews online about it and was convinced that if she would except a bottle then this was the one! I had to order it in the States and then have my mom send it out and it was worth all the hassle! The packaging was super cute and Lilah loved it immediately. She likes that it looks and feels like a booby and if she's happy then I'm happy!

Here she is letting her dad give her a bottle for the first time EVER out of her 19 months on earth with us! That's really hard to believe, but it's all true!
I told you it looked like a booby!

The weekend away was not an easy one for anyone involved. My wonderful mother in law had to deal with the screaming during the first two nights. During the day she was very happy to drink from her Mimijumi, but at night she wanted her human binkie! As for me, I was trying to "dry up" as fast as possible because I knew that I'd be coming home to kicks, smacks, clawing, and tantrums when I refused to lift my top. I've suffered massive painful giant porn star boobies. I recommend to any weaning mother to pump and take the process slow for your body's sake. I felt like I didn't have this option because if I were sitting down trying to pump then she would see me with my top off and she'd try to help herself to some and then be hurt by the rejection. So I didn't allow the situation to be created, but because of that it's been sssoooo painful!

Yep, that's a picture of me! Can you believe it?!? lol

When we got back on Sunday she tried to lift my shirt with in the first 10 minutes and did a little cry when I told her "No, Mommy's milk went bye bye, remember?" Later on in the afternoon we went through a 55 minute screaming session with full on body kicking on the floor and again at bed time. I was very worried about the night and figured there wouldn't be much sleeping, but I was rather surprised by morning. I think it went much better than I expected! She had three sessions of 15-20 of crying. I didn't want to replace one habit with another one so I didn't get out of bed with her. I offered her a bottle which she threw at me. Then I offered her cuddles and that made her even more mad, then I laid back down and let her cry but stayed with her letting her know that I was right there and I was feeling for her. Every 4-5 minutes I'd ask her if she was ready to cuddle with mommy and eventually she would and fall to sleep quickly. In the morning she was very happy to drink down her bottle and had a smile on her face. Since that first night we've had little crying sessions during the night here and there and it's usual closer to morning when she's still very sleepy but also hungry and I might get a few scratches or smacks, but it's only been a week and I think it won't be long and she'll stop beating me up haha.

I hope she will have memories of our special bond and appreciate all the hard work 19 1/2 months of breastfeeding on demand 24 hours a day can be! I wish we could have made it to 24 months but it just wasn't meant to be for us. I am at peace with the decision and I think Lilah is too for the most part.

Pick Your Battles

Here's a little something to gross you all out! Yesterday I was barefoot out on the front deck and there was a nail that had worked it's way up and I didn't see it but I sure did feel it. At first I thought that I just hurt my foot but I didn't expect to see what I saw when I looked. EEWWWW and boy did it hurt!!
I soaked it in some salt water, patted it dry, shoved the meat back in and stuck a band aid over it. It hurt alot less this morning when I got up and I could walk (hobble) a little better so I was quite happy with about it.


My grandparents and in laws both thought I should get a tetanus shot but I didn't really think I needed one and couldn't remember when I last had one but I could have had one before moving out here. I did have a prescription for the antibiotic Keflex and was prepared to have that filled if I thought it was getting infected. I talked to my mom about the shot and I looked up what Tetanus is..............it is something you definitely DO NOT want to have and it took me about 5 seconds to decide to call the doctor hahaa.
So I soaked it again and got it all cleaned up and put a new bandage on it and off we went. He took one look at it and said "You need antibiotic, Keflex 4 times a day for 5 days to keep infection away and also a tetanus shot."
I got my shot but I haven't filled the antibiotic yet. I think I'm going to wait and see if I need it. Lilah has been having urinary tract infections and we're trying to build up good bacterias in her body and I started taking probiotics so she'll get them through the breast milk and if I were to take an antibiotic that will undo everything we've been trying to do. So that will be a last resort.

As a side note. I'm reading a book called Healthy Mother...Better Breastfeeding right now and they talk about how important it is to take probiotics after a round of antibiotics because the baby get's all their good bacteria supply through your milk. At day four of Lilah's life we had to go back into the hospital because of mastitis and I was put onto 4 different types of antibiotics and didn't know at the time that afterwords I should take probiotics to make sure to restore all the bacteria that we destroyed in her little system. Long story short... I think this is the reason Lilah might have been more sickly and got colds in her first year of life. Compared to other breast babies it seemed like she was getting alot more colds and runny noses than they were and even though I knew I was doing the best for my baby by breastfeeding her I kind of felt like I was being cheated out of one of the biggest benefits and I didn't know why. I wish I would have found this out sooner, but you can only do better when you know better and that's why it's always important to learn as much as you can! I won't be making this mistake with our next baby *wink wink* take your probiotics girls!!

Teething Gel, Good for Babies, Good for Moms!

Lilah's second tooth popped through this morning! (her bottom left) I've been looking for it like crazy because she's been pretty darn fussy. Big hugs and kisses to Carolyn for picking up some super good teething gel from the hospital!! It really seems to help. It's also good for numbing bitten bleeding nips. She got me the other day with just a tiny bite, but she got me good a little bit ago with some blood. Ouch! I really hope this doesn't keep up.

finger paints and artwork

Lilah has exploded in the past week with personality! Lots of cooing, eye contact, kicking to make her toys move and soundless laughs (we're still waiting on that first giggle!). She's got a bald ring around her head which I had hoped to prevent, but I don't think that's possible! Kim also says that he thinks that she knows who he is now and I agree.

As for Emmy... we did some artwork yesterday and surprisingly for paints there was no mess. I washed up the paintbrush and wiped off her hands and that was that. (see pictures below)

We seem to be on the upswing from our illness and I hope that this will be the last cold for the winter!! Emmy has been refusing formula for a while now (since she's been sick...3 weeks or so on and off) and when I can get some down her it's usually pumped breast milk with a scoop of formula because she likes it's taste better than my milk which is super sweet. I'm hoping that this will help her fight off colds in the future (Lilah doesn't get sick when when we are all sick!!). It's exciting that she can tolerate my milk now. I think it has to do with my diet and not taking in any dairy products. Possibly this is why I am able to feed Lilah because about 6 weeks ago I had a milk shake ( and i haven't had milk since early last December ) and she had such terrible belly pains and pooped near black water for a full day and that's not normal for her. I'm sorry is that too much information for you? Well.... what do you expect if you come here.....it's a blog about babies!! lol

To further back my hypothesis; earlier last week or so I pumped near 360 ml of milk for my neice who is lactose intolerant and she handeled the milk just fine although she will breakout in a rash when when she eats baked foods with milk and cheese. She's 8 months old. I wish I would have known this before I had Emmy, but I'm so glad I went off dairy and meats for Lilah even though everything I read and the doctors told me that my dairy intake didn't effect babies with lactose intolernce of mothers milk. So not true for these babies!

People freak out in general about children being raised vegitarian or vegan but if you do a little research you'll find that it's just fine and in some cases much better. Want to know 101 reasons why to not give your baby dairy either directly or through breast milk?!

This is her favorite spot right now... other than being on the boob haha


Lilah giving her half smile....... she's a hard one to capture on camera!!

Mommy & Me hand prints!

First use of a paintbrush!

Finger Painting for the first time!

breastfeeding

I've had a few of you asking me how the breastfeeding is going and I must say it's not going like I thought it would. When Emmy was first born she actively attempted to suckle and did so for an hour or so. That first night we spent together she just wanted to sleep but the midwife had me try and feed her at midnight, 2 am, 4 am, 6am and they kept an eye on her blood sugar since I had the GDM. She went down to 2.8 which is the lowest in the normal range they wanted her to go, so we then gave her some formula. We tried all day, the following night, and the next day to get her to latch on but she makes a tiny attempt and then falls asleep. She's really too tiny and too lazy to take on my amazon sized nips. So I started out with a manual breast pump and felt pretty hopeless that I was ever going to be able to pump enough to keep her on all breast milk regardless if it's bottle fed. Kim being the awesome husband and daddy that he is went out and bought me the Ameda Purely Yours Dual Breast Pump.



I now am pumping every 3 hours to try and keep up with her demand and also to encourage my milk to fully come in.... I'm feeling like a Jersey Milk Cow.. MooOOoOOoO! Our hope is that she'll get a bit bigger and she'll want to latch on. She tries, but it's just not clicked yet.