Parenting Bad Habit Confessional #1: Do we have a weaner?
Yes, its true. I am still a breastfeeder. (Feedee?)
What am I supposed to do...? We have been in really good shape with only two feedings, morn and bedtime since Miss Fancy was 11mos. old, and now I am stuck. I think I have it in my head that I need a stressless window of at least 10 days to even consider dropping a feeding with my -- as of tomorrow -- 16 mos. old! Yeah, like that is going to happen.
In conversation with a wise soul yesterday it became quite clear that my retaining these feedings are certainly in the case of the wake-up and possibly bedtime too... well they are 100% grounded in my laziness, or fatigue. You know I used to have a big idea that I need to buy my time with some boob-milk while I slaved over some wondrous organic whole grain, iron fortified, full fat, nutritionally balanced homemade breakfast wonder, but that is all over now. With me working full time and since our girl has mastered -- nay delights in -- a bowl of cereal and milk under the lead of all her daycare chums what is my excuse now? How much more à la minute a preparation can there be?? Corn squares n' milk.
The truth is I just can't roll out of bed too easily anymore and if a breastfeeding means I get 10 more minutes lie down I am not one to break the routine. I haven't even tried to skip, I am so sad.
And, there are the auxiliary issues.
I think I sometimes I have simply run out of material. Maybe I have developed some phobia of routine variance? Must be yet another aspect of catholic background -- well isn't that just special, as they say. In 16 months there have been a number ofexperiments with routine, many quite spectacular failures. Those routines -- read rituals -- that we have nailed down I will not let go of easily -- think Thomas More really. But it is pretty obvious the breastfeeding is sort of in overkill mode now. HELP!
But how to get out of the habit? Sort of seems not a bad idea to blog it in a parenting bad habit confessional. Yes, this sounds like a case for the Internet!
See also confessional post ver. 1:
Look, who is talking?. A just-in-time feature for the agonizing parent who tires of decision making processes for which they are solely culpable. We here at mo-wo look forward to the input of the extensive web-based parental wisdom as we put our parenting bad habits out there. Wow, I feel the twinges of absolution already... blog as confessional so quick and easy to use,too! This is a recording.
** Updated to add. This is how it turned out.
Labels: confessional
posted by mo-wo at 10:25 p.m.
4 Comments:
I weaned my youngest at 20 months -- those nighttime feedings were the last to go, and I knew they were mostly just for comfort -- for BOTH of us.
I used Tabasco -- just the teeniest, tiniest bit -- not enough to burn his little mouth, just enough to taste yucky. Then I put some more into plastic wrap, and put this in my bra, so that I smelled like Tabasco (warning: do not put it directly on your breasts, or you will be jumping into the shower to put out the fire very qickly, as I found out the hard way). So when my little guy went for my breasts, he found that they reeked of Tabasco. I said, "You want Mama, or you want Mama to hold you while you drink your milk from this bottle (or cup)?" He thought about it, sniffed the Tabasco one more time...and chose the bottle.
And that was that.
Hi
Thanks for your comment on granny and I'd love to see you any time. Funny.
I've seen your comments and p-man's here and there but I didn't realize until today you were a couple.
Dutch, who certainly needs a litle more notoriety was at 103 the last time I checked.
My 17 month-old is still nursing on demand. (She's made that demand 3 times in the last hour.) There are some remarkable studies about the benefits to both mother and child of extended breastfeeding so I'm not really in any hurry to wean. I guess that a lot of the decision rests on whether or not you feel the breastfeeding relationship is productive and satisfying for both of you.
Yes! Breastfeeding my 15 month old makes up much of my arsenal of minimal effort parenting. And, as you say, I get to lie down for ten more minutes. I'm in no hurry to wean, but my MIL thinks the Boy will wean when I'm away on a 5 day business trip. I'm not counting on it.
I still enjoy the nursing, though, and he still seems to need it, so we'll just wean slowly.
Ohio Mama
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