Before weaning, here was our nursing schedule:
Pump for freezer/bottles 5am
Wake 6:30
Snack 9:00
Naptime 1:00
Snack 4:00
Bedtime 7/7:30
When school was in session, I was pumping in place of the 9:00 (and also at the 5am pump), but nursing on the weekends. Since June, I have been nursing for the 9:00, but I kept pumping knowing that I would need the supply of pumped milk in order to mix with whole milk when I started weaning.
The goal is to drop the 9:00, 1:00, and 4:00 feedings, but keep the wake-time and bedtime feedings for as long as RJ wants. To do this, I'm using a "don't offer, don't refuse" approach, dropping one feeding at a time. In early July, I started mixing pumped breast milk with whole milk in a sippy cup. For two days, RJ drank 5oz. breast milk mixed with 1 oz. whole milk, which we reduced by an ounce of breast milk every two days until he was drinking 6 oz of whole milk out of a sippy. The first feeding I dropped was his naptime nursing, because of it's close proximity to lunch anyway. Also, dropping this feeding gave me a big chunk of time when I could drive down to campus on my babysitter days. RJ responded wonderfully and didn't ask to nurse at that time at all. There was one time that he wanted to nurse an extra time in the afternoon, but it was the exception rather than the rule. As you can see from this picture, he is a fan of his sippy cups and even plucked this one out of the fridge when I had opened it to get something else!
We are amassing quite the arsenal of sippy cups free of BPA and Phlalates and PVC. We have 2 Klean Kanteens, 1 Born Free Soft-Spout Trainer, 1 Foogo Sippy, 1 Think Baby Trainer, 1 Boon Fluid, and 1 Nuby Easy Grip Sippy. RJ is not as fond of the Nuby as he is of the rest. Seems like he knows which one is the cheap one already. In terms of leak-proof ness - The Foogo and Klean Kanteen are the best and the Born Free is the leakiest. Now if only we could get RJ's chin to stop leaking, we'd be in good shape! Next on the acquisition list is the "Safe Sippy"
Since the first reduction went so well, we only waited a few days to start the process with his 9:00 am nursing, which allowed us to get moving quicker when we wanted to go into the city or whatever. This worked out quite well when Sully was here and we were going into town a lot.
We're down to three times a day now - when he wakes up, when he wakes up from his afternoon nap, and at bedtime. I'm going to hold steady for a little while and drop his post-afternoon nap feeding just before our 5th anniversary next month, so that we can spend the whole day just as a couple.
RJ seems to have responded to this quite well. Every once and a while, he'll come up and lift up my shirt (his personal, very obvious, baby sign for "I want the boobs"), and I indulge him. It hasn't happened often - maybe 3 times total in the last month, so I think he was ready for weaning anyway. After all, many of his feedings were very active, wiggly toddler feedings, so I'm not convinced he was getting a whole lot. What I have noticed is that he nurses a lot better now that we're not nursing so often.
My favorite thing about daytime weaning is bidding adieu to my not-so-good friend, DamnedPump. Now that there is only one more feeding left to drop, and I have a freezer full of breast milk due to my continued daily pumping, I decided that it was time to stop waking up at 5am to pump. I hated pumping and it was never easy for me, as I had to pump at least twice, most of the time 3 times for every one feeding I missed, with the exception of my first pump of the day. (I shudder to think what would've been had I not had a good Medela pump!) I only kept up pumping first thing in the morning because I wanted to make sure that I still could pump, so that I wouldn't have to give RJ formula. I know it wouldn't have hurt him, but breast milk is better for him and I abhor the smell of formula. But now that RJ is old enough not to "need" breast milk, I am going to let the supply of frozen milk dwindle as he drops the 4pm feeding and give him sippy cups of breast milk if I'm ever not around for bedtime (which will happen about 6 times during the fall semester when I have a night class that I have to teach- urgh!) After it's gone, he'll get a cup of whole milk if I'm not there.
So Adios DamnedPump! I'll probably see you again someday when baby #2 needs milk (No, I'm not pregnant. Don't get all excited, Mom!)
By the end of the summer, RJ will be nursing only when he first wakes up and right before he goes to sleep at night. We plan on continuing as long as he wants to. We both still enjoy it and it's still good for him so I am not going to nudge him to keep it up or to stop. If he's still nursing and I get pregnant again or you know, he's still nursing in kindergarten, then maybe I'll think about nudging him toward weaning those feedings. But for now, there are still some daily boobies in RJ's life.
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