Orion will be 21 months old next week and he still nurses
like an infant, but only in all the annoying ways. We nurse when he wakes up,
then before breakfast, and after breakfast, before lunch, during his nap, after
nap, pre-dinner and then to fall asleep at night. He won’t nurse long enough for me to enjoy an
entire episode of Ellen or any of the other million shows taking up space on my
DVR. Then there are the really quick
nursing sessions that are pointless. It’s
like he does to just prove that he can or he needs to touch home base but it
only counts if it is boob to mouth.
The worst part is that he has refused to nurse on my right
side for months leaving good old lefty with all the action. This means lefty is a heavyweight while no
milk righty is back down to her pre-fighting weight. You would think he would be done with my
right nipple but oh no it is now a toy. Righty is now a plaything for him to poke,
pinch, and twist while he nurses on the good boob. This really drives me insane.
I have to remind myself to keep righty covered which can be hard to remember
when a crying baby wakes you in the middle of the night and you find sleeping
in clothes strange.
Nursing a toddler is not comfortable. He loves to slap my face or drum on my boob
while my nipple is in his mouth. Somehow
he can still manage to put if his in my face.
At his 18 month checkup he was 32.5 inches long and 25 lbs. and 13ozs. Go
grab something with those measurements and try holding it to your nipple for 20
minutes, bonus points if it is squirmy.
Orion doesn't seem to notice that he has gotten any bigger so he tries
to nurse in the same positions he did when he was an infant not realizing that
me and my nipple cannot contort into those position any longer.
And the teeth, so many teeth! He loves to drag his teeth
along my nipple before he lets go. He does on occasion bite and we did go
through a very bitey phase but for the most part he just has a lazy dismount.
So why do I still do it? For one, I do not know how not to
nurse. I do not know how to refuse my baby (I know he isn’t a baby anymore but
he will always be my baby) something he wants and that I can provide that gives
him such wonderful nourishment and comfort.
If he doesn't get it he will pull at my shirt and has stretched out a
few of my necklines. And because this is
what we have always done and I still hold on to the delusion that one day he
won’t want it anymore.
If he wakes in the night I can (usually) nurse him back to
sleep in no time with less physical effort than standing, holding him, and rocking
him to sleep for a half hour. If he is
sick, nursing will provide him comfort and good antibodies. If he falls I can
whip out a boob and wipe those tears away!
It is awesome to see his happy sleep face nestled against my breast. But these are on our good days which are
becoming less and less.
I want him to want me for me and not what my breasts can
provide. My arms can comfort him just as well as my breasts. I can wipe those tears
away with kisses and keep my shirt on. I
want to be a weaner. If he was nursing on
both sides or only nursing 3 times a day or if I could leave the house wearing
a real bra, a dress, or shirts that do not have easy access to my nipples,
maybe I would continue nursing. But our current situation is just too much for
me to handle. Sometimes I find nursing
stressful because I am sore and neither of us can get comfortable. At night when I try to nurse him back to
sleep, it can take way longer than I would like and it can make me feel a bit
angry. Since I have the boobs and Orion
associates them with sleep, it is me that he wants when it is time to sleep or
when he wakes up in the night. It would
be great if Dad could put him to sleep/get him to nap/get him back to
sleep.
I also do not want to force or rush our nursing relationship
to an end. So I try to keep us busy and out of the house as much as we can
during a Mid-Atlantic winter. Last week when we went to the indoor playground
he did not want to nurse at any time but he did go over to the highchairs to
tell me that he was ready for a snack. I try to distract him, if he wants to nurse I will
offer him a sippy cup, a snack, story time, or some other activity. This can make him mad and end in tears with a
boob in the mouth. When I try to delay
nursing it will usually frustrate him as well.
Baby just doesn't seem to have much concept of time. I guess I need to get him a baby wristwatch.
I have always nursed on demand and starting around 11 months
went the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” route.
I don’t even understand how “don’t offer, don’t refuse” is even a method
for weaning. It has not changed
anything. Orion has always nursed so much that it can be hard to keep
track. The first 6 weeks he was home I
timed and noted every nursing session and which side he nursed. I guess it is time to start making these
notes and then systemically start refusing a few nursing sessions.
This past Friday I had a doctor’s appointment and it felt so
good to leave the house wearing a real bra, earrings, and a necklace. I was
even joking with the phlebotomist that I was just happy to be out of the
house. My body has not been my own for
about 30 months, that is 2 ½ years. I would like to have my body back because I
am oh so selfish. I need a month or two to have my body be mine if I am ever
going to get pregnant again. I know some people say that getting pregnant
helped them wean but I worry that it wouldn't work for us, being pregnant and
nursing would exhaust me, and that Orion would resent the new baby for taking
what was his.
I am still hoping that one day soon he just will not want to
nurse. Maybe I can give him chocolate milk like in Desperate Housewives and he
will only want that instead of nursing. Legend has it that when I was nursing I
was all business, often to the disappointment of my engorged mother. I did not hang out on the boob, I was 3 chugs
then off. (I also loved being my crib so I was just the coolest baby ever)
Around 9 months I rejected the boob like it was something disgusting and that
was the end of that. Funny that my guy
is such a booby monster, I guess this is just the first of many ways that my
baby will be drastically different from me.
I have been waiting to change up our routine, when we nurse
and how we sleep. I have used excuses
like he is sick or he is teething. I
keep saying that next week we will really work on this nap nursing situation
but next week never comes. I worry that I have ruined Orion and spoiled him
with my boobs. Then I see him playing
with other kids and he is happy and kind. He shares well and isn't possessive of
me or his toys. He is a toddler so there are times when he does not want to
share whatever he is playing with at the moment but this is a kid who will have
2 cars in his hand and will give me one so I can play with him. He
does not cling to my legs when we are in a group setting and will often go off
on his own to play happy as a clam.
There is a part of me that wants to go on vacation alone for
2 weeks in the hopes that I will come back to a happy weaned baby who sleeps
independently and through the night. Or
maybe I could put him in daycare for a month and they would work their magic
and solve my problems. What I really
want is more me time, an hour to myself in the middle of the day while he naps
seems like such a luxury. I also want my
time with my son to be because he wants me and not my milk.
I know I will have to work hard to change this relationship
and it will not be easy. Change has started, I now nurse him to bed at night in his room instead of our bed. If he wakes at night I nurse him in his room
and not in our bed. But I still nurse him for naps in our room so maybe today I
will change this and nurse him to sleep in his room and hopefully he will stay
asleep when I remove him from the breast and put him in his crib. (He has only
ever napped in his crib a handful of times) I also need to put an end to
napping in the car. These two changes will start today and hopefully bring us a
few gentle steps closer to the end of nursing. (Update: today he feel asleep unexpectedly on the boob an hour before his usual naptime)
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