(*reaches for a tissue)
I've been reading up on "one" and it turns out, Toph will officially be considered a toddler and no longer an infant. That means there are a few baby things that needs to go, and all of them have to do with sucking. You can imagine then, how I feel about the situation. It sucks. The book in question is this one:
At first, I would hang on to every last word in this book and obsess over everything it said. It didn't help those baby blues at all and finally, hubs hid it. Now, we use it as an occasional reference but that's it. So now, I refer to this book and everything that is supposed to be taken from the baby at age one.
The pacifier:
Ah, I remember my naive days when I thought I would wean from that thing at four months. Now, a year is approaching and we're nowhere closer to getting him off of it. Sometimes I am racked with terrible guilt about that; but then I realize that while I might be going against baby literature, I am in no way breaking the law by letting him have a pacifier to soothe him. We have set some ground rules to start the weaning process--only at bedtime and naps. We'll take it away during naptime first, then tackle bedtime. Raise your hand if you're looking forward to that.
The bottle:
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| Please forgive the horrible quality; cell phone shot taken by the husband. |
No one in this house will have a big problem with getting rid of the bottle; in fact, hubs and I are doing a happy dance because it means no more nightly cleaning, sanitizing and prepping of the bottles. Toph never LOVED the bottle, but he realized it was a necessary part of survival when he started daycare. He's already down to no bottles a day and doing just fine. Moving on, he says.
Breastfeeding:
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| A good nursing session always conked him out. |
This last one is the biggie. No one wants to see this part of babyhood go away. Toph loves it, I love it and Matt loves it (simply because it's his free time when I'm nursing). And you know what? I thought about it and again, no laws will be broken if I nurse past a year. It's certainly not bad for him, he gets comfort from it and it's a huge part of our wake up routine and bedtime routine. I now only breastfeed at night and in the morning and I no longer pump (hallelujah). We'll probably stop completely by June or July, when we're not working and devote a lot of time to fully weaning him. Until then, this part stays the same.
My baby is growing up and the big year mark seemed pretty traumatic in terms of things that must be taken away (I realize that's not how anyone put it but in my head that's how it is); as a mama, I'm just trying to make it as easy as possible on my boy. That's my job.
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3 comments:
You're doing great Gin. Matt did a good thing by hiding that book, mother's intuition works best.
Maybe this will comfort you...Karim weaned himself at 15 months. He just decided one day that he was done. I nursed Roqaya until she was 2 (which is the recommendation in Islam) and it was a little harder but it really only took less than a week to go from twice-a-day nursing (nap/bed time) to being fully weaned. I know it seems stressful thinking about it, but once it's done, it's no big deal. I wish you luck on all three!
Thanks C!
I remember when Roqaya weaned and I'm glad that it wasn't too hard. I imagine Toph will go more the route of Karim and self wean at some point...boys seem a little more active in that aspect but it could be because I have no basis of comparison. :)
The One year milestone was SO hard for me, too. I didn't want him to be one because one meant independence and I didn't want to let go of our quiet moments where I was nursing him in our rocking chair, and his deep green eyes were locked on mine while he put his chubby baby fingers on my chin.
You don't have to stop nursing if you don't want to! Nurse him as long as you want. I let my son Self wean and it was harder on me than it was on him. He is a busy little guy, and by 18months he just stopped. It was super hard for me. I bawled like a baby lol
It sounds like you're doing everything right, and you have a happy and healthy family. Cheers to that!
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