This week marks the end of breastfeeding and pumping for Léo and me. He stopped nursing during the day a couple of months ago and I almost exclusively pumped for a while. My milk production was already low by that point and the pumping-only made it worse. I pumped about 10 ounces a day, which means Léo had formula for the majority of his meals. He still nursed at night but even then I had to nurse him AND feed him formula because nursing alone was not enough to settle him. With the trip to France approaching, I thought it might be a good time to stop all together -I don't want to bring a pump there, though I am considering buying a hand pump, which right there tells you how ambivalent I am about this whole 100% formula thing. To be clear, I don't mind giving him 100% formula, but I feel weird knowing I *could* give him breastmilk. It feels like the milk I am producing is going to waste -all 2 ounces of it! So... I am not going to have one last nursing session because that would just make me cry (heck, I'm crying writing this post!). I might just pump less and less and let my body understand I don't need it to produce milk anymore. I am glad to be done with breastfeeding / pumping, so I don't know why I get all emotional thinking about quitting. Maybe it would have been different had Léo continued to nurse during the day but right now pumping 3/4 times to get 10 ounces seems like a waste of time and energy since he's doing really well with formula and solids.
Anyway, it's the end of an era in Léo's life -already! Now we move on to baby food and croissants. C'est la vie!
4 comments:
Congrats on SEVEN months of nursing! Seriously, that's an accomplishment and I totally admire you for pumping the past couple of months!
Maybe you could just nurse him once or twice a day as that would definitely tell your body "ok, this is it kids" if you don't want to drop it cold turkey. It could be more of a comfort feeding (like if he's crying or fussy, or on the plane) - not really for a full meal if 2oz is all he is going to get. Regardless, you have done an awesome job at nursing and you made it WAAAAAAAAAAY past the amount of time you originally thought you'd breastfeed (by like MONTHS!). So you really should congratulate yourself on that!
Agreed. You waaaaay surpassed your original goal. I cried too--but you know that. It's weird how much it sinks into your soul...maybe it's just the milk seeps into your soul and doesn't want to part :-) Can you tell I'm super tired?
Now, for the serious comment. Can we go to Bakery Nouveau together for his first croissant stateside?
I am getting to the point where I can only get about 10 oz from pumping too... and feel like he's always hungry after nursing. I think if I were you, and was taking Sam on an international trip I would slow down too, and give up the pumping. I know it is a relief in some aspects but sad too. You truly have done such a great job nursing for so long. It's not easy. You take such good care of Leo and he's growing like a champ. You have much to be proud of and feel good about!
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