Ok, so how did YOU wean?

Last night was awful.

Griffin nursed to sleep at 8; woke up at 9:30 and nursed; woke up at 12:30 and I tried rubbing his back, rocking, singing, shhh'ing... it seemed to work at first, his eyes were still closed and he settled back down for a moment. But then? Then it was terrible, horrible, no good, and very bad. He screamed and flailed about like a child possessed. *sigh* Bryan took him at that point and gave him a bottle. He had a few ounces and eventually fell asleep. Then he was up AGAIN at 4:00, 5:30, and finally at 7:15.

I nursed him each subsequent waking for about 20 minutes - not like it helped since he woke up each time cranky, whiny, and on the verge of screaming. Which is what he's been like every night for the past.... 16 months?

If I would have nursed him during the Abyss (as I have taken to calling it) he would have fallen asleep, but he would have stayed attached for anywhere from 20-40 minutes in order to stay asleep. This is not ok. He is not an infant anymore and I cannot sleep while he nurses.

So if we're counting, that means that Bryan and I got less than 6 hours of sleep and no stretch longer than 2.5 hours.

The whole situation pretty much sucks.

And B and I are very much looking forward to next week when we'll be in Sacramento and my parents will have the kids for a night.

Weaning

That is one daunting title, isn't it?

For the past few days, Bryan and I have been tossing around the idea of weaning Griffin. I've been thinking about it for a few weeks, but not seriously... and I think it's time to get serious. Griffin's sleep is terrible. It's not getting any better and I am at the limit of my ability to cope. I can no longer afford to sleep in until 7 or 8 after a difficult night, I'm up at 5:30 and go to bed at 10. I need him to sleep.

Also? He's become a bit of a monster. Tantrum throwing, banshee screaming, balled fists, crocodile tears, hyperventilation.... all when I leave his sight or when I tell him that it's not the time to nurse (since we don't nurse on demand anymore).

I know some of this tantrum throwing can be attributed to recent changes - the move, daycare, etc. And I know some of this tantrum throwing can be attributed to the age. Tantrums are pretty common when children can't express themselves fully - heck, I see it in high school when teens don't have the language/vocabulary to adequately express their emotions/opinions. They don't throw tantrums, but they certainly act out and get defiant and angry.

Anyway, G turns into a different, less pleasant, child when I'm around.

Common denominator in all of these areas? Nursing.

And so I think it is time. I'm just not quite sure how to go about it. Cold turkey? Slow decrease?

Although perhaps Griffin will make the decision for me, tonight he only asked to nurse once and didn't nurse to sleep. I don't think that's ever happened before. So perhaps, perhaps, this process will be relatively painless for everyone involved. Perhaps.

But I'm not going to hold my breath.

Weaning

"The time has come" the Walrus said.

As we all know, my milk supply has never been where it should be. Thanks to my LC and a drug called domperidone, it got close, but I've always had to supplement. When I started working I was pumping, but that got to be too much so my supply dropped a smidge. Now that I've lost some weight it's dropped even more. Apparently I need to be at a certain BMI to produce milk and that BMI is not one at which I'm comfortable.

With these drops in supply I can no longer nurse G overnight. Sure, we can nurse a little at night - I have about 2 feedings worth of milk (spaced about 6 hours apart) but they never seem to keep him asleep for very long and he ends up latching on an off for hours. This keeps me awake since I can no longer sleep while we nurse in bed. Also? I'm only producing milk on one side.

The road is getting rougher and I just don't know if I have the energy to keep on keeping on, know what I mean?

We had a really rough couple of nights and it prompted this conversation with Bryan and I yesterday:

Me: "I'm thinking of weaning"
Bryan: "Ok."

Alright, so that's not really a "conversation" per se. Well, I guess it technically is...

ANYWAY: We're going to night-wean.

Griffin will nurse before bed and in the morning (especially if I want to delay our morning wake-up), but no more middle of the night nursing. He'll get a bottle or be rocked. Hopefully this will translate into more sleep for all of us. I've started to wake up every morning with a monster headache - due to sleep deprivation - that even my morning cup of coffee can't cure.

Since we won't be nursing at night it will be interesting to see what my milk supply does. I would not be at all surprised if it dried up completely.

This makes me more than a little sad. I know that continuing to nurse at night, while keeping my supply where it is, is causing me a lot more headaches and heartaches than it's worth. But the thought of stopping nursing completely... well, that causes a fair amount of heartache as well.

There will probably be two camps regarding this decision. The first will be those who think that I should keep nursing as long as G is interested. The "a drop is better than none" camp... and then there will be those who thought I should have quit long ago, that the struggle caused me too much stress and may not have been worth it.

Although now that I think about it, that's probably not accurate. Most people will probably think "do whatever it is that makes you all happy" since most people I know understand my breastfeeding history and aren't jackalopes.

Here are some old posts on nursing... Pumping Schedule Nightmare and Finding out I don't make enough Prolactin

I really should be proud of how long we've nursed. 9+ months is longer than average in the US, and considering my supply problems it's a HUGE accomplishment. But I still feel... inadequate? I guess. There is so.much.pressure to breastfeed that I can't seem to let it go.

Maybe this pressure is all internal. Or maybe it's because I participate in online debates about things like nursing in public and extended breastfeeding. Or maybe everyone really is judging me for my inability to nurse my babies for a year (I don't really believe that, but sometimes it feels that way).

But back to Griffin and weaning. The decision has been made - we're night weaning. We'll see what happens and go from there. I'll deal with my mommy guilt as it comes and continually remind myself that our formula fed daughter is practically a genius.

Griffin will be fine regardless of how much milk he gets from here on out even though I may not be.

Nursing slow down.. start weaning??

I think my milk may be slowly drying up. Or else Griffin is just a bottomless pit who can never be satiated. Or both.

Two nights ago I had to get up and feed him a bottle. And during the day he fusses while nursing and doesn't stop until he either falls asleep (rare) or gets a bottle.

I'm off the domperidone and I'm contemplating ordering more, although I don't know if that would do anything this time around. It's a rather expensive experiment with no guaranteed results.

So maybe this means Griffin and I will no longer be nursing... he is eating a fair amount of solids, oatmeal (2 tbsp) + a jar of food 3x a day. And he LOVES his solids.

Thinking about weaning makes me a little sad, but nowhere near as upset as I was when I stopped nursing Penelope at 4 weeks. I think I was depressed for a few weeks after we gave up nursing. We'll see how I feel when the possibility becomes a reality this time around. For now I'll nurse Griffin as much as I can and see where things go. But if he continues to be upset while nursing and continues to use me as a teething ring instead of a food source then we'll stop nursing sooner rather than later.

For all the struggles we've had, making it almost 6 months is a huge accomplishment. I'm proud of both of us.

Blogging instead of Sudoku

I was so very close to clicking on the "web sudoku" bookmark instead of the blogging bookmark... so very close.

It snowed in Sacramento yesterday - barely enough to really be called snow (at least at our house) but it was still rather eventful. Some school districts up the hill had snow days (for less than 6 inches of snow, wusses) and people forgot how to drive - fun times. Penelope celebrated the momentous occasion by sleeping in. She also slept in today, so I don't know if I can call it "sleeping in" anymore. She may just be changing her nighttime sleep pattern from 8-6:30 to 8-7:30. I am totally and completely ok with this. Of course, this means that we only get one nap during the day, but it's generally a 2 hour afternoon nap and that works out pretty well. If this is still the pattern next week then I'll consider it an official schedule change.

We've also been pretty successful about cutting out one of her three bottles, so she's basically down to two. One before nap and one at bedtime... I honestly don't think the nap bottle will be all that hard to eliminate but she may prove me wrong. The bedtime one will probably be the most difficult and I'm still trying to decide how I'm going to go about doing it. Cold turkey or a gradual weaning? I still have a few months before I want to attempt messing with that bottle so we'll see how things go - she may wean herself if I'm super-duper lucky.

Still no walking on her own. I know she can do it, and I am really really really ready for her to start. As soon as I say this out loud there are a dozen people who tell me I'm crazy and will regret saying such a thing as soon as she starts. I say bull. Anyone who tells me I'm not ready for her to walk have never had a 28 lb 1 year old and been 6 months pregnant at the same time. Damn skippy I want her to walk, my back is killing me.

Speaking of pregnancy, New Baby has decided that nighttime raves are uber awesome. I swear that as soon as the sun goes down he/she parties it up like it's 1999. Bryan was able to feel the baby kick the other day, which (if I remember correctly) was much sooner than he was able to feel Penelope. So someone is already raring to go and will probably walk 5 minutes after birth, which may be sooner than their big sister. (Ok, so that was a tad melodramatic, Penelope WILL walk before she's 16 months).

We've also added a new name to our girls list: Amelia. So for those who are keeping track, the girls list (in no particular order) is: Amelia, Calliope, Isadora, Milla, Athena, & Ophelia. Boys list is the same as it was: Theodore, Milo, Parker, & Xavier.

I've yet to fall in love with any of our boys names, there are some that I *like* but none that I love the way I love nearly all of our girls names. This means the baby will probably be a boy (not really, both Bryan and I are still convinced it's a girl). But I'd still like to add a few more names to the boys list in hopes that we find a few we really and truly love. This means I'm going to have to change my standards (although I already have with 2 of our girls names and 1 of the boys names). So they no longer HAVE to be Greek in origin. Greek boys names are really difficult to find; I mean there are a ton of them but they're either super common (like George or Jason) or REALLY Greek (like Posiden or Agamemnon). I love my Greek heritage, but I can't saddle my poor son with a name like Posiden, or Perikles, or Ajax. (And for the record, I love the names Perikles & Ajax - but one would be very difficult for people to pronounce or spell and the other has a line of cleaning products with the same name).

I could go with something like Apollo, which both Bryan and I like - but that's an awfully big legacy to live up to. That's really my greatest hesitation in using the names of gods and goddesses - that my child will somehow, in someway, feel compelled to live up to the myth surrounding their namesake. I am, perhaps, putting way too much thought into it. It's likely that since so few people know anything about Ancient Greek mythology (which is a shame) that no one but me will even think about things like this... but *I* think about things like this. Blame my Undergraduate Degree.

Oh, and just in case anyone was wondering - the boy middle name is Walter no matter what first name we choose. The girl middle name depends on the first name, so it's either Ruth or Katherine.

Of course all the name talk makes me both curious and excited to find out what the baby's sex is... and we have a 19 week wait! It's almost too much to handle, but I'm really happy we've decided to hold off on finding out. It makes me look forward to labor/delivery that much more - and makes me more excited about the pregnancy in general.

Alright, this post has been long enough. Web sudoku calls.

Weaning and sleeping

So as Penelope's first birthday approaches, so does the end of bottles... we're not going to quit cold turkey (which just makes Pen sound like a formula junkie) but we are going to start the weaning process. In a way we already have - P is down to 3 bottles a day and those generally coincide with her nap schedule. She has one around 9:30 and naps around 10, has one at 2 and generally naps around 2:30, and then has her bedtime bottle right before she goes to sleep.

At the height of bottle consumption she was at 6 a day (I think) so we've cut her formula intake in half. This means, of course, that she eats more solids throughout the day. She has three meals and two snacks a day - and sometimes those snacks are bottles at this point. So eventually those snacks will be just solids and she'll drink water or milk with meals. She already gets whole milk with breakfast and she really seems to like it, so that's good.

By the end of the month I'd like to cut down to 2 bottles - maybe just morning and night. By February I'd like her to be down to just the nighttime bottle and before the next baby comes I'd like for her to be off bottles completely.

We'll see how this goes. If she's really resistant then I'll reevaluate... I don't want the transition to be traumatic. But I also don't want to have two babies on bottles (hopefully breastfeeding will work this time, but I know that at some point pumping/bottle feeding will be necessary since I'll have to go back to work and will have to student teach in the Fall). The thought of two babies on bottles (even part-time) fills me with dread and makes the hand on my skin weep. Bottle washing is hell on your skin.

So if Penny can be off bottle before April I will be a very, very happy mama. The nighttime bottle will be the hardest - for us both - so we'll see if milk in a sippy plus a bedtime story will do the trick. It's the last one I want to get rid of so I have some time before I have to worry about it. She may surprise me and wean on her own, she is getting more independent when it comes to eating (which is a whole 'nother post).

This of course brings me to sleeping. She's been doing well, sleeping from 8-6:30 or 7, except the last week or so she's woken up at night and needed to come into bed with us. I say needed, but it's really just easiest for us - I'm sure I could make her stay in her crib and she'd sleep eventually but I'm not comfortable with letting her cry (it works well for some moms & families, but it's not for us). I know that it's her 2nd molar that's bothering her; and maybe the third molar as well. I admit that I enjoy waking up next to her in the morning, although I do NOT enjoy being smacked in the face in the middle of the night.

Once New Baby gets here nighttime bed transfers will have to stop - and ideally they'll stop well before then. Since we co-sleep with our new babies until they're about 3 months old, we just can't have New Baby, Penelope, and us in the same bed - there just isn't room. It's hard enough now with the three of us (plus the damn cat)... there's no way we can fit a baby into the mix. So Penny is going to have to stay in her own bed.

We contemplated getting bunk beds for Pen (so eventually the two kids could share a room) but after talking with our midwives we've decided that's not really the way we want to go... their stories of bunk bed hassles have given us a lot to think about - a lot we never really considered (like sheet changing and sick kids). So bunk beds are out. I think Bryan is just going to build a frame for a queen sized mattress that's low to the ground. P will move to the queen in her new room (which is now the "guest" room), the baby will eventually move into the nursery, and when the baby is old enough both kids will share a room. They'll either share the queen sized bed, we'll get two twins, or do some sort of trundle thing. It all depends on the gender and temperament of New Baby.

Ok, time to finish addressing the Holiday cards. I ordered 50, but I think I'll need to get more...