Find Your Happiness

I'm not talking about my nursing days as a registered nurse---although those might be over, too; but that is a completely different post. I am talking about breastfeeding. It has been two weeks since our last nursing session. Technically, it has been far longer than that since our true feeding. For weeks, Nathaniel began to loose interest and would only need to breastfeed for comfort, mostly during naptime/bedtime. Eventually, he stopped asking and I stopped offering. ( photo credit ) As relieved as I am that my body is once again mine, I am still sad that it is over. I expected to continue nursing for at least a couple more months. I supposed I could have kept offering it but in the end, Nathaniel was just ready to wean himself. Breastfeeding has both been a great and bad experience for us. I loved knowing that I provided the best and most nutritional food for my son during his first year of life. I loved our alone and bonding time that I normally would have shared if ...

Nathaniel is ten months old today! The little one loves to pull himself up and occasionally lets go and tries to take a step so he falls flat on his bottom and once on his face. He is still not crawling properly and moves around mostly by scooting with his butt. Nathaniel also has a new tooth at the bottom (now a total of eight!) and he loves table food. It also seems that he is beginning to wean himself off of nursing during the daytime because he would rather play and eat adult foods when he is hungry. Nathaniel loves to chase our dog Riley and will do anything not to nap :)  

This past Monday and Tuesday, I left our three-month old baby with his great-grandmother (who is visiting us from the Philippines) because I had errands I really needed to do. I was gone all day, which means Nathaniel had to eat expressed breastmilk through a bottle. This is the first time I have been away from my son for this long amount of time and who knew that in only two days, he will develop nipple confusion. Breastfeeding has been a battle, he is not properly latching, and he exhaust himself from crying so much that he ends up just falling asleep after the letdown reflex has slow down. However, any feeding after bedtime is still the same and I think it's because he is too sleepy to notice the difference. I have tried feeding him in a dark room where stimulation is at minimum, feeding him when he's happy or as soon as he wakes up, and pumping to keep my supply up.  I'm not worried that he's not eating enough because he still has plenty of wet diaper...