Monday, February 25, 2013

The end of my nursing days

The end of my nursing days are rapidly approaching.  And I'm not as sad about it as I thought I would be.

When I was pumping for Claire I hated to quit.  I felt terribly guilty when I stopped pumping, even though I pumped for a year, and had enough milk in storage to get her through her first 18 months on breast milk.   Pumping was something I could do for Claire since she never nursed.

With Bridget, nursing was so easy at first.  We fit well together, I had plenty of milk, and we had a great routine established by the time I started back to work a few months later.  Up until January, when Claire started preschool, I was able to nurse Bridget at least once during the day on my lunch hour, and our nursing was going wonderfully.

Then preschool started, and my lunch hour is now consumed by moving Claire from preschool to daycare.  When Bridget started sleeping (mostly) though the night, our middle of the night, and usually morning, nursing sessions disappeared as well.  These days, I may nurse her once a day with my work schedule, and what was our nursing time is now spent with my pump. With the decease in nursing my supply has really suffered. In addition, Bridget prefers her cup over her bottle or nursing (unless she's tired), and so it's almost time to be done.

While I will miss the closeness, the quiet time of nursing, I'm okay with being done since she's okay with being (mostly) done too.


Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Jinxed (A biting update)


I've had a few people ask how things were going with Claire and her biting.  I really wanted to do an update and brag on Claire.  She was at 2 months (2 months!!!!) without any bites at school (home is a whole other story), but I hesitated.  It seems like every time I think about the biting, or I talk about biting, it starts back up again, so I held off.

And yesterday and today we've had problems with biting at school.

I feel like I jinxed her.

I know that's not the case, but this is frustrating.  She was doing so well.  Her speech has been coming along wonderfully, and she's still learning new signs.  She LOVES school and daycare, and all of her friends.  I really hoped that all of her new signs and words were giving her the tools she needed to deal with her frustrations.

I just hate these set backs because it brings the biting back to front and center.  The other kids start talking about how Claire bites them, and I think all the talk of biting makes it even more likely that it will happen again.  I hate to have her singled out for her behavior, but it is understandable.  The biting HURTS, and the kids remember it for quite a while.

It looks like this round of behavior was brought on by a cold.  Claire's behavior has always been very closely tied to how she feels.  Her last few problems were right before we got her tubes put in.  I hope this cold is short lived and that she is feeling back to herself soon though!