Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Weaning postponed to an unknown date

Just like the Randy Newman concert we already had tickets for. Having tickets gave us a deadline by which to get Yirmi to drink milk in some other way. Bottles have been a total failure, so we've been working on something that's somewhere between a bottle and a sippy cup. OK with water, but no success so far with milk. Not even with breast milk.

So here's my not-so-new theory. If you care about your baby knowing how to drink from a bottle, start him or her early. Like at 2 weeks, just every 2 or 3 days, but keep the baby knowing how and not completely avoiding it as if you're trying to shove poison down his throat, sealing his mouth with that special baby-super-glue that NO bottle will ever penetrate. You would think one would get smarter about some things as they have more kids, but my first 4 took bottles. It's the last two who haven't. And ALL the kids were breastfed (Abigail for the shortest time - just over 4 months, as she started losing weight when I got pregnant with Nomi). You might think that having Nomi breastfeed for 16 months (and therefore not being able to leave her *ever*) would have taught me a lesson, right? Nope. Maybe it's this: having six kids is tiring. Breastfeeding is a time-out. Since only I can do it, it means I *have* to do it. And during that time I *have* to sit and rest. Sounding less stupid?

Until Yirmi starts sleeping through the night (yeah, you'd think an 8-month-old could do it, when he was sleeping 7 hours straight at around a month, but he doesn't. In fact, most nights he wakes up twice or more to nurse.) I will definitely continue breastfeeding, at least at night. After that, I hope he'll be ready to give it up. After nearly 4-1/2 years of straight pregnancy-breastfeeding (x3) I'm looking forward to my body belonging to me again.