This week Baby PoppySeed gained her unwanted independence. She still hasn’t forgiven me. She cries big, wet tears and turns her mouth down in the frown of the woefully rejected child, as though asking, Why don’t you love me anymore, Mama?
Clearly if I loved her, I would still be breastfeeding.
Az the Husband just brought her home from the doctor, and the doctor gave us preemie formula. Preemie formula is higher in calories, and all our babies have been so skinny that they have needed it at some point.
I have waited for that bittersweet feeling so many of you describe when you wean your baby, that longing for the closeness of breastfeeding, but it just isn’t there. By the time my daughters have been weaned, feeding them enough is such a struggle that there is no regret. Even now, just like her sisters, Baby PoppySeed does not drink enough formula, so feeding her is still a struggle, but at least now it is a measurable struggle.
And there is always more powder in the can.
I don’t have the creative energy to make this much of a post, I’m afraid. The baby is in bed for her post-vaccination nap, and I am getting ready to take my two oldest to the movie theater. Perhaps the Veggie Tales will refresh my spirit. I’ll let you know.
No, I don’t have any amazing advice for you. I’m one of those women you hate, with milk spilling out of every where and a FAT little baby.
However…I can COMPLETELY sympathize with the screaming, the pain…latching hurts, mastitis hurts, blisters hurt, biting hurts…a lot of those things hurt. My only payback was that little hormonal “aaah” moment…but if there were any of the aforementioned nasties going on, that moment was fleeting.
Your baby will forgive you…and I think we all understand!
Teah, I can honestly say I have never hated a woman who can feed her baby well. My thoughts don’t get much beyond, “Oh, that would be nice. How great for her.” Pretty much the same way I feel about women who don’t need to pluck any unsightly hairs.
Yes, there is nothing like a talking cucumber to bring times of refreshing to one’s soul.
Well, I was worrying over traumatizing my oldest son by weaning him after his THIRD birthday next week. This is some much-needed perspective.
I’m glad you’re giving yourself a break.
Does it help to hear that, while my milk supply is fabulous, I have unsightly and ill-placed hairs that, if left unplucked, disturb breastfeeding because they stick up baby’s nose?
Ah, I feel your pain. Anja’s been teething lately and it just plain HURTS to breastfeed. Plus she pushes off constantly, crying. She’s gone from 75th percentile to 50th percentile in weight (as of yesterday, when she, too, had shots), which concerned me, but the doctor didn’t say anything. I always wonder how that balances out, because she’s in the 90th for height! Shouldn’t she then also be in the 90th for weight if we want all things balanced?
I think it is great that you don’t have bittersweet feelings and regret. It just emphasizes the fact that your primary concern is your little one’s health.
I didn’t breastfeed but I can imagine it would be hard for your child to adapt. I’m already stressing about switching Bear from formula to milk after his 1st birthday.
Wow, I feel your pain on the NeoSure. My older son was on that for two years. Concentrated. I think it must have concentrated gold dust or something, it was so expensive. And he still didn’t gain weight well.
I was resentful for a while that breastfeeding didn’t work for me (mostly because I’ve been well-endowed since I was a pre-teen and thought there should have been a reason I had to carry these things around), but I finally decided to be amazed at how many options mothers have now to help our children be healthier. It hit me a couple of years ago that if I were living at any time other than now, I’d be childless. And if I had miraculously managed to carry a child closer to term, I would have had to have a wet nurse. I’m so thankful for God’s plan and His care.
Even though I always felt bittersweet about weaning, breastfeeding always felt like a chore to me. One of my friends LOVED breastfeeding but she’s pretty much the only person I know who was terribly excited about it.
I feel you. I hear you. Weaning solidarity, baby.
Speaking as someone who’s nipples are right now bleeding and excruciatingly sore — I haven’t punched my wall during latch-on, but only because I can’t reach it — I hear you.
And may I say — you’re doing great, if what I read on your blog is any indication.
(P.S. You said you were going to wean when Baby #4 came along. Is this a veiled hint?)
A good friend of mine has went through this with all three of her kids, and ranted to me the other day about the phrase “failure to thrive” and the guilt that she feels about being that ‘failure’.
She is anything but a failure, and while my girls gain weight like little sumo wrestlers, there have been probably a hundred times that I have watched her parent her boys and thought “Wow, I wish I could do that…” You give your kids so much more than breastmilk, and your older girls will remember fun days at the movies with mom long long after they would have the faintest memory of breastfeeding.
I pumped to supplement primary formula diets… there just wasn’t enough breastmilk in me, and there wasn’t going to be… it just was what it was.
I am naturally on the thin side with small boobs and people always looked twice when they learned that my babies subsisted on my breastmilk. (I did have a teensy bit of cleavage when I was nursing, at least.)
My two sisters had horrible luck with breastfeeding and they tried everything — herbs, etc. I don’t know why I was so lucky and I tried not to take it for granted. I remember what my sister said when she gave up with her second boy and gave him a bottle when he was a month old, “We are both so much happier.”
[...] this post from Toddled Dredge was like a slap in the face with a cold glove of conviction. I read the [...]
As someone who also just came out of the trenches after many breastfeeding woes, I can relate.
Hope you enjoyed Veggie Tales!
I loved nursing my youngest for a year, but I did not have any kind of regret when he weaned on his own. My other kids all had bottles early on, and like you, I just appreciated knowing how much they were eating.
I say, bless you for doing what you can.