Before Addie was born I read all these books about nursing and thought I was prepared for the "unknown" when it came to breastfeeding. Unfortunately those books became pretty obsolete other than making a firm impact on my mind that nursing is good for your baby's development, the other pearls of wisdom just were not to pearly! At Addie's birth I was looking forward to having her placed lovingly on my chest and starting it all off with a great comfy and wonderful nursing connection like all those books I had read talked about, well Addie had some fluid in her lungs that took a few days to dissipate and so the initial nursing that is "so important" just did not happen. After two days of her being hooked up to monitors to make sure her oxygen levels were good, she finally got to nurse, and that little squirt took right to it. Now for all you ladies out there that hear about how nursing is a glorious, bonding and nurturing experience, well it is, but there is a dark side to breastfeeding that no book tells you about and after experiencing firsthand some of the downsides, I'm left a little miffed that I got only one side of the story. Obviously everyone's experience is different, but here is why I've come to think of "milk" as a four letter word.
During her first year there were minor things I hadn't really contemplated to thoroughly like late night feedings for the first 9 months. I just couldn't let go of the night feedings until I finally just let her cry it out at 9 months and she started sleeping through the night, it was so against my gut to do it, so how come it worked so well? Anyways, another few things were nursing in public, which I am still not good at, nursing in small spaces like airplane seats(once they stuck me by two teenage boys so I resorted to an airplane restroom),and "when your child gets teeth" is definitely not a chapter they cover in breastfeeding books.
My main angst came about when Addie turned about a year old and started signing the word "milk" whenever she wanted to nurse. Of course I thought it was so cute and wonderful that she could express to me what she wanted without me guessing three other things before getting to what she wanted. Well at first she stuck to her3- 4 times a day schedule that she had been on previous to her word usage, as time progressed she would ask more frequently and thinking that is what she truly needed (insert hand to forehead motion here DOI!)I would give it too her and so she became accustomed to nursing when she asked to nurse. Well during Christmas this whole fiasco came to a head and I was through! Our first week back from vacation she was nursing 7-8 times a day and was relentless with her asking,she would nurse then five minutes later ask to nurse again, and then throw tantrums if she didn't get it. I tried all sorts of things like offering another drink instead, but she would drink a little bit then, ask for "milk" right after ward. By this time she had added the actual word "mil" to the sign so I was always apprehensive to when she would ask for it next and if I would give in or if I would try to be stalwart against her forward advances on my waning patience. One morning I tried to just ward her off by ignoring her but this just made her more upset and I gave in finally out of frustration, exhaustion and anxiety. This whole charade was making me crazy, I could feel my body shutting down mentally and physically from all the exertion, I flopped in to bed one night and totally broke down to Mitchell, that poor guy, saying it had to be over, I was anxious all the time about when she was going to ask and if I was going to say yes or no, and besides the mental siege, most of my day was spent nursing or anticipating nursing, so I didn't get anything done.
I'm not sure why she went through this spurt of cluster feeding, it might have been because she was bored and it was something to do, it might have been just a comfort thing to be next to momma, but whatever it was it left pretty quickly and relatively easily, thanks to lots of prayers and some good advice from a friend. I really do believe that Heavenly Father understood I was at my wits end because I had tried to wean Addie before this week of death but without even the slightest smidgen of success. So when my friend ( thanks Meagan) offered her advice on how she weaned her little one I thought it was worth a try. She told me to use the step down method and distraction as my tool, so you take the feeding that you think you can get rid of the easiest which was Addie's mid morning so I filled that with activities to distract her from "milk" and it worked. The next one was her morning feeding which I enrolled Mitch to help me with, I asked him to get up with her for a week instead of me, as he got her up I prepared some breakfast for her so it was ready when she came out, when she asked for "milk" she got breakfast instead, Brilliant!The last two feedings that were regular and not weird every hour ones that she had been instigating, were the afternoon and the one right before bed. I knew these were going to be the hardest so I decided to tackle the one right after her afternoon nap first, when she woke up she automatically got a snack and then we went on an outing to pass the time away until dinner, after dinner time flies as we do our bedtime routine so if I occupied her during the time between 3 to 5 she was golden. All three of these nursing were gone within the week which I wasn't expecting at all but I guess when you are asking to nurse every hour or so, the accelerated version of weaning seems to fit too!
The last one to tackle was right before bed and once again the Lord provided a means to and end. We had the Schows over for dinner which occupied her up until bed time after they left I simply did all the other routine things, brush the teeth, a drink of water, prayers and voila, skipped her asking for "milk" all together. The next night afforded another opportunity like this, we had a birthday party for Mike Larson that kept her up until past bedtime again, so we did the same routine without nursing and ta da night two without asking for "milk".
It's now been a whole week without nursing and although I miss it a little bit, the last month was so frazzling that I'm glad it's over. She does still ask occasionally for "milk" but I just offer a drink now instead and she readily accepts that this is the new norm. So my experience with nursing has been for the most part all those gooshy and wonderful things, but at least for a couple of months in the Oliver house, "MILK" was a four letter word.