Bittersweet

Tonight is bittersweet. My sweet little man, now with 7 teeth (number 7 popped through today, and I have to tell you, with numbers 5-7 you wouldn't have even known he was teething-- he was that good), is growing up. And tonight is the last night I'll nurse him to sleep.

Truth be told, it's been several weeks coming. I hesitated to blog about all of this, but decided I would, mostly because I want any other woman going through something similar to know she is totally normal.

I blogged last month about how I really hadn't felt well since I'd had the flu at the beginning of November. A couple of different doctors ran lots of different tests and the conclusive result was that every unpleasant symptom-- from nausea to dizziness to insomnia to breaking out in a sweat to headaches-- was due to the hormonal changes of weaning. A weaning that went fast because of the dramatic decrease in milk supply brought about by the dehydration during the flu.

I've only been nursing before bed for about 3 weeks. Most of my symptoms have subsided and are manageable. So I decided to keep nursing before bed for as long as I could. Cue weird rash cropping up earlier this week. Yup, hormone related too. And that's pretty much when I knew. To feel totally normal again, I need to go easy on myself and give up the night nursing. And to be completely honest, he's really not all that interested in it either. Probably because there's not much there. We made it 11 months on breast milk as his only liquid nutrition (other than the formula supplements we had to give him in the hospital), he had morning and nights on mommy milk for most of December, and now, at two weeks past his first birthday, we're stopping for good. It was my own personal convictions that kept me going and I make no judgements on women that choose to nurse for longer periods of time, shorter periods of time, or not at all. Every woman is different.

I'm happy I was able to give him that much and I'm happy to get started on making a full recovery and feeling fully normal again (and not feel like my skin is crawling).

I'll leave you with a video of my cute little guy playing with the kitchen timer, which he couldn't decide if it was a phone or a teether (no small parts, promise). I love watching him play and pretend. That boy can "zoom" some cars, too! He's really starting to enter a fun stage of babyhood. That stage on the cusp of todderhood. He has his 1 year checkup on Monday and I'm hoping it shows a weight gain as well as brings some suggestions for helping with the gagging/tonsil issue (he still gags on chunky food, but since the antibiotic to reduce his tonsil swelling, he hasn't actually vomited).

I love my little man! Cheers to our last night!




~Melody :-)