Friday, May 29, 2020
Celebrating 608 days of breastfeeding. 🎉
Celebrating 608 days of breastfeeding. 🎉
It’s been over 48 hours since I’ve last nursed River. WOW. I think we are officially weaned. This special little bonding activity with my son lasted for 608 days. That’s over a year and a half. Every. Single. Day. Since he was born, I have nursed him multiple times throughout the day and night. When he was hungry, when he was scared and when he just wanted to connect with me randomly throughout the day- I dropped everything and held him until he nursed himself content. This was our way.
Let me tell you, I was not prepared for the amount of effort and energy that went into to parenting this way. I thought organic, natural, attachment style parenting was going with the flow and that “going with the flow” meant ease and bliss. Turns out that the flow of my baby is different than my own personal flow. It’s like I’ve been riding class 5 rapids instead of my usual float trip! It’s been a doosey. 🌊 Of course, it hasn’t been all bad. There were some smooth “float moments”, like when I could easily curl up next to him and nurse him back to sleep at 3am instead of getting up to make bottles or the ability to instantly soothe sore gums from teething... but ... mostly it was just me trying to keep calm and adapt to his current. #motherhood tho, ima right?
Breastfeeding is amazing but also a lot of, well, work and sacrifice. It controlled a lot of my life. I couldn’t let others help with feeding and josh could never do the night time routine because River insisted on the breast. 🤱
Although, the hardest part of my breastfeeding journey was when I was ready to quit. My body was DONE, but my little guy was definitely not. Uh,oh. What’s a momma to do now??? I thought that he would just “grow out of it” before this was even an issue. Nope! Not even close to being done. I had to intervene- which goes against my natural way of letting things unfold on their own time. . . But I’m so glad I did. (This was such a good motherhood lesson of discernment and self care). If you are co-sleeping and struggling with weaning, I’d be happy to tell you how we navigated the waters. Just send me a DM!
So. We are finding new ways to bond now. And I’m over the moon happy that my breasts have time to rest and recoup. Ok, Thanks for reading and making me feel not so alone on this challenging, uncertain, anxiety-ridden, blissful, brutal, trip of mothering. **This post was in no way meant to be braggy or complainy- just sharing in my rejoicing of overcoming a really hard time of my life / chapter of motherhood. I see you breastfeeding mamas. You are so admired. I love you all. 💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓💓
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