Family Forum / Pregnancy / Breastfeeding / May 2005

*raises a hand*

Theona won't be two until June 3rd, but still very attached to nursing.
 Unfortunately, I have nearly no milk left, it hurts quite a bit, and
I'm very cranky about it, so I don't know how much past two we'll be
going.  I managed to produce milk well all the way through Theona's
pregnancy for Gareth, but this time my body has given up, and I'm
producing next to nothing, if that.

Michelle
Flutist

<delurking>

Rayna is almost 2 1/2 and still nurses once at day (at bedtime). I'm
ready to totally wean, and I know I could probably do it fairly easily.
Half the time now she doesn't nurse to sleep; she'll nurse for
awhile--until I can't stand it anymore and gently pull her off--and then
I'll end up laying with her and holding her until she falls asleep.

<back to lurking>

Mary

Caterpillar is.  She'll be 2 on the 31st.  At this rate, she'll probably
hit 3, but we're planning a trip to Taiwan with her next spring, and
weaning would mean she could stay longer (I'll come home after a week or
two; Allyson and Ah-mah will probably stay a month), so who knows.

We're just starting 2-word sentences now, although I think "ah-you"
means "where are you" and there's another two-syllable "word" that I
think is "what are you doing" or maybe "why are you doing that."  She
has a huge vocabulary, though - I got up to 300 words without really
trying, and she's said probably 100 more since I made the list a week ago.

Art is the big thing at our house lately, so she's gotten a ton of art
supplies for early birthday presents.  (http://tinyurl.com/73pnu is her
latest creation.)  The ice cream plant down the street has an annual ice
cream party mid-June, so that'll do for her party. ;)

She's capable of peeing on the potty when she wants to, but only wants
to as a way of stalling bedtime.  Any other time, she insists on a
diaper.  (Since she's so opposed, and can't recognize when she needs to
go and hold it anyhow, no point in doing more than offering.)

Phoebe :)

My daughter is still nursing strong, but for some odd reason the
nighttime before bed nurse seems to be losing its importance. We nurse
and read books before bed and then she gets into bed and puts herself
to sleep. I give her a choice of nursing or books first. A couple
times, she has chosen to do books first and then forgotten to nurse.
When she chooses nursing first, she kind of "rushes" through it because
she is anxious to read the books. :)

But, she is a very devoted first thing in the morning nurser, and after
I come home from work in the mid afternoon, plus a few more sessions
sporatically, so I'm not expecting her to wean very soon.

She's a fun two year old, talking a blue streak, and pretty even
tempered. She's a pretty skinny little thing that likes virtually every
food and lots of it. She loves slides, trains, her older sister, and
playing with dolls.

We're having a great time. :)

-Jan

DS, at 26.5 months, is still going strong--not only do I not see any end in
sight, I can hardly imagine him becoming one of those only-at-bedtime
nursers any time soon.  We nurse before we come downstairs in the morning,
we nurse after breakfast, before nap, midway through nap, early evening,
bedtime, during night variable numbers of times (we co-sleep), and then
repeat process the next day.  Some days, he'll be busy and go a long stretch
between nursings--other times, if he's bored, he might still do frequent
short ones during the day.  I'm still, at this point, happy to nurse as
much/little as he wants, but we do have some bad nights now and then--and
when they happen, I think night-weaning would be awfully nice.  But then I
have nights like last night, where he conked out quickly and I didn't hear
from him again until daylight. . . .

We're amazed at how quickly he's expanding his vocabulary.  He's reached
that point where he'll repeat whatever we say (or try!) and it seems once we
tell him what something is called, he never forgets.  Some of his current
obsessions include "nigh-wahs" (bunny rabbits) and "girkles" (circles).
And he can't get enough "wahks" (rocks).  :)

--
Belphoebe

The Bug has been down to one bedtime nurse (and naptime when I'm home)
for ages now but shows no signs of losing interest.  I think bedtime
will be more difficult when she stops because it's hard to imagine
finding an equally appealing substitute to cut short the "one more
book" tendency.

She's becoming quite verbal -- I think she's going to be a little
chatterbox (runs in the family).  She's been in a bit of an anxious
phase.  For a while lately she's been very reluctant to go with the
babysitter in the mornings and has generally been scared of new things.
Unfortunately in the middle of this DH decided to treat her to an
automatic carwash, which traumatized her for days, poor thing :-)  But
her spirits have been improving so I think she may be pulling through
this phase.  I have some easier months coming up so I'll be home more,
which should help.  I hope so, because the nannyshare is only going to
last a few more months at best so we need to start daycare.

We're going to be visiting DH's family cross-country on her birthday.
I'm not sure what the plan is but I know his mom is excited that we'll
be there.  We'll then celebrate her birthday with my parents the
following weekend once we're back.

Kate, ignorant foot soldier of the medical cartel
and the Bug, almost 2 years!

...warning, m/c mentioned...

Little Miss is still going at just about 27 months.  We're still pretty
firmly attached to the before bed and somewhere around 6am routine - I
walk into her room and she instantly says "I want to see if there's any
milk in there!"  She's now being extremely cute with it these days -
for a long time the only way I could get her to unlatch was to hold her
nose closed so she'd open her mouth and let go.  Now if I get her off
any other way, she insists on latching back on just so she can pinch
her own nose and let go that way.

But, I just had my 2nd early m/c in the last 5 months.  One I was
willing to just chalk up to chance, and since I really only had less
than a day of knowing I was pg, it was fairly easy to do.  This time I
had about a week, and m/c at 5 weeks.  I've been taking ProgonB for the
second half of my cycle, but I guess that's not the answer (or perhaps
not the dose).  I know that there are some women who just can't sustain
a pg while nursing, but I was really hoping that the 1-2x/day that
we're doing wouldn't be much of an impact.  I'll head in to my doc in a
few weeks to talk things over, but I'm fearing that I may have to give
a little push towards that final weaning step.

Aside from that, and the days that Little Miss decides to be Little
Miss Contrarian, we're having a blast...

Kerry

DS is still nursing frequently at 2.5 years -- morning, after
breakfast, before nap, during nap, on waking up from nap, to sleep,
several times during the night, if he hurts himself, if he's bored, if
I sit down... :-)

He's in the contrary stage of two, extremely verbal and opinionated
(gee, where could that have come from), and has started to "sing", i.e.
shout, the ABC song and several others.  So we're having fun.

Spencer turned 2 in March, and he's still nursing.  It is pretty much at
bedtime, if he wakes in the night, and morning.  I must admit I'm ready to
wean, so I'm hoping we can phase these out.  If I can't, I'll stick to it,
but my nipples have been so sore this pregnancy (I'm 22 weeks), and it's
just not getting easier.

The little stinker is doing quite well, though, despite fracturing his leg!
He jumped off the couch.  *sigh*  He's on the mend, though he's quite whiny
about things.  It's not raining today, so that will help.  He tends to
forget when he's outside and dumping dirt all over the place. :)

He talks all the time, weighs 27 pounds, and thinks everyday is his
birthday.  He's a bigtime tractor/truck/airplane kid, so those attractions
are pointed out to us quite frequently.  He manages to beat up his sisters
(we are trying soooooo hard to get this to stop) despite not being able to
walk.  I don't get how they can't walk away from him?  He's a sweetie,
though, and often gives kisses and tells me he loves me.

I honestly think 2yo are the cutest things. :)

I am completely a lurker here, but I'd like to add a few words.

My second daughter is just coming up to 2 years and I remember some of
the names here whaen I was reading this group regularily before she was
born and for a while afterwards.

I din't breastfeed my first daughter to my enormous regret (well, for
one week). I hadn't researched at all, because I had just sort of taken
it for granted that I would breastfeed her with no problems. But I got
very ill after her birth and with no support my milk dried up
completely (I don't think it ever even came in). Maybe with what I know
now I would have managed it.

With my second daughter everything went so, so smoothly. I have
breastfed her with never any problems, and still do when she asks
(which can be several times a day). It all seems so natural now, but I
think if I hadn't been reading here I would have stopped around 6
months like everyone else I know, and probably given her the odd bottle
of formula (she's had none).

She also coslept for months with us and still comes back into our bed
whenever she wants (which, curiously isn't very often). She is a really
good sleeper, and I am so pleased to have been so much more relaxed
about it than my first daughter, who I really thought needed to be in
her own bed. I now can't believe the effort I put into that when she
was little.

I stopped BFing at night a while which I think has made BFing much
easier for me to continue.

My husband was hassling me around six months about when I was going to
stop breastfeeding her, now seems to be actually pro breastfeeding her
(if she is being fussy, he'll ask if I coundn't just BF her!). I have
refrained from reminding him what he used to say!

And I have ignored my doctor's advice to stop BFing as I am now
pregnant again.

Just wanted to send a big, big thank you to this group for making what
now seem so obvious changes to my ideas about parenting.

Jose
jparrot99@gmail.com