This has most definitely been one of the hardest weeks of my life. Not that anything particularly bad has happened, but I have just been having a really hard time.
Over the last couple of weeks I've been working on weaning my little guy from breastfeeding and it is NOT going so well. He's only a month shy of 1 yr and this is WAY longer than I planned on nursing him. Starting at about 2 weeks old we gave him formula once a day and I was hoping to start weaning by 6 months, but when he was about 4 months he started breaking out in rashes/hives/eczema and throwing up a lot and pretty soon we realized he had milk sensitivities.
We tried so many formulas (soy, hypoallergenic, etc) but we couldn't ever find anything that he would actually drink (I still feel horrible that I tried to feed him nutramigen or alimentum--those things taste like sour puke!) that he didn't react to. So breastfeeding it was.
But now my bubba is eating pretty much everything he can get his chubby little hands on and I think he's slowly growing out of his milk sensitivities. I've been trying out a new kind of formula and besides a little rash on his legs he seems to be doing pretty well.
HOWEVER, I've broken the cardinal rule of parenting and trained my kid to always nurse to sleep. So now that we're trying to cut down on the nursing he WILL NOT SLEEP!!! I have scratches all over my neck from him clawing me while I'm trying to rock him back to sleep in the middle of the night and he just wants to nurse.
Both big J and I have been taking turns at night but even so I am majorly sleep deprived. As in I've been so tired I can barely function, I spontaneously break down and cry for 95% of the day, and my already irrational thinking has become borderline insane. I've talked to so many people who have reassured me that it's normal for kids to go through separation anxiety when you try to wean them from anything they're attached to, but it makes me so sad to see my happy little boy so distraught and temperamental.
I get so confused--I don't know if I'm trying to go too fast or too slow, all I know is that because of some medical problems I've been having I NEED to wean and I NEVER thought it would be this hard!
I think my biggest problem is that I take a legitimately difficult thing and make it even worse than it needs to be. Instead of validating that we're going through a difficult period and being patient with myself, my sleep deprived brain convinces me that there's something wrong with me that I can't just figure this out. I start getting down on myself, my anxiety shoots through the roof, and my mind automatically goes to things it "thinks" it can control (if I could just lose weight, if I just didn't eat so much, if I just run an extra 5 miles...).
But, experience has taught me all too well (and I hope I'm learning from it) that those things are just an illusion of control. Real control comes from facing what I'm afraid of. Even if it means I don't have all the answers and I have to plug along...day after day after day...just doing my best. And maybe that means this weaning process is going to take a lot longer than I had hoped. Maybe it means I'll be listening to my precious little boy screaming for hours on end while I help him learn how to fall asleep by himself. I don't know what the best path will be. There are probably several paths that would work out just fine. But I do know which path will NOT work. Depriving myself of my needs will not somehow better equip me to take care of his. Besides, this kid of mine is going to be walking any day now and I'm going to need a lot of stamina to keep up with his endless energy!
P.S. I already posted this picture on my private blog, but just look at those arms--this kid is thriving and will most definitely survive weaning! :)
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Weaning woes
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2 comments:
Oh Court, I hear ya. With Lydia, she was my first, and any little cry just about broke my heart! I nursed her to sleep most of her first year, and trying to get her to sleep through the night was just about the hardest thing ever! Weaning is just an emotional thing as your little one loses that need to depend on you, and it is hard! When you are sleep deprived and emotionally troubled, it is so easy to have your mind tell you all sorts of wacky stuff, and you believe it because your making sense ability has gone out the window. (At least that was how it was for me.)
With Emma, I knew that letting her cry wasn't going to traumatize her for life like I thought with Lydia. We would just close the door, and say good luck. Call me heartless, but it worked. It will most likely be harder with little J since he's used to it like Lydia was, and getting her through it was way tough, but I promise it won't traumatize him at all. I think it's a lot harder on the parents then it is on the kid. And I don't think either of the girls remember our neglect of them, (at least so far :)).
You are the best Court, and you are an amazing mama. I mean, for reals, look at that little guy! That proves my point! I miss you guys!
Hey Court,
I totally hear you on this one! Finally, I just had to "let" Kevin do this one. I couldn't go in at night to comfort them anymore. They would just scream and squirm and cry SO LOUD if I came in and they could smell the milk:) Nothing like that to make you feel like a cow:) Anyway, finally, we just decided it had to be Kevin to go in at night to comfort the one being weaned. And it took a few days but they would eventually go back to sleep with Dad there and I got a little more MUCH needed sleep that week and we got to a good place with babies who finally realized that they didn't need us to come to them every few hours at night. You can let John read this for some official back-up:) It's all him! Go Dad!!! (Hope this helps:)
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