Never Again

Two full years of my life have included breastfeeding. For each baby, the beginning of the breastfeeding period was a time where nothing else mattered, nothing else could get done, except for nursing. So now, that I'm just days away from completely weaning Riley, I can't help but feel nostalgia mixed with a sense of relief.

I never knew how amazingly hard it would be to get a baby to suck. For days after Holden's birth, I was all-consumed with this task. As he started to lose weight, we started to lose our minds. We couldn't understand how we could be up all the time, willing to feed a wailing baby, yet not able to. Those first two weeks of Holden's life, nothing got done but visits to the lactation consultant, research on the Internet and a lot of nursing that involved me and one other person holding his head in place.

Then, once we got it down, I'd spend 18-20 of every 24 hours sitting, nursing, gulping water and watching a lot of television. He'd nurse for nearly two hours, take a half hour break, then screech for more. Days would pass where all my meals were eaten from a plate balanced on his arm. It was frustrating, and I felt like a walking, talking milk machine. I may have even moo'd.

But it was all encompassing. With both Holden and Riley, everything I did and ate, everywhere I went, was centered around breastfeeding: Will there be a place for me to sit comfortably? Can I make it to one, two or even dare try three errands before the crying starts? How long until I can put dairy products, tomatoes, eggs and other allergy-causing foods back into my diet (both kids had problems with gas pains and seemed to react to certain things in my food)?

Then, came the honeymoon phase. After a couple months, the babies settled into a predictable schedule and would even go hours between nursing. This was a bigger feat for Holden than Riley, since Riley was able to sometimes sleep four to five hour stretches early on. Nursing was easy and enjoyable then, a quiet time to spend with a satisfied baby. It wasn't long until breastfeeding was a footnote to the day. The babies moved on to daycare and formula, then baby food and table food. With both, I kept nursing in the morning and at bedtime long after the rest of the meals were normal.

I stopped nursing Holden when he was just a couple weeks shy of his first birthday. My body was simply not maintaining enough of supply, and he would get frustrated. It was over without warning. With Riley, I planned to stop when he was a year, but kept postponing it. Now, well into his 14th month, the weaning process has begun. I've already kicked him off the boob in the morning, and he seems OK with his early morning bottle the last two days. He gets until the end of the week until I evict him from the bedtime nursing.

I'm weaning partly because nursing is not always comfortable anymore. He's strong and wiggly and can make me sore. Also, I have a weekend trip planned in a month without the kids or the husband, and wanted Riley established on a bottle routine well before that. It will also be nice to share Riley's bedtime duties with Kevin, and maybe we can integrate Holden and Riley's bedtime routines easier this way. In addition, I have high hopes that, once he gets going on the bottle for his 5 a.m.ish feeding, I can slowly put less and less milk in the bottle with the idea that, eventually, he'll think it's just not worth it to get up and will sleep on through. I hope.

Even though, for the most part, we both still seem to enjoy it, I know the time has come. Like all transitions, it's bittersweet - another sign that the baby days are passing fast. My heart grows a bit heavy now as I watch Riley in his final nights of sucking away, my body sustaining and comforting his in a way I still find miraculous and a bit weird. He won't remember these moments that truly defined who I was for months, but I will always cherish his soft coos and tiny hands stroking me, knowing those were his way of saying, "Thanks, Mom."