Thursday, October 1, 2009

Stop Nursing My Baby...

Today I came to the realization that it's time to stop nursing my little guy. I am so sad about this. He is almost 8 months old; I wanted to nurse him a year like his sister. I feel that he is growing up too fast...don't they all.

I have been fighting almost since his birth to keep up with his appetite. I remember the nurse watching him suckle his first day of life and she gave me a look of pain and called him a Barracuda!

At 3.5 months, I had to start supplementing my milk with formula. I am an experienced breastfeeding mother and I know that you are never suppose to supplement a nursing baby. I knew that this would never help increase my milk supply, but I had to do something quickly to help keep his tummy satisfied.

At 4 months, I started to feed him solids again too early for me, I wanted to wait until 6 months. I was hoping this would curb his hunger and keep him satisfied longer....nope, he only wanted more!

I have used Helbay (sp?), an amazing natural herb/seed that can be drank as tea or put in dessert that is approved by the FDA to increase milk supply by up to 600 percent! It is truly amazing. After the first 24 hours, my milk supply increased by 50 percent and after 48 hours my milk had doubled! (I know this because I was pumping regularly to also help increase my supply , so I knew how much I was producing). I have used this Helbay many times, the most recent was last month. It really works, but I am too far from his appetite now.

This past month he has been teething and experimenting what his new teeth can do to his mother....OUCH! At first, this is what I thought it was. Again, being experienced with this I tried to teach him not to bite, as I did his sister. I continued this train of thought for 3 weeks, until today. Today, I realized that he is not biting for fun or attention or as a teether. I realized that he is biting because he is mad that there is no milk! I also figured it to be true because he has been refusing my offers of milk all during the daylight hours this week and taking nicely to the bottle instead.

I figured it out finally (although I'm sure I secretly and deep down knew) because after feeding and getting bit this am I decided to give him a bottle of formula. Yep, as suspected, he drank an additional 6 ounces.......obviously, Mommy cannot magically produce another 6 ounces for you baby love....it's time to stop nursing, game over, you win...as you should.

Today, all day he has been taking formula bottles and loving it. He doesn't miss me as I miss him, and that's okay. I am glad that he has the appetite that he does and that he is getting what he needs. I just wish I could have supplied him with more, but again, that's okay....but I am just a little bit sad about it. You are growing too fast......

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