The Beginning of the End

I can no longer ignore the obvious- Pumpkin is starting to wean herself. Luckily, it is a slow process, which is what I want. For once, she and I agree on something! She used to drink 15 ounces of breastmilk during the day, and now she is only drinking 5-8 ounces. She still nurses before bed (in fact, she added a second before bed nursing when we gave in and moved her bedtime back a half hour- which is a topic for another post). She also nurses once in the middle of the night and once first thing in the morning. Guess which one she has dropped the last two days? I'll give you a hint: I'm still getting up in the middle of the night. I'm hoping that we can convince her to drop the middle of the night nursing and resume the morning nursing. She still wakes up and points to her boppy (her way of telling me that it is time to nurse), but when I lay her down and get ready to nurse, she just pushes me away, rolls off the boppy, and starts to run around. However, she is getting over a cold, so perhaps she just is too stuffy first thing in the morning to nurse. Time will tell.

I've already dropped one pumping session- I no longer pump before bed most nights. If she truly goes down to 5 ounces of breastmilk during the day, I'll drop one of my two day time sessions, too. I won't miss pumping, but I am a little conflicted about the obvious trend towards weaning. Of course, I know that she needs to wean some time, and I look forward to the day when I can enjoy a couple of beers without thinking about when the next nursing will be. But I know I will be sad when she gives up that last nursing session, even if the last one to go is the one in the middle of the night (apparently, that is the last one I dropped as a baby). Also, as long as she is nursing, I don't have to stress about her eating habits. OK, I don't have to stress about the nutritional impact of her poor eating habits. I will continue to stress about her eating habits, because that's what mothers do.