I decided to breastfeed my son for the health benefits, but what began as an intellectual decision quickly became an emotional journey as I bonded with my child through the simple act of feeding him. Breastfeeding was the solace of those hectic first weeks of his life; when I needed a reprieve from the frequent visitors, I would take him into another room where it was quiet and we could be alone for a few moments while he nursed. Those same quiet moments in the middle of the night made all the fractured sleep worthwhile. Overwhelmed and exhausted, breastfeeding forced me to stop, sit down, hold my child in my arms and just enjoy him.
But as his first birthday approaches, I find myself wrestling with the issue of weaning. When to do it? How to do it? How will I know when and how to do it?
I’ve read a little bit about the process. As a baby’s solid food intake increases, a natural weaning process begins because the baby no longer needs as many calories from breast milk. That being said, babies still get some of their nutrition from breast milk or formula until one year of age, when they can be weaned onto whole milk–though there are sources out there that encourage mothers to breastfeed at least a few times a day for as long as possible (up to 5 years).
I knew I would never be the kind of mother to fall into the latter category. I always said I wanted to stop breastfeeding before Z was old enough to unhook the nursing bra himself, but I planned to nurse him until he was at least a year old. Once I returned to work I still planned to nurse in the morning and evening until it felt like the “right time” to eliminate breastfeeding altogether. Because of that belief, it has been very difficult and emotional for me to admit that the time to wean my son may have arrived sooner than I expected.
Probably the first sign that weaning time was approaching was Zayden’s decreased interest in nursing. It has been months since I’ve thought of breastfeeding my son as a special time that we share together. The cuddly infant who used to relax and nuzzle at my breast is long gone. Even in a quiet room without distractions, he no longer settles at the breast. He pulls off repeatedly, often trying to sit up or crawl away throughout the feeding, but if I mistake one of these escape attempts for a signal that he is all done before he is actually finished, he’ll cry. It makes for a very confusing and frustrating process.
I have also had several signs that my milk supply is not what it used to be. I have not felt engorged in months–even when I miss a feed. I can no longer pump sufficient milk to leave him a bottle when we go out for the evening. At one time, I could pump 4-6 oz. of milk in a 20 minute pumping session. Now I get less than an ounce in the same amount of time. We’ve resorted to using formula when we leave Zayden with a sitter. But the clearest sign came when I had to start supplementing some of my breastfeeding sessions with formula. It doesn’t happen every day, but sometimes I feel like I don’t have any milk left, and I can no longer hear him swallowing, but he will keep pulling off the breast and crying in frustration before trying to nurse some more. The first time this happened, I decided to offer him some of the formula we had on hand for babysitters, and he gulped down 6 ounces! So far I’ve only had to supplement a handful of feedings, but the need to supplement has become a more frequent occurence.
The final push to start weaning came when I got sick recently. I’m guessing it was a case of the flu (fever, muscle aches, sore throat, total lack of energy, etc.). Whatever it was, I spent most of the Thanksgiving long weekend in bed feeling miserable. To help me get extra sleep, my husband got up in the wee morning hours with our teething son and gave him a bottle of formula instead of waking me for his 5am feeding. 5 days in to this morning bottle routine, I feel like I should just accept that this is the first breastfeeding session that he’s dropped and that instead of trying to go back and rebuild my already dwindling milk supply, I should just continue down this path that I’ve been trying to avoid.
Admitting that my baby no longer needs my milk the way he once did is hard. Weaning my son means leaving that special bond from his baby days behind and watching him take one more step towards independence.
Aiden's Yogurt Mustache
As you know from my breastfeeding journey, I had trouble with my milk supply. In order to boost it, on the advice of the lactation consultant and my doctor, I started taking Fenugreek supplements as well as a medication called Domperidone. My supply did gradually increase, though I honestly was breastfeeding so constantly (to get Aiden to nap / not fuss) that I didn’t know how much milk I was actually making (a lot) until we stopped the majority of the night feeding at 4 months.
By that time, I’d already gotten to the point of being able to exclusi
vely breastfeed Aiden. He’d refuse his bottles if offered, so we were good. I weaned off the Fenugreek around this time, one pill at a time. But I got lazy about the Domperidone. I was paranoid about my supply going down and the medication was “free” under our plan, so why rush?
Two weeks after I started to decrease my medication – an 8+ week process – Aiden had that fun nursing strike. Since I don’t pump well, though goodness knows I try, I pushed back up my dose in order to save my supply. And fed at night. We know where that led to. Oy.
Anyway, by the time that nursing strike was over, and my supply was back and levelled off, I was ready to try again. Even though Aiden had another 1-week nursing strike during the weaning process, I didn’t increase my dose again. I got down to 2 pills a day, at which point I had a drop during the weaning. I had to stay at that level an extra two weeks. The same drop happened when I went completely off the pills, so I went back on a single pill for one more week.
I’m now free of the Domperidone and breastfeeding well. No dip in my supply. Given that our sleep training worked again, I’m breastfeeding Aiden 4 times a day, with the last feed being large or very small, depending on Aiden’s pre-bedtime mood. But I still feel like he’s getting what he needs and I’m so happy to be able to breastfeed on my own. Feels like another achievement for me.
I did a lot of research on Domperidone when Aiden was young and was comfortable using it. It worked for me, and for many others I know. Some people aren’t able to exclusively breastfeed, but most are able to breastfeed at least in part. And every little bit is great, right? It isn’t necessarily the first thing you should do to correct breastfeeding / lactation issues. There are quite a lot of other things you can try too (dual pumping frequently, nursing techniques, latch corrections, etc).
Back in June, Aiden had his first nursing strike. It lasted a month. I opted to breastfeed Aiden if he awoke at night, abandoning our sleep methods in favor of maintaining my milk supply and that special relationship to him. I love breastfeeding and I wanted to, at least, maintain that for a year. I don’t regret that decision, but it has had consequences.
Because the nursing strike lasted for an entire month, Aiden got pretty used to being breastfed if he was not settling at night. He abandoned his sleep independence and called out for mommy. We managed to easily and quickly solve the post-midnight wakings with some help from our sleep trainer. It should have eliminated the pre-midnight wakings too, given time. It did not.
Our attempts to one-by-one remove the 1-3 wakings pre-midnight have been unsuccessful using our existing methods. Very unsuccessful. Like 2 hours of screaming unsuccessful. And now bedtimes are a mess again. I’m currently listing to Aiden chatter away after more than an hour since he was put in his crib and 3 visits from me to attempt to get him to sleep. I’ll likely visit him again once this post is done.
After consulting again with our sleep trainer, I believe we are going to try another method next week to more gently ease Aiden away from his obvious dependence on mommy without spiking his separation anxiety issues. I hope it works. And still, I don’t regret our decisions. They all felt right at the time. The consequences just suck.
We are currently in the middle of a nursing strike due to teething pain, though things are a lot better than they were. I’ve managed to find some ways to make nursing possible, though it’s still sometimes a battle.
Here are some of the things that have helped us, which others may wish to try if the nursing strike is also related to teething pain:
- Offer the breast at regular and more frequent intervals
- Breastfeed while drowsy. He mostly refuses the breast when he first wakes up in the morning or from naps, but he will take the breast when drowsy
- If he won’t take the breast upon entering his room before a nap, try to trigger the sleep cues. This could mean putting on his sleep sack and/or letting him partially fall asleep in his crib.
- Use Orajel – on top and bottom for us, back and front. Put it on a few minutes before you nurse
- Switch nurse – he won’t nurse as long when the flow slows down, so I swap breasts back and forth to keep it going
- Prioritize – if nursing is important to you, be prepared to lose sleep to make up the nursing sessions
- Dreamfeed – if your baby doesn’t wake up to nurse, consider adding extra dreamfeed sessions to keep up your supply
- Sing the sleepy song while nursing
- Don’t force it. Sometimes he has pain and arches away. I keep him from flipping off the pillow, but wait for him to calm down and retry. If he’s adamently refusing, we will stop, but often he’ll try a few times to nurse. I don’t want the experience to become negative for him, but I do want him to try.
There have been days, or naps, when I still can’t get Aiden to nurse. In those cases, I will offer him formula and/or pumped breastmilk. I’m not an effective pumper, but I will pump during a missed feed just to continue the stimulation, if not to empty the breast.
In the ongoing saga of teething and the nursing strike, I was willing to give just about anything a try in order to get Aiden nursing again. There was nothing more painful for me, as a mother, to see my son pull away from me even at the sight of the breastfeeding pillow. Broke my heart.
So, I decided to give Baby Orajel a try. It has its risks, but my Doctor was the first to point it out to me. So, in my desperation, I gave it a try. Thankfully, no side effects. But what it has done is enable me to breastfeed again. Mostly.
Aiden doesn’t seem to have the patience any longer, at least right now, to breastfeed when he wakes up in the morning or after naps. However, he is breastfeeding before naps when I use the Orajel. At first I just used it on the bottom, but he seems to last longer and fuss less over being breastfed if I put the gel on both the top and bottom.
In some cases, my timing isn’t perfect and he still doesn’t want to feed. In these cases, I let him get close to falling asleep then pick him up for something like a dreamfeed. He is feeding well at night (though I miss sleep!). Aside from two days where he could barely latch on from pain, even at night, we seem to be finding a way to keep breastfeeding in a somewhat manageable way. It’s not quite as many feeds as he is used to, but he seems to be gaining well still.
