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Saturday, September 12, 2009

weaning tips, anyone?

So....Jaxon is 1 year old now and I'm thinking it's time to get him off the breast. There's 2 weekends in October that I have the opportunity to go away without Jaxon (Wonderland with the youth and a Women's retreat) but I really don't see Jaxon being done with me by then.

In those first days of breastfeeding, I never thought I'd get to 6 months, let alone 1 year! Well here we are and I love it and Jaxon loves it. But I didn't think it would be this hard to wean him! He has shown no signs of wanting to be done with it, in fact...he's starting to come to me signing "please, milk!" which is so cute and so hard to say no to! However......it's TIME! I told myself that when my kid starts to be able to pull up my shirt and ask for it, it's time to say bye-bye to breastfeeding. And I'm afraid that time has come.

We've successfully gone from 4 feedings a day to 3 in the last five days, but I've had to distract him quite a few times this week after he signed "please milk" to make him forget....so I don't see dropping 3 more feedings in under a month to be possible.

The biggest issue for me is that Jaxon doesn't really drink enough milk from a sippy cup (and he won't take a bottle at all..never has!) to replace his milk feedings. Since getting rid of the 12pm feeding, I've been offering him Homo milk in a sippy cup. He'll take sips but definitely not enough (or so I think). He's also not eating a ton of solid food right now so I worry that he's not getting enough. What are the milk requirements for a 1 yr old?

Any advice?? Should I just prepare for a tough 2 weeks and eliminate the feedings one-by-one, hoping that he'll eventually drink the homo milk or should I give up on the idea of going away in October????????

Thanks for your advice!

ps. any moms out there have any tips for picky eaters? It seems like we have to pretty much force feed Jaxon his meat & veggie meals. He's pretty picky with his finger foods too.

6 comments:

  1. For weaning him...I guess I don't really have much advice for you since both my kids took a bottle and drank like it was the exact same milk when I started to wean. Actually...have tried giving him his sippy cup with milk first thing in the morning...when he's probably the hungriest/thristiest? I found that worked for my kids better than trying to give it to them in the evening.

    As for picky eaters. Emily actually hated certain veggies and she still not a fan of meats, etc. We had to pretty much force feed her some veggies/meats too...I actually think that it's good to make your kids eat stuff that might not be their favorites...trust me, if you don't want a picky eater, it's easier to conque picky eating at 1yr. than at 2 yrs. or older! Tate eats basically anything, and I think it's because we have made him eat or at least try all kinds of foods. Emily is also getting a TON better with eating and will eat mostly anything now too - especially if she can feed herself. Well, I don't know if that helped you much, but I'd say just keep giving him the veggies and meats. Sometimes it takes a while but they do develop a taste for it eventually...or at least my kids have! :) Good luck with the weaning etc. :)

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  2. Weaning is a tough issue!! With Rowan, we had a frustrating nursing relationship to begin with, so by 10 months that was it!!! He screamed at me when I tried to give him a bottle the first time, but once he relaxed and tried it, he eventually took it. Then I slowly weaned him off one feeding at a time. And I mean slow! Don't rush it if you don't have to, it can be painful. I don't remember how slowly I did it, but I had no engorgement troubles.

    With Bria, I was ready to let her wean herself. Don't get me wrong, I was ready to have my body back, but I figured she would lose interest sooner rather than later. And she did. At 13 months, she just decided she was done. Mind you, she only nursed a couple times a day by that point. And she loved nursing before that!

    As much as you really want to go away without him, I would probably not force it too much. If he's not going to drink enough milk otherwise, and isn't eating much food, then I wouldn't cut out the nursing. That's just my opinion though, and I know that you will do what is right for you guys :)

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  3. Heather11:42 PM

    Laura, I remember sending out the same letter full of concerns for Liam. Angela Swanson helped me a lot. My boys never took a bottle and I went straight to a cup. Liam took a staw sippy better as he couldn't figure out how to tip up the other kind. I dropped a feeding every two weeks so that it was easier. I found the first week to be tough but by the 2nd week they would drink more milk. I also started giving them milk with breakfast, a small morning snack with milk, lunch and milk, afternoon snack with milk, supper with milk and bedtime snack with milk. They eventually got enough. If you feel he isn't getting enough milk, the health care nurse told me about 3% yogurt I think it's called "little ones" or something like that, it's all natural colours and flavours, might be an alternative. Sometimes at first they may like the chill taken off the milk which is another think try. Just some thoughts.

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  4. Jaxon is pretty young, so I wouldn't try to rush it too much. With Brandon I was hoping to be done nursing by the time he was 13 months so that we could go to a wedding without him, but he just wasn't ready yet. I think that once they are ready, it is pretty painless. Brandon ended up being weaned at 15 months without any problems.

    As for not getting enough milk...there is no way you can compare a mothers milk to cows milk. I just tried to make sure they had enough calcium by eating stuff like yogurt.

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  5. Anonymous7:56 PM

    A lot of this post I could have written myself about Korban! I think I better write you an email than a comment, 'cause it'll be long. I'll try and do it tonight. :)

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  6. Something I noticed with Taden when starting him on cow's milk was that he didn't like it cold, so I actually would throw it in the microwave for about 15 seconds in a sippy cup to take the chill off and he did much better with it. I don't remember exactly how long I did that, but I started putting it in the microwave for fewer seconds until we just stopped warming it all together. Using a microwave might be contraversial?? I'm not sure? But it worked for us. We might have done that for a couple months? Can't remember exactly, but it seemed like a little while. Good luck!!! Oh, another thing, I read somewhere that it can take up to 15-20 trys (something like that?) of a certain food before a child will start to like it, so as frustrating as it may seem, off and on, you could try just continuing to offer Jax the foods that he doesn't seem to like. You've probably already tried this, but say he really likes applesauce, but not peas, try feeding him a bite of peas in between each bite of applesauce, so that he's getting his favorite, but also eating his not-so-favorite :) My cousin even mixed the peas (whole) into appleasauce for her son. Love ya! Had the thought today that we would have been at your house today....bummer it didn't work out on our end :(

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