Motherhood: Our Breastfeeding Journey
“HOW DID YOU KNOW IT WAS THE RIGHT TIME TO STOP BREASTFEEDING?”
Whenever I receive a significant number of repeat questions on social media, it feels as if a blog post to corral a response is the most appropriate. As with most decisions in life, a little back story is usually helpful in seeing the whole picture, so here’s a look into our breastfeeding journey.
First and foremost, I want to preface this post by saying that I believe fed is best. Formula, exclusive pumping, exclusive breastfeeding, breast milk donation, etc. is all great in my book. Everyone’s journey with every single baby is different! You do what works best for you and your family.
I exclusively breastfed Marin from the day she was born. We followed a FEED-WAKE-SLEEP cycle chronicled in the book Baby Wise. We received the book from a work colleague of Tyler’s (someone I’ve never even met but owe a serious thank you. Ha!), and it’s honestly the only “baby book” I read before her birth. The theory made sense to me on paper, so I figured we would give it a shot. Luckily, it was a good fit for us and for Marin. As a result, I have NEVER nursed Marin to sleep. She always ate when she woke up, so weaning for us all those months later had nothing to do with her going to sleep. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I just wanted to mention it since that’s the only routine we’ve ever known.
My maternity leave was set to end at 12 weeks and we would be sending Marin to daycare full time, so it was essential she could take a bottle. When she turned 10 weeks old, we began introducing a bottle of breastmilk. IT. WAS. HORRIBLE. The two weeks that followed will forever be engrained in my mind as some of the roughest days of my life. Marin HATED bottles. She never took a pacifier, so I can’t say that I was overly surprised, but my gosh. She would just scream and scream. We tried tons of different brands, different people giving her a bottle, etc. You name it, we tried it. Long story short, it took a bunch of tears from the two of us, but she and I finally figured it out. She didn’t like it, but she eventually gave in and would begrudgingly take a bottle in time for full time daycare.
I say all of this because I think it’s a big reason why everything thereafter transpired the way it did. Starting at 10 weeks, I was breastfeeding Marin first thing in the morning and in the evening. During the day, she took a bottle of breastmilk. ALWAYS. Even on the weekends and holidays. I was convinced she would start refusing the bottle if I wavered from the routine (FYI - I totally don’t think that actually would have happened looking back on it, but I was terrified of reliving that whole experience again!). As a result, this meant I was pumping 3-5 times/day EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. I’m grateful I had a good milk supply, but pumping like that for months and months on end is an incredible amount of work and pressure. I followed this routine from the time she was 10 weeks until she turned one. Believe me, I had a real love/hate relationship with my breast pump. Oy vey!
When Marin turned one, our doctor recommended we start introducing cow’s milk and focus on drinking from a cup. I started out mixing breastmilk and cow’s milk in her bottles during the day. She had no negative reactions and didn’t seem to even notice the difference, so each day I would slowly increase the amount of cow’s milk. I also quickly shifted her bottles to real cups and a sippy cup at meal times (she was already drinking water from a cup at meal times). For a girl that hated bottles, this was a VERY easy transition. Within a week or so, she was just drinking cow’s milk from a cup during the day, so I began backing down on my pumping, getting down to 1 pump/day around 13 months. As a result, I saw a significant decrease in my supply. We pretty quickly dropped our evening breastfeeding session as my supply just wasn’t sufficient. From about 13 months to 15 months, we were breastfeeding first thing in the morning and then Marin was drinking cow’s milk from a cup the rest of the day.
At around 14 months, I knew our breastfeeding journey was coming to a close. I stopped pumping all together, a day I had looked forward to for SO long, but it was oddly sad as I knew it meant everything was quickly coming to a close. Honestly, Marin would have been perfectly fine either way, but I just wasn’t ready to give it up quite yet. Those early morning hours, just the two of us, were always some of my favorite. But a week or so later, I really started to notice my supply dwindling. I decided I wanted to make it to 15 months, so that’s what we did, and Marin hasn’t missed a beat. We now cuddle for a few minutes every morning, and it’s still the perfect start to the day.
That first year of motherhood is truly a journey. Growing, shifting, changing, expanding, contracting. I’m grateful for a strong and healthy body to grow and take care of a strong and healthy little girl. No matter what that first year looks like for you, know that you’re doing GREAT!