Breastfeeding Update

We have made it to my original 1 year goal.  This past year has been full of ups and downs with breastfeeding.  I really didn't like it at first and it was a huge struggle.  I now really enjoy nursing my boys.  When we decided to introduce solids at 6 months, I researched a lot about how to do that and how that would tie in with nursing.  We decided to go with baby-led-weaning.  A large component of that is to allow the baby to wean from nursing when they are ready.  So, that meant that I would be nursing past 1 year old, which made my new long-term goal to nurse until the boys weaned themselves.  Typically, a baby will wean themselves around 2 years of age.

However, Magnus has had other plans.  He has had 3 nursing strikes since the start of November.  The first one was 3-4 days in length, and I think was tied to a disruption of his schedule due to his Auntie visiting from out-of-town.  The second one was 1 1/2 days and was directly related to the mouth sores he had from hand-foot-and-mouth disease.  This last strike has been going on for 3 1 /2 weeks.  I have no idea how it started or why.  I've tried many things to get him back on the breast, but nothing has worked.  I've consulted with 2 lactation consultants and tried their suggestions, and nothing has helped.  He screams and arches his back when put to the breast.  The stress of trying to nurse him has started to impact our relationship, which is why I decided to rent a hospital grade pump and pump for Magnus to feed him bottles of expressed milk. 

So, I am now tied to the milk-bot (name my husband gave the pump) as much as I was when I started breastfeeding.  I pump after I nurse Ragnar and feed Magnus his bottle and then have added an extra pumping session at night after they go to bed.  It's had a huge impact on our routine since each pumping session adds about 30 minutes to our feeding routine.  I'm not sure how long I will pump and feed him via bottle.  We have our 1-year appointment next week and depending on how they've done with weight gain I may drop the pumping and move Magnus exclusively to cow's milk at meals.  I'm hopeful that he will eventually come back to the breast, but I'm not going to pressure him to do it.  I truly do not think that he is weaning himself, but that this is a strike as it was so sudden and so forceful and upsetting to him.  At the same time, I'm planning to allow Ragnar to nurse until he is ready to wean.  This will make our routine a bit tricky, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. 

I am having extreme guilt with the thought of not providing Magnus with breast milk while continuing to provide it for Ragnar through nursing.  I'm not sure which is worse- being unavailable to both of them for the 15-30 minutes it takes 3 times a day to pump and clean parts or to not provide pumped milk for Magnus.  Ugh.  Mommy guilt!

Happy Birthday!!!

My little babies are 1 year old today!  Magnus and Ragnar have brought so much joy to my life and were by far the best thing to happen to me in what ended up being a rocky year.  I love you baby boys!