Milkies go bye bye!

Well.  That settles it.  The paperwork is in order, my retirement package settled.  I have done my work as a dairy cow, and am happy/sad to say that I am no longer needed in that department.  Eli is fully weaned - at 10 months.

I didn't do this intentionally - it kinda just happened.  All of a sudden he started eating tons of food, and stopped crying for feeds.  Then only in the last few weeks, I stopped going in to him at night when he cried - not only did he stop feeding over night, he also stopped crying for me.  He sleeps for 10-12 hours straight now....

While I'm super stoked about his new love of sleeping, I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the cessation of feeding him.  I mean, I'm happy to be "free" of the ritual, in the sense that now, I get a full night's sleep (if you count 5 a.m wake ups as full) and if I had to leave him with someone, he's not going to need a bottle.  However, this really does draw the curtains on that section of my life (for now - til the next one comes along..) as well as his life.  I find myself with mixed feelings about that.  I don't nurse him to sleep anymore, so I don't get to sit and look at his beautiful face while he sleeps... that's something I'll miss a lot.

There's another aspect of this too that I find niggles at my mind.  Previously, whenever I couldn't settle him for whatever reason, or if he was in pain, I would show him that I loved him by giving him his most favourite thing in the world... and I felt like a good mum.  Now, if I can't settle him, or he's in pain, the best I can do is kisses and cuddles.  Sometimes, it just feels like that's not enough.  Like I'm not a "magical" mum, whose kisses and cuddles could cure the most horrible things, especially my baby's crying.

I didn't know how I was going to feel about it.  I suspected I'd just be happy about it - since I didn't really think it was my favourite thing in the world.  I didn't dislike it, I just couldn't gush about it like it's the most incredible thing I could ever experience as a mother.  There are plenty of other awesome things I experience every day that are easily in line with breast feeding.  I'm glad I did it, and I will do it again.  Who knows, maybe the next baby will feed longer.  Maybe not?

If you've not done it yet and are planning on it (comment is restricted to women for obvious reasons...) or if you're doing it currently and are not finding it as wonderful and amazing as you were told it would be, don't stress.  It's not like that for everyone...  It wasn't like that for me!

But I still really did enjoy it - in my own way... :o)

A. xo