I got my silver boobies yesterday! For those unclear on what that means, let me explain. I have been BF’ing exclusively for 6 months. I am not sure but I dont think you can get gold till a year. Elijah loves to eat, he has never had a problem with latching at all. Day 1 he was perfect and nursing all the time and thats the problem.
This is Elijah on Day 3, already loving eating with the Boppy and sleeping afterwards. He even looks like he is smiling.
So on to the problem. He still wants to eat constantly. Not really eat but nurse. I think I am his security blanket. He doesnt sleep but an hour at a time at night and then wants to nurse. So my question is, should I start to wean him? I am comfortable nursing as long as he wants to (within reason of course). He eats solids now. We are up to fruits (remember start with veggies, orange to green and then move to fruit).
Here he is today 6 months and 1 day old, asleep on his favorite nursing pillow (I know its pink but it was a gift and I didnt want to offend anyone)
I really wanna leave the weaning up to him but he has got to start sleeping at night. We see the doctor on the 30th for his 6 month checkup so I will ask her then about it.
Any suggestions for me?
Personally, I would keep letting him nurse on demand. Do you co-sleep?
I do co-sleep. His doctor doesnt like it and recommends crying it out but I just cant handle that yet.
there is NOTHING wrong with co-sleeping! it makes nursing through the night SO much easier. you could try nursing more often during the day. and once he starts more solid food, that should help too.i'm following back.
I LOVE co-sleeping. It has totally saved our nursing relationship. We never would have made our short-term goal of 6 months if not for that nighttime nursing around the clock and I feel more rested than I ever did with the twins in their cribs.Have you heard of Baby-Led Weaning? It's a way of introducing solids. I write on a group blog where we're telling our experiences of BLW: http://www.babyledweaningblog.com
Our definition and sleep and baby's definition are two very different things and it is so hard to let go of that idea. A baby will wake several times in their sleep cycle and sometimes fall back to sleep or want to nurse or just want to be with you. I am with the co sleeping camp, too and with you on the crying it out. All it does with my baby is make it worse… her face use to turn red from screaming and she would start to hyperventilate. Trust your instincts. There are a lot of great blog posts in the Breastfeeding Hop related to this that might help but if you can… don't wean because of this. There where times I would just feel so frustrated because all baby wanted to do was nurse and for what seems like hours on end and there were so many things I needed to do but… it was what she needed and it worked itself out in the end. It got easier as she got older.Good luck! And trust your instincts. Doctors can be wrong sometimes. They are only human 🙂
Levi is 7 months and does not sleep through the night. It's tough, but I know weaning isn't the right answer for us. We've started solids, and I'm sure that as his stomach develops and gets used to digesting new foods, he'll eventually start to sleep longer, too.Hang in there! Trust your mommy instincts and celebrate your silver boobie milestone!Thanks for linking up to the BF Blog Hop.
Following from the hop. Yup, gold is at 12 months. I did a post on the boobie awards :)http://www.darcyandbrian.com/2011/02/24/breastfeeding-blog-hop-milestones/I also cosleep. Rissa was really good at sleeping through the night until recently. She used to eat a lot during the day, but now she needs more food at night because she's getting distracted by the world around her.I would work on increasing intake during the day and see what that does. Although he's started solids, that shouldn't really replace intake of breast milk at this point so hopefully his solid meals aren't skipping nursing sessions.Early on people were surprised at how often I nursed my daughter during the day, but I didn't mind because she was sleeping 8-12hrs through at night!~Darcy @ Tales From the Nursery ~
Ha, silver boobies. I guess I have double platinum gold or something crazy. LOL.I've been nursing for almost 5 straight years with nary a break…about 3 months off.