Nursing

I made a promise to myself long before Nolen was ever born. I promised myself that I would try to nurse, but wouldn't beat myself up if it didn't work out. So little man arrived, slight moment of panic "I never took the breast feeding class, I don't know what I'm doing." Then mother nature kicked in and little man latched right on. So far so good.

I always try to warn all my new mommy friends that breastfeeding was by far the hardest part of having a newborn (for me at least.) Somehow in all of my baby books it never mentioned this little tid bit. It was overwhelming knowing that I was the soul provider of food for this little man, every 3 hours, day and night, no breaks. I made it to 3 months and then set my next goal for 6. Six months came, I was going back to work so I thought that was a good stopping point however things were just going too well, so we kept at it. This time adding in pumping 2 x a day to the mix. By the time we made it this far it was second nature to our days. Next goal, 12 months.

Well little man turned 12 months, and we did stop some feedings, just not ALL the feedings. We've decided to cut out his daytime feedings (aka pumping at work.) For now we're nursing in the morning and at night. I want the decision to be mutual. I want Nolen stop when he's ready. I hear for lots of babies it's around 15 months (we may have to rethink this if we're still going at age 12.)

Whatever happens from here on out I'm good with. I feel relieved that I was able to give him 12 full months of that liquid gold goodness. I'm grateful that we were able to have 12 months of such a special bond. We'll see where we go from here!