Nine Month Breastfeeding Update - Is It Time To Wean?


I haven't written many breastfeeding updates as I had planned mainly because I didn't really have much to say as I'd be updating a few bits in Freddie's monthly updates. But another reason is that I've been feeling kinda low about it all for the past month or so. I've never ever thought about stopping up until I reached about six or seven months. This is mainly because I've found it difficult, which is strange because it was ten times harder in the early months but I just loved breastfeeding. I still love breastfeeding and the bond I have with my little boy, and I love the fact that it's my milk who's made him the chubby little baby we have today, but what's been putting me down is having no me time. That may sound pretty selfish. In fact, it is selfish. Very selfish. It puts me down but then yet again, I need to think about myself sometimes. I have Mia and Elliw who need my attention when they're home, I have the school runs to do, housework to do and still waking up during the nights, taking forever to settle Freddie during the evenings just got him to wake up about half an hour later. Don't get me wrong, some evenings are ok, some evenings he will wake up once and sleep until 11.30 - midnight for his next feed. But some are exhausting. I will have roughly 45 minutes to myself sometimes, and I give up with work and end up going to bed.


It has got me down - a lot in the past couple of months. The weeks I find the most difficult, I start to prepare myself to stop, but I end up not giving up because Freddie seems to have a somewhat good evening and so I think to myself "why do I need to stop?". I think I've come to the decision that I'm going to be mix breastfeeding and expressing for the next two or three months and when he turns one, I will be mix feeding before I wean him off the breast completely, which makes me so sad.

I've been dreading writing one of these posts, and I think that may be why I haven't written many updates about breastfeeding. I'm mixed emotions about it all, and I think right at the start, even though it was bloody hard juggling two elder kids and a baby who was super clingy wanting a feed all the time, I loved it. It was a whole new experience for me, and I just loved the bond I had with my boy - I still do.



Freddie still feeds during the day, but I have noticed he will only feed during the day if we are at home. He will feed once or twice, and that's before his naps. If we are out and about, he can go a whole day without a feed which is handy because he's so wriggly now and is easily distracted, so I'd have a great chance of flashing my boob in public which would be one of my worst nightmares. He still feeds during the night before he goes to bed and each time he wakes up through the night and one in the morning before getting up or going for a small morning nap in our bed.

It's been one hell of a journey, but an amazing one. Although most nights recently I wish my partner could be the one who gets up and settle him or settle him to bed. Maybe I could go out for a couple of drinks or a meal while my partner stays at home. But right now, I'm aiming for twelve months of breastfeeding - possibly bringing expressed milk in too - and then slowly wean him off by 13 or so months.

Have you ever weaned your baby?

1 comment

  1. My daughter never really managed to latch on to my wife, so breastfeeding didn't work for us... In the end, we had to use a breast pump to fill as many bottles as she could manage... It was really hard on her... So when my daughter eventually moved off breast milk, my wife's life became so much easier...

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