Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Comfort

You remember back in the day when I was agonizing over Willow's thumbsucking, and couldn't decide whether it was the best thing ever, or whether it would doom us to a childhood of smelly thumbs and crooked teeth?

Well, the decision was taken out of my hands.  Willow was interested in her thumb for only about three weeks, and that was months and months ago.  The thumb is useless to her.  So are binkies, which she tends to chew, or to suck on the other side, not the nipple side.  The only things that are comforting to suck on are my nipples.  If she can't get those, she'll make do with Dave's arm if she is held in the optimum fake breastfeeding position, or my lower lip (I wish I were joking about that last one.)

I'm doomed.  Doomed, I tell you.  I have every intention of nursing on through the first year (that's probably about the cut-off point for me), but I can't even figure out how I'm going to nurse less without making it an emotionally torturous event for both of us.  She'll skip a meal if she's having a grownup food meal and if she's not tired.  We have not mastered the going to sleep without a snack.  Even if she falls asleep in the stroller, if she hasn't nursed first, she usually wakes up shortly thereafter.  And I know this spells trouble.  I need to teach her to nap without the breast, and then, horror of horrors, we'll have to go to bed without the breast (though I'll probably wait on that one for a good long while).

I just can't get up the courage to do it.  We have a system that works; I can time the feedings so that I'll be ready to feed her when she needs to nap.  Well, it works about 85% of the time.  And for the other 15%, I guess I could put her down to cry herself to sleep, but it doesn't seem like that would be frequent enough for her to learn anything.  And it's not like I can make her not fall asleep while feeding, either.

Anybody got any advice to offer?  What's the procedure here?  Or should I just not worry about it now?

Incidentally, one of the funniest things ever is watching Willow try to get from one place to the next.  Emphasis on try.  She makes no progress whatsoever.  But she lunges her body forward like a giant immobile slug, and her grunts become louder and louder--as though the louder the grunt, the more success she might have.  And I just sit there laughing at her, because I'm the best mom ever.

5 comments:

Amy Bailes said...

Don't worry about it for right now.

Anna-Maria said...

Don't worry too much, and if you still want to try to get her to sleep without breast feeding, try letting your husband put her to bed since the entire you smells like milk no matter how clean you are.

Izzy said...

I'm going through the same thing as you, except that I want to start weaning but don't know how! Today I planned to give him a bottle and then let him settle himself in the cot for his lunchtime nap, but ended up giving him the boob and napping with him in the bed! I'm so weak!!!!

If it helps, I was worrying about the same thing to a friend of mine and her thoughts were that we shouldn't be so hard on ourselves. We're told how we're supposed to be doing it the whole time, but we'd be exhausted if we didn't make life easier for ourselves sometimes. Makes sense!

kate said...

She looks so different there! And like an old timey actress swooning. And it looks like she has actual long hair! That's all I've got for you. Kudos on the beets.

Laura said...

Don't worry. Once she can get around on her own, she'll start to find the world more interesting than your boob. We gave up the before-bed session last, a good year after she stopped the daytime ones. She just lost interest in the daytime ones. It was pretty easy. I wouldn't sweat it, especially since she's a good eater and seems to like a variety of foods.