the end?

Last Wed, I decided to stop pumping. I was packing up my pump parts that morning and decided that I didn't feel like it. It was time. The day's been coming for a couple of weeks now, so it's really not as rash as it sounds. It's been in the works since Diya turned 1 (can you believe is? She's ONE YEAR OLD, actually 13 months now!). We started giving her regular whole milk a week or two before her first birthday. We started working harder at her sippy cup skills. Daycare has been working on her regular cup skills, since I guess they go straight over to that.

Each time I thought about stopping pumping, though, the moment never seemed right. She's still not that great with her sippy. And she blows bubbles with a regular cup. True, the two aren't necessarily linked. There's nothing to stop her from taking her whole milk in a bottle. And she loves bottles. But I want to be done with the whole deal, pump parts, bottle nipples, the whole shebang. And it's supposed to be a good transition time. Many people argue (including the American Pediatric Association, our daycare, and several friends that I rely on for childrearing advice) that if we wait too long, it could be much harder to make the switch. And I certainly don't want a 3 yo walking around with a bottle in her mouth all the time. I don't even want her with one at 2. So now seemed like as good a time as any. And honestly, I need the counter space in my kitchen. Our bottle/pump part rack takes up an awful lot of space near the sink.

But still, I waited for excuses to stall. I was worried she wouldn't get enough fluids. Plus, although she liked whole milk just fine, I didn't want to make the switch all at once. She tends to get constipated a lot, and dairy's not great for that. So for weeks, we've been slowly mixing the whole milk into her breast milk bottles. I kept waiting for her to loosen up. But the problem is, she's had the tendency for constipation since she started solids months ago. I could be waiting her whole life for the right time.

So in the end, I needed to do it like a band aid. On Wed, I took my pump into work with me just in case I caved, but didn't look at it once. It was actually harder that night at home to not do it at bedtime, just one more time. It's not that I'll miss pumping. I've hated it from the first, and this day couldn't come soon enough. God, it's been the bane of my existence since I started doing it regularly at 6 months, and can I tell you how much I would have paid Gregg to do it instead if somehow we could have switched roles?

What I will miss though is nursing. I'm not stopping that yet. I'll still nurse for a while mornings and evenings as long as Diya wants. But I know that she probably won't want to for long. I think she hasn't been that into it for a while. She'll take it when offered, nurse quickly, and move on. I think she holds out for solid food. So I've decided to continuing offering first thing in the morning and the last thing at night. It's only a matter of time I think before I start to dry up now. Usually, in the evenings, when I've offered her the boob, at least half the time, she's fussed and I've just given up and pumped instead.

EXCEPT: I started writing this post last Wed and I figured we'd already be done nursing now. But so far, my kid's actually taken the boob happily whenever I've offered it! And during the day last Thurs, it almost seemed like she wanted it. (It's hard to say for sure, she kept staring intently at my chest, but she was also pretty attracted to the picture of the dog on my shirt that day.  And maybe I was feeling a little nostalgic too). So we'll see, for now, she seems to have other plans, and I'm happy to be oblige for a bit longer. Though I'm definitely definitely not going to miss the pump.