Weaning

At last, we're almost done weaning. It's been a really smooth and easy process so far, nothing like what I thought it would be. When Ronan hit 11 months, we introduced cow's milk and gradually increased the amount of cow's milk and decreased the amount of breastmilk in his bottles. Thankfully, no allergic reactions to dairy -- yay. :-) Around 12 months, Ronan started rejecting his bottles completely. He's never really loved the bottle (went on various "bottle strikes" over the past year), so I knew we wouldn't have an issue with him being too attached to it. But I didn't expect him to wean himself of the bottle, on his own, at a year old! What a good boy. Once Ronan decides he doesn't want something, no amount of coaxing can change his mind. So -- bottle weaning was done!

We're still working on getting him to drink milk from a cup. He'll drink tons of water and small amounts of juice from a cup, but never milk. Funny. So we try to load other dairy products into his meals so he can get his calcium -- cottage cheese, yogurt, ricotta. Incidentally, the cups that have worked best for him are the Playtex sport straw cup and the cheapo disposable sippy cups. He also likes regular plastic cups but at least half the liquid sloshes onto his chest and lap...

I started weaning him from breastfeeding around the same time -- 12 months. Each week I decreased one pumping session at work -- from three to two to one to zero over the course of four weeks. (He was, by now, already weaned from the bottle and taking all his liquids by cup.) Then -- no more pumping! Hallelujah. We did the math, and it's likely that I pumped over 800 times over the past year, perhaps as many as 1000 times. WOW. As inconvenient as it was, esp. pumping on the plane, I don't regret a single time. It was the healthiest thing for Ronan. And it enabled me to feed him breastmilk (and avoid formula) for 12 months AND have a full-time career, travel, etc. I truly feel lucky and blessed. My Medela pump is worth its weight in gold. :-)

I still nurse Ronan first thing in the morning and last thing before bed. I'll probably continue for a few more weeks. I know he would be absolutely fine if we stopped cold tomorrow, so clearly we're only still nursing because of me! Ronan has never "asked" to nurse, unlike many other babies we know -- he's too busy being busy. But I want to continue just a little longer because it's such a lovely time we share together and I know it's coming to an end soon. I have to say it's hilarious to nurse him now since he's so tall. Half his body hangs off the side of the chair!

Weaning... who knew it could be so fast? And Ronan did more than half the work himself!