I don’t think I’ve really blogged
too much about me weaning Emerson, but that’s definitely happening. With sleep
training, weaning has followed suit. I’m no longer using nursing as a means to
get Emerson to sleep. I’ve been able to change his bedtime routine to not
include any nursing. With that, weaning has resulted. Throughout the day,
Emerson receives a cocktail of breast and whole milk in his cups at daycare. I
was pumping three times a day, but now have dropped that down to twice a day.
Sometimes only once a day if I don’t have time. My supply has adjusted to his
needs, but I am still able to pump out about 10oz if I stick to a good
schedule. After daycare, Emerson
receives a cup of milk mid-dinner. I like to make sure he consumes enough food
before he slurps down his milk. He loves his milk and have found that he will
choose the cup over the food if presented with the option. Anyway, at bedtime,
he gets a bath, jammies, rocked for a few minutes, then I lay him down in his
pack n play. We haven’t transitioned to the crib yet. We’re on Day # 12 of
sleep training. When I feel like we’ve gotten this down, I’ll start
transitioning again. Baby steps. Anyway, on Day #1, I’d rub his back until he
fell asleep. I realized I was probably starting a bad habit. I slowly decreased
the amount of back rubbing and am now almost at a point where I can just lay
him down and sit there until he falls asleep. He flips out if I leave the room
prior to him falling asleep, but I’m okay with that. If all it takes if me
sitting next to the pack n play for him to sleep, I’ll take it. Eventually, we
will work on me just laying him down and exiting the room. Again, baby steps. I
do feel as though we’ve bad TREMENDOUS progress all without the cry it out
method. I’m extremely proud of the headway we’re making. Anyway, on weekends
when I’m with Emerson all day, I’m not nursing. For naps, I follow the same
routine as I would at bedtime minus bath. No nursing at all. The only time I’m
nursing now is in the middle of the night. I try to keep him down, but after a
few minutes of fussiness and realizing he obviously is needing to nurse, I pull
him into bed with me. This is where the sleep training needs to be a bit
stronger. I feel like once we rid this night nursing session, he’ll sleep
through the night. I just don’t want to deny him nursing if he’s truly hungry.
I’m thinking he may need a snack after dinner. We’ve been eating dinner a bit
earlier than usual. He’s hungry after daycare and so am I. Instead of eating
around 6:30, we’ve been eating around 5:45pm. He typically has bath at 7:30 and
is snoozing by 8pm. We play after dinner and he runs around like a wild man. I’m
thinking he probably works up quite the appetite by 11pm, which is when he
usually requests a nursing session. Maybe a snack before bath is the way to go.
The only way to figure this out is to try. Trial and error. Being honest, I’m
usually hungry after dinner too. If I’m hungry, he’s probably hungry. Yesterday
after I picked Em up from daycare, I took him to the park. The weather was gorgeous.
It’s supposed to get cold again, so I decided to take advantage of the weather
even though I felt awful. We stopped by my parent’s house afterwards and had
dinner with them. Em was completely exhausted by the time we got home. He fell
asleep in the car, which hardly happens at all anymore. We followed our usual
routine when we got home: Bath then Bed. I’m wondering if he slept so long last
night because he ate later at my parent’s house. They always fill him up before
we head out, so he probably was fuller longer. Something to think about.
I realize people probably think I’m
nuts with how much I stick to a schedule and routine, but I stand by my
conviction that both work for us. If I stray, I see a definite repercussion. Last
night, Emerson conked out around 8pm. I had three hours to myself, which is
something that had never occurred prior to sleep training. I would be in bed
with him, which meant I had absolutely no time to myself after working all day
and then caring for him. It just wasn’t a sustainable way to live. I need to be
able to mentally unwind after a long day. I need to be able to clean-up,
prepare for the next day, do a crafting project, or just hang out with the dog.
My sanity level has increased ten-fold. It’s really, really nice to have a
break every evening. Anyway, last night after Em went to bed, I cleaned up the
house, packed both of our bags for today, then laid on the couch with Kodie
watching television. I ended up falling asleep too. Around 10pm, I went upstairs,
turned the humidifier on, and crawled into bed. It was nice. Em woke around
11pm. I pulled him into bed, nursed him, then we both went back to sleep. He
stayed asleep until I woke him at 5:45am. That’s a huge stretch. Almost 6 hours
uninterrupted. If we could rid that 11pm nursing session, that would be
incredible. I’m working on it though. Sometimes he wakes more frequently to
nurse, but he’s been teething lately, so I’m attributing it to that.
I realized today that I need to
stop calling Emerson “the baby”. He’s not really a baby anymore. Though it
makes me sad, I’ve got a full-fledged toddler on my hands and he’s not slowing
down anytime soon. He will always be my baby even if he isn’t “the baby”
anymore. Alright, I guess I should end this now. I have some things to do
before I head out. Have a super Thursday, all!
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