Taking "selfies" (as I believe the young folk call them) is an easy way to keep Dulcie entertained for a few minutes. Here are some I took last week. We kept having the same facial expression in them, but it wasn't planned. Must have been some sort of mother-daughter ESP, right? I seem to have no shame with regards to posting terrible photos of myself lately. Feel free to look away!
You might notice Dulcie's hand is down my top in all these pictures. She is boob obsessed these days. BOOB OBSESSED! Well, she always has been really, but I think she's getting worse rather than better, and she's still really reliant on breast-feeding for sleep. She usually has me up every hour or two all through the night (after an initial spell of 2-6 hours in her cot - progress!) and has been particularly bad for it since the hot and clammy weather started. I don't want to stop feeding her altogether yet (I was quite determined to let her keep doing it until the age of two if she was happy to) but I think it might be the only way to sort out her sleep problems. It's just that feeling that there's no going back once I stop and it means those days are well and truly over :( I'm so tired right now though, like literally falling asleep on my feet. Something's got to give. For now, I think I'm going to keep feeding her to see if things improve once the weather calms down a bit. The long-term of breast-feeding is really not panning out how I'd imagined and most people I know with babies of a similar age gave it up ages ago (my weird shifts meant I had the luxury of being able to continue quite easily after returning to work) so I don't have anyone to compare stories with. Has anyone reading this fed a baby to 18 months and beyond? Can you tell me if this love for the boobs is normal? And should I be discouraging it or going with the flow? I'm fairly confident in my slapdash, haphazard parenting skills nowadays (the make-it-up-as-you-go approach hasn't failed me too badly yet) but I think perhaps I go with the flow a bit too often. Maybe I should be laying down the law and drawing some lines now that Dulcie is getting a bit older. Bah, I don't know. Feel free to chime in :)
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You two are so cute together! :)
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely in no position to give anyone advice on breastfeeding or parenting, but I guess I can share my thoughts anyway...
At the moment I'm breastfeeding my 8-month-old, and I have breastfed my two older children for as long as they wanted (which was significantly shorter than 18 months, so that is unknown terrain for me). They woke up in the night to be fed, up until they refused the breast altogether. Afterwards, they were suddenly great sleepers, so they obviously woke up more for the cuddles than the nourishment.
My thought has always been that a young child would find it confusing to be allowed breastmilk at certain times of the day, and then refused at other times, so for me it's been either all the time or none of the time.
I guess my advice would be either to continue night feedings, or to try to stop breastfeeding altogether. Not very helpful... Perhaps Dulcie will lose interest once she starts daycare and is away from the boob in the daytime..?
Thanks, Hilde :) I'm thinking along those all-or-nothing lines too, but it's just whether to stick with all or switch to nothing... I don't think I'm ready to stop.
DeleteDulcie's already away from me two days and two evenings a week through work and when she starts nursery that will change to 3 or 4 days and no evenings, which is not a huge difference really, but maybe she'll be more distracted or so tired from fun days that she'll start to lose interest in the boobs/sleep longer stretches on her own anyway.
I think, for now, I'm not ready to give it up, so I'll probably keep going at least until she starts nursery and see how she is then. But tomorrow night I'm leaving her in her dad's hands overnight and sleeping in the spare room! I can't wait! :)