For awhile now, I've thought that Selah wasn't getting all the liquid that she really needed from me. She wasn't wetting her diapers as much and was eating a ton of food the last week or so. I think she just went through a big growth spurt (literally on her 1st birthday). She's suddenly like a little kid now and not so much like a baby any more!
On her birthday night, we were busy and distracted with small group and she didn't get to eat as much as I think she wanted to, but then it was time for bed. So I nursed her and put her down and she LOST it. I mean, screaming, crying, coughing, gagging, yelling for "Mama" and just not calming down. After about 45 minutes of intermittently trying to soothe her with no success, I suggested to Quinn that we get a cup of milk to see if she was hungry. She chugged it. I think she may have been a little hot from crying as well, and the cold milk probably felt pretty good going down. She'd had milk before, but it was then that I realized she really did like it and probably needed it, because my milk alone didn't seem to be cutting it.
Her nursing schedule has been 8am/12pm/5pm/7:30 (bedtime) for quite awhile. Since the bedtime one comes so soon after the post nap one, there's not much there and I was doing it more to calm her down before bed. I never nursed her to sleep, but she nursed in her room right before going to sleep, so I was a little worried that it would be a hard habit to break. Usually when weaning, "they" say that the bedtime feeding is the last to go. Well, for us, it was the first one.
Yesterday, I gave her a sippy of milk at dinner around 7pm and she finally figured out how to tip it herself!! Up until this point we would hold her for her and she would drink. Then she would fling the cup around until we snatched it back and maybe gave her more, maybe put it out of her reach. I think it's a sign that she really needed/wanted the milk that she figured out how to tip it and drink it herself. So she drank, maybe, 3-4oz along with her dinner and then I went to put her down for bed. I was fervently praying that it wouldn't be an epic bedtime without the nursing and praise God she let me sing "Jesus loves me" to her and when I got to "Turn your eyes upon Jesus" (our two short song sleeping set list) she was literally trying to dive into her bed. So I laid her down, she rolled onto her tummy, stuck that thumb in her mouth, snuggled down, and we didn't her from her again until 7:30 this morning.
So I've kept nursing her right after she wakes up in the morning and after each nap, but I think my supply is going down (for many reasons) and she doesn't take as long. Then I gave her a cup of milk at breakfast, lunch and dinner and she had a total of, probably, 10 oz today. She's been eating less food than she was before starting to give her milk, but honestly, she was eating a ton then. Like, more than Abram. We went to Baja Fresh last week and got the kids a full size chick quesadilla to share. Selah ate half and Abram ate a quarter. But now she's back to her fairly normal one year old amount of food and probably a total of around 24 oz of milk/breastmilk a day. That's what Abram was doing when he was a year, so it seems on track to me!
Anyway, just thought I'd share for posterity's sake and to post the incredibly adorable pictures of Selah on her first day of tipping her own cup. Abram didn't figure out how to tip a cup until he was at least 18 months, maybe later. So this might be the first thing that she has done before he did it. Not that I'm comparing... right :)
Comments
Post a Comment