Adventures in Nursing

Note: These cookies ??? The ones I said I would take a picture of? I ate them. All six million of them. I had some help, but there was definitely me standing there scowling at Nicole and scolding, “Nicole, you’ve had two already, enough cookies!” and then the second she was out of the room, scarfing down my fifth. It was disgusting. They were amazing. Don’t make them, unless you have better self-control than me, who apparently has NONE.

Olivia is six months old now. She’s very healthy – aka round – and is starting solids with gusto. We’ve even got her taking a bottle now! I say that like magically it just happened, but we bribed her with apple juice. Over the course of a week, she went from gnawing on the bottle in her usual style, to curiously sucking on it, to sucking on it as if her very existence depended on whether or not that applejuice made its way into her belly. Then I tried formula… success! And only then did I try pumping a bottle again, as I’d become greatly jaded about pouring breastmilk down the sink. More success. FREEDOM! I feel like standing on top of a hill with a flag, half of me painted blue.

I’m still nursing her, though. She forced me to go We made it this far, it’s basically roses from here, right? Okay, so nursing a crawling six month old is sort of like a wrestling match and a pillow fight combined.

95% of the time I nurse her in my bed. My room has the least amount of distractions, and with Olivia I have always preferred to nurse her lying down. She’s so used to this that she’ll be chortling around happily and I’ll take her and put her on my bed, and suddenly she’ll decide she is quite literally starving to death. URGENT!!! She’s never been prone to rooting, in fact as an infant if you kissed or tickled her cheeks she’d be more likely to smile than anything else, but if I put her on my bed and I’m standing beside it talking to my husband she’ll crawl to the edge and bop against my stomach, mouth wide open.

Generally speaking, during the day, I’ll lay her down to feed her, and then lay down myself. By the time I’ve laid down, she’s rolled over in the wrong direction, so I roll her back and she starts eating like she’s never been so hungry in her life. She nurses hungrily for a moment, then eyes up my face speculatively. Eyes. Nose. Mouth. She picks her victim and attacks. I deflect a few times, and she gets bored and rolls away. She bounces around for a moment, giggling to herself, growling at the pillows, and hyperventilating with excitement (as always.)

I give her a moment, then grab her by the leg and drag her back. Immediately she starts eating again, acting almost angry, like I’ve been holding out on her. How dare I?! The nerve of some people. A few moments later, though, she’s off again. We repeat the cycle a few times, or I get sick of it and grab her by the back of her onesie to hold her in place when she tries to roll away. Eventually we’ve both had enough and I just lay there for a few moments, watching my happy girlie explore the little world of my bed, just like she does every few hours every single day.

My only ‘thing’ with nursing my very healthy six month old is that I myself have never felt so weak and sickly as I have this last few weeks, and I’m not sure how closely its related but I’m sure at least in part. I was telling Chris last night that it makes sense though, my eating habits haven’t really changed much since she was born but now I’m providing nutrients for a crawling, tall, big six-month-old. And apparently also standing, a new skill she has developed since I started this post… I’ve added a ‘meal’ of a tofu + yoghurt + milk + berries (a mix of dark blue/purple berries, so very healthy) smoothie to my daily diet and we’ll see if that helps. (Note: I wrote this a few days ago and it’s already made a big difference. So that’s that then. I would never ever have imagined myself ingesting tofu voluntarily and/or daily, but there you go, that sentence applies to every other thing I do lately.)

(Yeaaaah… I don’t take pictures of myself breastfeeding. I tried, thinking I could get something artsy or maternal or whatever, but it was just like BOOOOOOOOOOOB! BOOB! BOOB! So, no. I hope you enjoyed watching Olivia age in photographs instead of BOOOOB. If you would’ve rather had BOOOOOOB … you’re probably reading the wrong blog. Just sayin’.)

(((((fun fact – the tag ‘boobie’ was already in the system for my blog. keepin’ it classy. Actually, it’s from this post, which totally had nothing to do with MY boobs whatsoever.)))))