Weaning

No no, don't freak out, we're not there yet. But thoughts of it have been swirling around in my mind - okay, let's be honest, I've been obsessing about it the past few weeks. Between the biting episodes, the warm spring days, and the fact that my sweet boy is showing signs of walking, have me feverishly researching websites and books, scouring blogs, and asking any BFing mom I know, and riddling my Leche leaders with emails about the topic. Shew, calm down, breathe. My hard research has paid off. My Leche leader and other members helped me out a TON last night 'oh, there's a difference between weaning from the pump and weaning the baby fully'. Oh, THAT"s how I do it. That's what I do for me, and that's what I do for him. For me, I'd like to wean from the pump, at/around 12 months. I need to take inventory of my freezer stash to see how much longer I need to pump 3 times a day in order to produce 3 bottles a day. The idea being that he can still get my milk 3 times a day but one bottle would be thawed milk, so he'd still get all of my milk for his first FULL year. Does that make sense? My research showed me to either cut out the midday feeding first, or the feeding where I'm the least full. In my case, 'feeding' refers to pumping session. And in my case, that'd be the last session in the afternoon. At which time LC would either get a bottle of thawed milk, or if he's past the 1yr mark (depending on when I start this process), a bottle of cow's milk. Then I see how dropping that one pump goes, give it a few days, or 2 weeks, guage on comfort level for me. Then slowly either combine or cut back another pump and replace that with cow's milk or thawed milk, til finally I'm down to no pumps a day but only nursing in the morning and before bedtime. This works out great in my head by the way. In real life, time will tell. LC will let me know what to do I'm sure. Also all the books say that the bedtime feeding is the LAST to go - keep in mind there was no book written on LC - and if it were to be my judgement call, I'd vote that it will either be the first, or at least the first one where we're both home and he'll get a bottle of pumped/thawed milk. We are working through the biting and I got more advice last night - and after J and I consulted our go-to source for all things baby and decided that giving a teether during storytime may help diffuse the biting mommy. The last feeding to go in my opinion, right at this moment, would be his first one in the morning. He wakes up, greats the day, and settles down to nurse. Takes his time, stops to take a break here and there, watch the cats, then goes back to it. He bats me away and sits up to let me know he's done. No biting during this feeding so he must be calm and really enjoy it the most I guess. He is just wound UP at night I think. At any rate, our working mom, breastfeeding, weaning journey certainly has its own path. I'm curious to see how it pans out. Just wanted to get my thoughts down on paper before attempting. Speaking of which: I guess after I get a handle on my freezer stash, I can try and map out dropping the pumpings - I just do NOT want to be caught without enough milk to keep him up til his birthday. This is scary yet exciting and liberating at the same time....