Friday, July 18, 2008

Milky Milkington

Ever since we decided to have kids, I considered it a given that I would breastfeed them. Before E and Baby m came into the world, I had no idea what it really meant to breastfeed babies...it has been both the best and worst part of motherhood.

Seeing a baby nurse is one of the most beautiful things I've ever witnessed. The absolute comfort, the calm, the love in their eyes. But one of the biggest trials of the last few years has been having infants who love me SOOO much that they absolutely REFUSE to take a bottle. What's a mommy to do??? Baby m is 7 months old...he nurses an average of 6 times a day. That means I've fed him milk over 1200 times. I have never been away from him for more than 5 hours in a row.

In 7 months, he has slept through the night fewer than 10 times. He wakes up several times a night, and he still wants to feed between 1am and 3am. I try to make him wait til morning, but he is seriously hungry. And I am seriously tired.

Yes, I'm skinny. 1200 feedings has added up to approximately 5000 ounces of milk. I can eat whatever I want...if the babies weren't in bed right now, I'd hop in the car and get a southern chicken sandwich from McDonald's with no worries. But what I really need, I cannot buy at McD's. I need my baby to drink formula. I need someone else to feed him. I need a week's worth of uninterrupted nights' sleep. And I need these things BEFORE he enters kindergarten.

1 comments:

Andrea Becket said...

Greeat reading your post

 
Header Image from Bangbouh @ Flickr