On Breastfeeding, Weaning and Eating Solid Food

At 17 months, Miya eats 3 times a day with in between snacks. Her breakfast is usually oatmeal with raisins, for lunch and dinner she has rice with soup of the viand with little meat and veggies. She doesn’t eat that much meat and veggies actually because she doesn’t like chewing really. If she doesn’t like the texture of the food, she spits it out. Well she doesn’t really spit it, more of she puts out her tongue from her mouth together with the food. She snacks on bread, yogurt and fruits. I let her try to eat on her own. She can put a spoon inside her mouth now, I just need to scoop the food in her spoon first :)

My daily supply of breastmilk for her is usually 8-10oz which I express in the office. What I produce for this day, she will drink the next day. If it’s a Friday, then those will be consumed on Monday the following week. She drinks this once in the morning (40z) and then once during lunch time. She asks for another round of milk in the early evening. Before, she waits up for me to get home and then feeds immediately when I get home. But she started getting irritable, so I decided to buy soymilk to supplement her feeding. During the first week, as I’ve mentioned, I bought vanilla-flavored soymilk. I think she didn’t like the smell because she wouldn’t even taste it. The following milk, I bought just the regular soymilk and atleast she would taste it even if for just a little. The very first few times, my yaya would put it in her feeding bottle. But since Miya didn’t like it, the following day our yaya will have a hard time feeding Miya from the bottle with breastmilk because Miya thought it was still non-breastmilk. Eventually, she tried the soymilk little by little because she had no other choice if she wanted milk. She usually points to the ref if she wants milk. So I told yaya to show her that that’s what’s left for her and no more breastmilk. After almost two weeks, she’s been drinking soymilk from a glass. This is her usual 3^rd milk for the day. When I get home, she’s milk-all-you-want LOL!

During the night, she usually wakes up once or twice to feed. Sometimes it’s comfort feeding, she feeds for a few minutes, say 3-5 minutes, and then goes back to sleep. Sometimes she really feeds and I’d be awake by the time she finishes. Around this time I turn off our aircon and turn on the electric fan if I’m cold hehe. When she has colds and she’s not feeling well, she usually feeds round the clock during the night. I don’t get enough sleep because the moment she feels her nose is clogged she wants to feed. And I know she wants to feed because she turns and then usually says something unaudible, sometimes she says “dide”. I tried just tapping her to go back to sleep – sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.

I’m actually relieved she started drinking the soymilk. My milk production has decreased. Before, I can keep up with her daily milk needs. Now, not so anymore. I’m still drinking malunggay capsules and now I’m drinking malunggay tea, too. But it’s still not enough to produce 12oz of milk – her usual intake while I’m away. I’m still pumping milk three times a day in the office. Dropped one pumping session after her first birthday, I think.

I’ve mentioned that there are days when I think I want to wean her and I think I should start weaning her. On the nights that I can't get to sleep because she feeds non-stop, those are the times I wish she'll wean already. I'm screaming in my head "Give back my boobies!" But there are also days when I absolutely love that she still feeds from me. Last night, we went home late because we went to the hospital to visit a friend who just gave birth. When we came home, Miya was asleep already. Fortunately, when I carried her to our bed and laid her down she woke up a little and asked for milk. I remembered the glorious feeling of the milk flowing from my breast. 

Miya breastfeeding at 8 months

I’ll be away on a business trip in September for a few days and I dread thinking of how it would be to be apart from her. Since her birth, we’ve never been apart for more than 24 hours. Nothing’s final on the trip, I’m writing about it here in the hopes that I would jinx it and we won’t push through with it hehe. Our plan is, Joema and I will go on an overnight trip just the two of us, just to test the waters if Miya will be okay to sleep without me. Hoping she’ll last the whole night without drinking milk. Or maybe I should tell my mother to prepare a bottle of milk just in case she wants a bottle during the night. We plan to leave her with my parents. 

I don’t think she’s ready to wean because everytime she sees my boobies she gets kilig hahaha! Which reminds me, my daughter has this weird thing. After feeding, when she sees some milk dripping from my breast she looks at it like she’s gross with it. I tell her that’s the milk she’s drinking and she just shakes her head as if denying it in that small head of hers hahaha.

In the end, I wish there will come a time that both Miya and I will be ready at the same time to wean. I'm sure I'll be sad but like any other journey, our breastfeeding journey will come to an end.