No More Milk...

I'm finally over the whole breast milk weaning fiasco, but I figured documenting the process was necessary.

Weaning Alli was very gradual.  We were both ready and I don't really recall anything special happening.  It was uneventful.  Weaning Natalie was forced, due to our trip to Italy.  I let her nurse at night as long as I possibly could, and then I had to cut her off to give my body a chance to get used to the change.  Because I'm worried about rotting teeth, we transitioned her to water at night instead of any milk.  I had hopes that this would also change her mind about waking up through the night if she were only getting water.  Well, *that* was not true.  She *loves* the water.  Go figure!

So, I cut her off 2 nights before we left.  Water was fine, so I guess that was good.  Meanwhile, she was happy and my body was having a hard time.  I pumped right before we left for Italy, and started wearing green cabbage in my bra to keep the engorgement down to a minimum.  And then I crossed my fingers and flew across the world...

Our first day in Italy was painful.  I told some of the women we were traveling with that I might actually have to find a breast pump, or a head of green cabbage.  As we wandered the streets of Rome, we came across a vegetable stand and I bought myself a head of green cabbage.  The lady assured me it would make great salads, but I had different ideas...  I spent the first day in Rome walking the city with grocery bag containing a head of green cabbage.  When we finally stopped at a restaurant, I went in and stuffed my bra.  Ahhhh, relief.

That cabbage stayed in all our hotel rooms.  Every night after touring I would stuff my bra.  Every morning I would put a fresh batch in, and then remove them for our day of touring.  By the 4th day of the trip, I had a lump that was so painful it hurt to carry my purse.  But what could I do!  I just kept wearing my cabbage....  By our very last night of the trip, I finally had relief and felt I didn't need my cabbage anymore.

We flew home, and 24 hours after we started traveling, we got to see the girls.  Natalie woke up, saw me, and immediately started pounding on my chest to get some milk.  I figured I didn't care if she nursed - I missed her and I missed the cuddling that goes with the nursing.  So I let her nurse.  But to her surprise, I was done.  Within that 24 hours of traveling, I had completely dried up (and I think I shrank at least 1 bra size!)  She tried a few more times throughout the night, but finally relented to just water.  We are weaned...


Now I have to get her off of so much water.  She loves the feeling of the liquid so much that she'll drink sometimes 25 ounces of water through the night and need to be changed 3-4 times with diapers that are so full they roll up to the size of a large grapefruit.  Now I have to figure out how to wean her from that!