Ouch
I have been nursing Ezra less and less the last few weeks. Ezra won’t have much to do with a bottle anymore, either. Which means that whatever I pump for daycare goes right down the sink instead of in Ezra’s belly. This leads me to believe that he doesn’t really need as much of my milk anymore, and nursing is probably more of a comfort than a necessity. I’ve noticed that even on days when I am home with him, he nurses much less partially because he’s eating 3 solid meals plus snacks and and partially because he doesn’t have as much time for nursing if he’s going to also climb stairs, navigate his corral, play with Jigga, read books, take naps, help me with my computering, and climb up my legs.
So we’re moving in what seems to be a natural way toward weaning, I guess. This is probably good - I am hoping to avoid a situation where I am having to pry a 2 year-old’s hands off my boobs because he still wants to nurse whenever he feels like it, or a 3 year-old who carries around a bottle everywhere. But it is a painful change in two ways: a) I see that my relationship with Ezra will never be the same once he stops nursing and this make me sort of sad because I realize how quickly he’s going to grow up and stop needing me for anything; and b) my boobs are not quite sure how much milk to produce and when, and sometimes I’m a little over-full and that’s painful in its own way, but it’s led to a slight case of mastitis, which sort of feels like someone’s trying to pull small rocks out my nipples, which freaking hurts!