Weaning - 17 Months

I don't know where I've been or why I haven't been here.

Some days I really want to sit down and write some shit out on here...but most days I'm busy with life and really don't have the energy to come here.

We've been away from home since August and now that we're officially back home with no plans to go ANYWHERE until July we've been busy reintegrating ourselves back into our old lives.

It's good to be back home.

And it's nice to sit down and put pen to paper and throw some shit out there.

Here's where we're at.  Jett is 17 months old, we're still nursing, we'd like to get going with Baby Deux but I still have not had a postpartum period.

This bums me out.

I would have liked to get my fertility back without having to fully wean.  The fact that one seems to be dependent upon the other SUCKS ASS.

I'm not ready to wean.

And neither is Jett.

We still nurse like a million times a day.  Minimum nursing sessions are probably 5 and max is like he's a newborn with 8 or 9.  He goes 12 hours at night no problem but during the day he'll nurse every few hours.

Seventeen months old and he won't go more than a few hours without a least a little boob snack.

Awesome.

I did have a bunch of friends with kiddos around the same age who were all still nursing as well...at 16 months, then suddenly we hit 17 months and one by one they've all managed to successfully wean WITH ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEMS and now I'm the last man standing.

I've tried everything that they and others have suggested.

Don't offer and Don't refuse, yeah...we've been doing that since 12 months.  He asks for milk A LOT and since I'm not refusing, we nurse a lot.

Offer alternatives when he wants milk...we've been doing this since 15 months when he started eating again (4 molars came in at the same time and he didn't eat much from October - December and breastmilk was once again his main source of nutrition) but alternatives such as snacks or activities only keep him distracted for a few minutes at which point he realizes once again that he requested milk and hasn't had it yet.

Remove nursing sessions one by one...this one requires more of a schedule than we have as only morning and bedtimes are the ones that happen with any semblance of regularity.  But we're trying this.  Dom has taken over mornings, gets Jett up and takes him downstairs for breakfast and I come down about half hour later.  Jett has a full belly at this point and will still nurse but he doesn't nurse AS LONG.  Baby steps people, baby steps.

A big part of the problem I know is that I'm not ready to be done.  Most people who have weaned have expressed a desire to be done...and they make it so.  It's their motivation.  I have no motivation other than Baby Deux and with Baby Deux being such an unknown ie. could never happen, it's hard to stop something that I love doing for a something that may or may not happen.

But in the interest of being more proactive rather than just sitting back and waiting for a period that may never come, aside from the attempt at cutting back on nursing I'm also back on Vitex and started acupuncture and herbs again.  

This is all too familiar territory.  

It takes me right back to 2010 when I tried every trick in the book to get my body to ovulate on it's own. 

With NO success.

It took Clomid to get me to ovulate for Pregnancy #1 and a miscarriage to get me to ovulate for Pregnancy #2.  I was really hoping Pregnancy #2 would be enough to let me ovulate so we could move on to Pregnancy #3.

Clearly that was too much to hope for.

Jett is just shy of 18 months, I figure we've got about 6 months before we a) wean, because Jett and I just really aren't ready yet and b) try more drastic measures if AF never shows up, ie. Clomid.

Sigh.

In other news because I had a boy instead of a girl Baby Jett gets his hair did with mommy in the mornings now.

So stylish right?