Decision reached, and a plan is developed.

After a positive start on the weaning front, the "dropping one feed at a time" plan is now getting really boring and totally frustrating. It would be OK...:

(a) ...if we had really regular feeds to begin. But we don't. Felix is fed on demand and that suits me just fine. The book is normally a really good source of advice on most aspects of baby-rearing, but lets me down this time by suggesting we establish some kind of feeding regularity before we start the slow weaning process. A quick flick to the notes on 'routines' tells me what I already know - that it can take 2 days to 2 months to establish regular feeding patterns. So I have neither the time nor the inclination.

(b) ...if we could swap a breast feed for a bottle, but Felix has rejected the bottle. We tried pretty hard since June to get him to accept it again but with no success. It was tiring for the bf and traumatic for me (see e). The only thing that made it better was the decision to give it up and try alternatives.

(c) ...if Felix were developmentally ready for the alternatives, aka drinking from the cup alternated with solid food. On the cup front both my trusty sources (Babycentre and the aforementioned book) recommend trying without a spout first but tipping the cup against his mouth and letting the baby learn how to sip. This is what we did with Jambeans so I've been happily doing it again with Felix. This time round I consult the book in a little more detail and find this gem: whilst babies as young as Felix are ready for the cup, I shouldn't expect him to drink more than a couple of fluid oz at a time. A penny drops - he has been doing this quite well but I was expecting him to ramp up the volumes quite quickly and had been getting frustrated when I couldn't see any more progress. It turns out he's doing fine with the cup training, but the cup isn't a reliable alternate source of milk to the boobs...

(d) ...if Felix ate more solids. At the same age Jambeans couldn't gobble the solids up fast enough. It was amazing how quickly she went from her first tentative spoonfuls to eating loads of veggies a day, often more than me. But she was premature, and they often take to solids very early, and every baby is different. But even though weaning her was totally stressful it did mean we knew she would be able to eat something when she started nursery, and we could keep her fluid level up with very runny rice porridge. After a seemingly good start it turns out Felix really hasn't taken to rice porridge at all.

(e) ...if we had a positive memory of weaning Jasmine. We did it the slow way with her too, replacing a nursing with a solid meal and sips from the cup. She took to solids super early and super fast, but any attempts to get milk down her were painful and we tried pretty much every tip, trick, hint, vessel and program there is. They all failed. My return to work deadline was looming. I hadn't had an hour to myself for 9 months. Jasmine wouldn't drink independently. I was crying quite a lot. It was totally horrible.

So bf and I talk this all over after his day of looking after the bub. And it goes a bit like this:

1) Bf feels that the slow method means it is too easy for the bub to insist on booby milk and too easy for the mum to give in and try solids/alternatives at the next feed. He is totally right.

2) Bf suggests going cold turkey on the boobs and replacing it with solids/cup. I feel fear. I don't want to have another child who doesn't drink enough milk. If he turns out like Jambeans there will always be the worry at the back of our minds that he simply isn't getting enough calcium in his diet. I suggest we try cold turkey, but with the bottle.

3) Bf feels fear. He doesn't believe Felix is capable of drinking from the bottle any more - that he has lost the technique.

4) True to bf's advice of having a confident attitude I spout some bullshit about having a 'vision' of Felix drinking milk from a bottle, sipping happily from a cup and eating solids when he wants. I talk more crap about 'believing in the vision' and that we have to 'believe that Felix can do what it takes to get there.'

5) I surprise myself by believing what I say. Bf surprises me more by saying 'OK. No time like the present. Lets start tomorrow.'

6) Reassuringly, I return to cowardly form and say I need time to get my head round the idea of not nursing Felix any more, so lets start next week.

But the good news is, we have a plan.

A scary plan, but a good plan nevertheless.

A giggly afternoon

Sunday. We're aiming for Felix ultimately to nurse in the morning and evenings only, so since bf is around he's in charge of the boy, and I'm in charge of the girl for the day. It feels to the bf that most of the day is spent encouraging Felix to eat. He eats some solids, not a huge amount, but it goes down ok I guess. He's still not eager for the cup.

I, on the other hand, get to play with Jasmine. We go for a long, cheery walk and end up in a cafe eating beans on toast and watching the womens' gymnastics - uneven bars - on a plasma. Jasmine is on great form, and mumbles 'legs, round and round' over and over while giggling hysterically as I spoon beans into her. It feels great to be bub-free for a while and I realise how much I have missed spending quality time with my daughter.

Repeat 20 times a day: I am NOT a failure of a mum

that nagging anxiety about weaning/ bottle rejection/ cup training that i've been desperately trying to control for the last month or so is really beginning to surface. as a result i was feeling quite flat and low about it all last night. talked to the boyfried who told me that a unconfident attitude was part of the problem. he's doubtless right but it made me angry and upset, because it was (supposedly) practical advice but didn't give me any indication as to when and how i should deal with feeding felix during the day.

my mum is the same when i try to talk to her. she has no practical advice to offer but just says "don't worry." it makes me angry because all i really want is for my nearest and dearest to acknowledge how worried i am, that my worries are founded and to empathise with how shit i feel.

sometimes with my mum it's like she assumes felix will wean by himself, and ignores all the effort i have to put in to make it happen. it's hard to convey how very very very frustratingly depressing it is when all your best efforts show absolutely no result day in day out. i'm really not used to failure. and failing twice at the same thing is harder to bear.

so taking bf's advice on board that i needed to change my attitude i recoursed to good ole Google and landed at Berkeley Parents Network, where reassuringly there is a page full of mums (rather, moms) with the exact same problem.

it made me feel:
a) that i'm not the only mum in the world who has to wean to a very real, fixed deadline
b) it's not my fault if the baby won't drink from a bottle - some babies just won't take anything but booby milk from their mums aka i'm not a failure
c) there is no magic answer and babies are unpredictable, so my making it all up as i go along is actually ok.
d) we might have to let felix get very, very hungry indeed
d) he WILL cry if we do that. it WILL be difficult. but it might just work

Weaning diary notes #1

Felix had a wee burst of booby milk this morning at 7.30am; then a decent burst at 8.30am; then a wee top up at 10am, just before his snooze. So it gets to 11.30am and I figure it's 3 hours since his last decent meal, a good gap, but he's had that wee top up in between so he shouldn't be frantically hungry. Into the Bumbo he goes, bibs are attached, food and drink are at the ready.

First up is the cup. I try for about 5 minutes but nothing doing. I switch to cauliflower and broccoli puree and spend 10 minutes trying to get him to eat. He's happy but clearly not interested so I do the sensible thing and stop trying to feed him at all. Maybe his 'top up' was actually enough to keep him going for much longer.

It's now 1.20pm - over 3 hours since he ate or drank anything - and he's in the Bumbo, again, refusing to drink from the cup entirely, again. I try to make him smile hoping to get some milk into him while his mouth his open, but that doesn't arouse his interest either. I end up splashing oodles of the stuff everywhere. Everywhere, that is, except into his mouth. Sigh.

Decide to be patient. Switch to puree. Maybe 5-6 tiny spoonfuls go in, but it takes 15 minutes. At this point he starts to whine and cry, and I know it's a hungry cry. Grim determination sets in. He is going to finish his veggies at any rate I tell myself. I know he can do that - he's eaten quite greedily before, he can do it now. So there I go, ladling tiny quantities into him every time he opens his mouth to cry. So he cries harder, and I ladle more in. I see it gather in his mouth and wonder if he's going to gag and vomit it all out, but he does eat it. He just doesn't eat it willingly. By now he's eaten maybe half his veggies. There were only 2 tablespoonfuls to begin with, i.e. a pethetic amount. But I am feeling OK and determined and not affected by his crying and imploring looks to stop torturing him. Only then, his crying changes tone and becomes insistent, pleading, and pained, and he starts trying to jerk out of his seat so I can't direct the food into his mouth properly. And I time it, to see how long I can withstand this. And it's only 3 minutes before I give in.

I breastfeed him on the sofa and tell myself "You are so weak" and then the Good Cop voice goes "but he's not well, and is teething, and was up twice last night screaming his lungs out in pain, and he's just a baaaaby..."

Feeling totally clueless - addendum

Typical. So by the time the milk has cooled Felix is totally frantic and crying and there's no way I'm going to be able to feed him anything, and I am convinced he needs to do a poo, because he's straining and his little face is going red, so I take him to the sofa and try and distract him with a cuddle and some raspberry-blowing action on the tummy but he's still crying, now really insistently, and whaddya know? He IS hungry and gobbles gobbles gobbles gobbles some booby milk like he's never been fed before.

How totally frustrating.

Feeling totally clueless

So this weaning thing, well it involves both weaning onto solids - going okaay I guess, and weaning off the breast and onto formula from a bottle or cup - going very slowly. Felix drank 60ml from his Doidy cup today, but it took about 25 mins. This is either a fantastic result, or, seeing as he should be drinking about 600ml a day and needs to be doing it independently in about 6 weeks' time when he starts nursery, could mean we're heading slowly towards total disaster.



But the main point is, I really haven't a clue what I'm doing. I just muddle along without a plan. I'm not the kind of mum who gets up in the morning and goes, Right! Today we're going to drop feed (a) and replace it with a cup feed of x ml and then drop feed (b) and replace it with y oz of solids and then we'll increase it all by z over the next c weeks... I don't have regular feeds to begin with, so I just sort of make it up as I go along.

The result is mainly that Felix is plonked in the Bumbo, which can be at any time of the day, and might be offered a cup feed, or some solids, or a combination of both. Since I'm trying to feed him when he is hungry but before he gets too frantically hungry, I'm going by the clock, i.e. time elapsed since he last ate or drank anything, but I can never be sure I've timed it right when I try to feed him. Since it's such a painfully slow process anyway and it's always accompanied by some crying, moany-type noises it's hard to tell whether he's not sufficiently hungry and is rejecting what I have to offer him, or is just taking his time and trying to get the hang of it. (Or, now I see it in writing, the third option is that he is hungry but is still rejecting what I have to offer him because he wants boobs.) I've had various success, sometimes I persist and he does gobble a load of food up, and sometimes I persist only for Felix to vomit up what seems like an entire bowl of pureed veggies seconds later. And very often I tell myself that I'm just going to feed him solids and try and get him to drink from a cup and then make him go hungry for the next 2 hours only to cave in to his appeals and top him up with booby milk half an hour later.

So he's in his Bumbo right now, and has been eating a decent sized blob of foul-smelling carrot and broccoli puree, but it's going down really slowly and at the same time he is making big time whiny crying yelpy moany type noises. And they could mean "I'm so hungry this isn't doing it for me right now, give me BOOOOBS" and they could mean "I'm really not comfortable in this seat but I reckon I could still eat some more veggie slush" and they could mean "I'm not hungry and not interested" but right now, and for most of the day, they've sounded like "I want to do a big poo". I'm worried that I translate all his noises as "I want to do a big poo" but he, well, strains, and has done three today already so I can't be that far off the mark. But he has been sipping at some water from the Doidy quite eagerly, so I'm also wondering whether he's actually saying "Give me a decent drink goddammit to wash this thick gloop down with" so I've made some formula and have left him a wee while for it to cool and brain dump all my inconfidence onto the blog.

Getting Felix to sleep through - fourth night

Night 4 sleep report as follows:

Felix' last feed was at 18.10, he went to sleep on his own at 20.00, woke at 04.00, bf went to check on him but no cuddle, Felix then cried for 42 mins only and slept till 7am...

Am feeling hopeful.

And I've also decided to ditch getting Felix onto a bottle for at least the foreseeable future and wean Felix straight onto the cup, as we did with Jasmine. It's going well so far - he's lapping up about 60ml at a time in a messy but eager way, and I'm sure could take more. And he seems quite comfortable with formula, even if it's neat. And including the fact he's eating rice porridge quite nicely maybe, just maybe, that means I can start having the occasional morning off when bf is at home?

It's scary just writing it down because it seems like too much to hope for. Also, at the back of my mind, is the knowledge that Jasmine made exactly the same progress and then rejected the cup a few days before she was due to start nursery...

Weaned at 5 teeth - hurrah

OK - so it's been just under 2 weeks since Jasmine's been weaned completely. A big event, and one that had been weighing on my mind for weeks. I was absolutely dreading it but the advent of another tooth gave me the confidence boost I needed.

But it was remarkably easy, hence the radio silence up to this point. (Obviously, had it been a disaster, I would be keyboard whingeing faster than you could say "ow she bit my nipple again.")

On chosen W-day, we plonked her in her high chair before bath time and gave her a solemn and ceremonious last supper of porridge, which we wolfed down. Then biff baff. Then dressed. Then daddy gave her a bit more porridge in her room. Then straight to bed.

What didn't happen was any moaning, whingeing or whining.
No waking up in the middle of the night - rather she's slept better.
No rooting underneath my top.
No exploding boobs.
Then we weaned her off the morning feed a couple of days later.
Easy.
And since, she's actually started drinking milk from a cup again.
And letting me cradle her for cuddles.
And falling asleep in my arms.
(Which could well be because she's a bit ill again, but I let her do anyway, because I've missed out on 11 months of resistance and it's catchup time.)

What was all the stress about?