\|/|\|/|\|/ all done \|/|\|/|\|/

Did you like my signlanguagecons? ...kind of looks like hands waving back and forth...

Soooo, we didn't quite make it to a year with the breastfeeding. 11 months and some change. About a week ago, we were truly "all done" with that, and I'm left with very mixed emotions. Which isn't surprising, since I've had mixed emotions about nursing for quite a few months. I've discussed before how she just hasn't been a huge fan of the whole thing ever since she discovered solid food. I THOUGHT we were going to axe the whole thing over a month ago when she delivered a couple seriously malicious chomps two days in a row (very different from "slipping" or a teething bite, etc.). But she only did it twice. Had she committed the crime a third time, the whole thing would have been promptly terminated; I warned both her and Sean, who was very sympathetic. We plugged away though, with her clearly tolerating the whole jig and me wishing that it would just feel more natural and bonding and less about "ticking a box." I really don't mind nursing and have always wished she'd continued to like it as much as she did as a newborn.
In the end, what did it in was unrelated. What her doctor had called "winter skin" began to develop into full blown eczema all over her trunk, shoulders, spreading down her arms, into her elbow and knee folds, up her neck, onto her forehead, and exacerbating her already chapped-prone cheeks. (I am now thinking that the "rosy" cheeks we've been battling for a good while was some mild eczema all along. I didn't realize cheeks were a common place for it to flare up in babies until I started looking into eczema seriously.)

As it grew worse and worse, I started reading how eczema was normally caused by something dietary, and simply flared up when something external exacerbated it (like wool or dry weather). I also knew that nothing had changed about anything coming into contact with her skin, and our detergent is a clean-rinsing organic one, which I was rinsing extra well, so I went with the diet idea. Dr. Spock's manual also indicated that apparently it can flare up more in babies that gain weight rapidly, and that he rarely sees it in thin babies. Josephine had been packing it on since I started giving her more cheese and the yo-babies, which have extra sugar added (previously we'd just been feeding her very plain whole yogurt). So I started cutting back on the extra calories, and when none of that helped, I axed the egg yolk, since it has high concentrations of arachidonic acid, which I'd read could add some inflamation to various issues. Wheat was already out, and we weren't adding anything new in. Sometimes the rash would seem especially red, othertimes calmer, but all the dry patches remained. Once, after seeing it looking particularily angry when I was putting on her pajamas (even though it'd been calmer that day), it seemed that REALLY the only possible culprit was yogurt she'd had for dinner. Not a single thing else had happened or changed. So we totally dropped dairy. I got soy formula to supplement with, we cut ALL yogurt and she was already not eating cheese. Within a couple days it started improving, whereas before, it had been spreading consistently. I only saw some flare ups after our morning nursing session, which was being her biggest source of breastmilk. So I started exlusively pumping and just giving her the soy formula, since my diet wasn't dairy free. (And since I'm already avoiding carbs, I wasn't about to give up dairy until we were totally sure the dairy was the culprit).

Thankfully, that really did the trick, and a rash that was seeming to consume my daughter (yes, my nerves felt like it was that dramatic) day by day since at least Christmas, finally started regressing and now we just have a tiny bit of residual dry skin, but no redness or itchiness. Her pediatrician, while she felt like eczema was usually caused by external factors, said it is certainly possible for babies to develop a dietary sensitivity. My guess is that I just overdid it too quickly with all the cheese and yogurt, dairy formula supplement, in addition to my own increased dairy consumption adding cow milk proteins to my breastmilk (in my opinion, when you cut carbs, your only consolation is cheese!).

Anyway, to wind up the story, breastfeeding has been hard, but exclusive pumping is miserable. I also watched my supply drop; with each new bag, it took more pumping sessions to fill it. So I had to decide: do I cut dairy out of my already deprived diet so we can try to ramp my supply back up only to A) have her exposed to cow milk proteins until it's all out of my system and B) wean a mere couple weeks later? Or do I just stop pumping, one session at a time, and wean the Medela machine? Since Josephine wasn't appearing to miss nursing at all, and hadn't really seemed into it for many months, I went with the latter. So yes, Medela is now weaned. I did nurse her instead of pump on the last day, since her rash was vastly improved and I figured what she drank wouldn't be a big set back if it was a one-off exposure. Wish I could say it was a lovely last moment. But she'd clearly gotten so used to sort of a teething chewing motion on her bottles, that the idea of sucking properly was gone.
Soooo... oh well. :-)

All your breastfeeding books advise going however long possible, preferably at least a year, until mother and/or child feels it is time to wean. My conclusion is that in the "and/or" part of that equation, that's a big "OR." In all honesty, I was not ready for her to wean, just like I was not ready for her to prefer solid food to me several months ago. (<-- SEE, even the language I most naturally type indicates a rejection of ME, not nursing.) I would have rather been the one deciding at 12 months, "Okay, kiddo, you're done!" That makes me the wise, decision-making adult, and it wouldn't have been something I had to say until I felt like that level of bonding had run its course. Or perhaps we'd have grown tired of it mutually. But all along, Josephine has seemed quite ready to move on to the next level of independence way before I'm ready for her to. Something tells me this is a heartache I can expect to experience for the next 18 years.

Moving on... I've also been moving Josephine away from the bottle towards the sippy cup. We're now at one bottle a day, right before bed. The rest of her formula comes through the sippy cup at mealtimes. I'd also REALLY like to move her away from the soy formula (which, I have noticed, has the primary ingredient of corn syrup solids), and on to another alternative. She seems to be responding fine to goat milk products so far, but obviously I'm a little concerned about doing too much of that at once and making her sensitive to it!! So hopefully we can transition off the soy formula soon.

Moving on FOR REAL...

Josephine has 8 teeth as of Monday.

She's also adorable as of always. :-)


And Miss Adorable will be turning ONE YEAR OLD on April 2nd! What a big girl!
As I mentioned when I told her birth story, focusing on Josephine herself is the best note to end on that I can imagine. Since she's been around, whenever I've found myself encroaching on a personal pity party, I have perspective handed to me on a silver platter by two tiny hands. The kid can really save a day by simply adding her needs and innocence to ANY situation. I wouldn't be struggling with various challenges if it weren't for her, and yet BECAUSE of her, I realize those things aren't actually worth struggling with.



On the other hand, too many camera flashes right before bed = undeniably valid struggle.