To pump... or not to pump...

I am starting to consider hanging up the horns. I am down to pumping once a day during work, but probably could get a little more milk total if I pump twice. DS2 nurses in the early evening, before bed, during the night, and in the morning. On the weekends he nurses several times during the day. I'm not ready to stop nursing, but I am about ready to stop pumping.

At daycare he is getting a small bottle of milk before morning nap, and a small bottle of formula before afternoon nap. Those will probably be fazed out soon, since they aren't "supposed to have a bottle" in the toddler room. (He has been in there less than a month.)

I often don't pump until 3pm anyway, so waiting a couple of more hours and nursing after work & daycare wouldn't be that big of an adjustment. I can tell that I am starting to "get fuller" by the middle of the afternoon, though. Another reason to stop pumping within the next month, is that I will be going on a business trip the first week of December. Although, that might be a reason to keep pumping... if I don't pump for 3 days on the trip, will we still be able to nurse when I get back? If "drying up" is a possibility with no stimulation for 3 days (or if I would get uncomfortable without pumping or nursing for 3 days) then I want to keep it up until after the trip. And if I'm going to pump on the trip, then I might as well keep pumping for another 2 months until then, right? I definitely don't want our nursing relationship to end at the same time as my trip. If he weans before that, fine, but for him to nurse before I go, then not when I come back, is not what I want. I suppose that he might not want to after me being gone for 3 days, but that wasn't the case in August when I was gone for a long weekend trip.

Thud... Waaaaaa

DS2 fell out of bed the other night. He starts in his crib, then when he wakes up hungry, I bring him to my bed, and we nurse and fall asleep. He is either between me & DH or I'm in the middle and there are pillows on DS2's other side. The thud came from the foot of the bed... he had rolled, wiggled, or crawled down to the foot of the bed, over by DH's feet, and was on the floor way over by the other corner of the bed from where he would have started. I know I should be putting him back in his crib, but I can't stay awake while nursing him in bed. If I nurse him in the rocking chair, I still fall asleep, plus I get a stiff neck and worry about dropping him. The best thing would be to wean him from nighttime nursing and start helping him settle himself back to sleep. The hard thing about that is that the boys share a room, so any fussing or crying is likely to wake DS1. (I remember DS1 having a hard time adapting when we stopped picking him up at night, and he was older, I think.)

Happy Birthday Party!

Today we had DS2's 1st birthday party. He turned 1 yesterday. I know I haven't written for quite a long time, but life is very busy with 2 toddlers. Okay, DS2 isn't quite a toddler yet, but he is a cruiser. And he has 2 teeth. And he finally (about 2 weeks ago) started feeding himself with gusto. Last week was his "transition week" into the toddler room at daycare; he officially starts there tomorrow.

The biggest news that I have missed entering, that wasn't covered in that last paragraph is that he bit me while nursing about a week and a half ago. I yelped. He cried. Then we had fits and starts and more bites for the rest of that nursing session. He bit me several more times over the next 2-3 days, but hasn't since then. I'm glad that phase was short and that my yelping and pulling away didn't result in a full-blown nursing strike (which I was worried that might happen when the biting & crying when I yelled "ouch" happened on the 2nd day).