Closed for Business.

The dairy farm is officially closed for business. 

One week after Mason turned 11 months, we started introducing cow’s milk.  I first I mixed 3 ounces of breast milk with 2 ounces of whole milk.  To my surprise, Mason LOVED it.  However, his diapers were the worst I had ever seen or smelled.  Luckily, as the days past, his shoo diapers started getting better. 

For the past several weeks, we have been on straight whole milk during the day and I’ve continued to nurse him morning and night.  Maybe two weeks ago right around bed time, I grabbed Mason like I normally did for our night nursing and he was just not interested.  He pulled away, latched on and off and really was just not having it.  Carter went downstairs, made a bottle of whole milk and warmed it up.  He sat Mason down, snuggled him, and Mason dominated the bottle . . . I cried like a little baby.  I was so sad that he no longer wanted it from me.  My baby is turning into a little boy.

Since then, we’ve given him the bottle at night and I just kept my morning feeding.  The past week or so, I’ve really started to notice my supply dwindling down.  This morning it was 6:00AM and I was about to head out the door for work and Mason was still sleeping.  Normally he is up around 5:00AM to nurse.  (Lately, I’ve been trying to push his morning feeding later and later so we can sleep in on the weekends and I can feed him right before I leave during the week.)  With hopes he may continue to snooze, I headed downstairs and made a bottle.  Right as I was about to head up stairs to leave the bottle with Carter before I left, Mason woke up.  In my own selfish way, I wanted to just dump the bottle and nurse; however, I knew I needed to make the break at some point.  I went into his room, grabbed him and fed him his first morning bottle.  I was good, I didn’t cry at all, but now as I write this, I’m tearing up.  I was really hoping to plan our last nursing session to give myself closure knowing that, that time would be the last.  Maybe I’ll make tomorrow morning our last, or try and get my last feeding in tonight before bed.  I have a feeling my body is done too.  It’s sad to think that my baby is gone, and now I have a 1 year old, walking toddler.  I can’t believe this year is gone.