Boy Oh Boyers

Sorry there was a lag in pictures of the day. One has been posted for today, and hopefully we won't miss any more for a while. The unexpected travel plus heavy work schedule to catch up just had me out of pocket.

In light of recent events, a very important development has occurred that I haven't mentioned yet. Rowan has decided that he is through breastfeeding, and would simply prefer a bottle from now on, thank you very much. He still wants the breastmilk, make no mistake -- he just demands a mode of delivery that is more mobile that Mommy's breast. Here's how it went down.

About two weeks ago Rowan started not wanting to nurse. He'd resist when I tried to lie him down, and he'd pop off over and over whenever anything interesting happened in the room. He'd chomp down when he was through eating, and often got too impatient to nurse on both sides. My milk supply was abundant as usual, so it became clear this was a new issue Rowan had with breastfeeding: he does not want to lie down, and he does not want to be still! Last week while we were in Georgia, the problem progressed to the point that the moment I tried to lie Rowan back to feed him, he would cry and stiffen his whole body. If I did manage to get him into position, he would reward my efforts with a swift chomp to the nipple! It only took a couple of tries like that, and we decided to cut our losses. (By the way, each of those times, Rowan hungrily took a bottle full of breastmilk immediately after the failed nursing attempt -- so the problem was not that he wasn't hungry.) Bottle feeding addresses the concerns Rowan has so civilizedly expressed: he can sit up, he can look around because the bottle moves with him, and the milk flows a little faster from a bottle than the breast.

So the big news is that Rowan has switched to exclusively bottle feeding now. I'm gradually reducing the frequency with which I pump breastmilk, and my supply will naturally taper off. We'll use up the stores of frozen breastmilk from the freezer, slowly increasing the proportion of formula to breastmilk in Rowan's bottles. He's only got a few months until the pediatricians say we should switch him to whole milk anyway.

I'll say I am terribly grateful for the precious, trouble-free time of breastfeeding we did have. My goal was to breastfeed for the first year, but a solid nine months of exclusive breastfeeding is still more than most babies I know...and they turn out marvelously! Apparently mine is well on his way to asserting himself when he wants something. :-)