I Think I'm Done!

If all goes according to plan, today was my last day pumping at work!

When I first went back and for a long time, I was pumping three times a day! Probably 2-3 months ago, Avery dropped a late afternoon feeding so I dropped down to pumping twice a day. Last weekend I decided to try something...

She was down to nursing 4 times a day-first thing when she woke up, first nap, second nap, and bedtime. I was getting worried that she was associating nursing with sleep, so I decided to put an end to that. Last weekend I decided to put her down for both naps without nursing...instead she would get a sippy cup of breastmilk at lunch and dinner. This plan would allow me to cut out pumping at work. I wanted to finish pumping so that I could start using up my freezer stash of milk and get her on whole milk relatively soon. Plus, pumping sucks (literally!)!

She did pretty well with the transition. The first day she cried a bit when she didn't get her nursing time and at lunch she wouldn't drink any milk. At dinner she drank maybe an ounce. Sunday, day 2, she drank a little more at lunch and dinner. She's still touch and go with drinking milk in general-she hasn't been taking the bottle well at daycare for awhile now. I'd say in the past week she's gotten used to the new routine and drinks pretty well at meal time now.

So this week at work I pumped once a day at lunch and that was it. The only reason I had to was to let my body adjust to less nursing during the day. So if all goes according to plan, next week I'll be going to work with one less bag and more time to do something else at lunch....like take walks like I used to!

Don't get me wrong, I love nursing and have no problems with it. But pumping gets old really fast. After 9 months of pumping every day that I work, I'm ready to be done with that.