Mother's Day Gift

I know that Mother's Day was last Sunday and I've been meaning to write this post since then but I've been busy job searching. Fortunately (?) Edward woke up at 5:30 this morning so I've got some time now.

This year I decided to give Mia something special for Mother's Day. Don't get me wrong, I still got her the Godiva chocolate she asked for, and Ethan helped me pick out some roses, but those were just trappings. The real gift was spending the weekend (while Mia worked) weaning Edward.

Weaning is something we've talked about for a few weeks now because Edward has been eating every 1.5 hours (if not more often) and wasn't able to fall asleep without nursing. We knew he wasn't getting enough to eat, which accounted for the frequency, and assumed that being hungry was also a factor in his incredibly short naps and constant wake-ups at night.

One of the hardest parts of weaning is taking the attitude that your child will take a bottle when he gets hungry enough. The time before that happens can be quite miserable. Especially if he screams when you try to give him the bottle. On the bright side, using sleep as a defense mechanism against eating from a bottle does provide some relief.

But, I stuck to my plan, and even when Mia was home we kept pushing the bottle. At 2AM he wouldn't be comforted back to sleep by nursing but by getting a bottle from Dad. Finally by Monday, we had him doing pretty well with taking a bottle and he was starting to drink more at each feeding. This was a key part of the change so we were glad that it materialized according to plan.

This morning, as I write this post, I'm tired but got a solid night of sleep. Uninterrupted sleep. It's like Nirvana. So while I am still groggy, at least I'm not frustrated.

And it looks like he's just about done with his playmate. He might be getting sleepy again himself. That would be nice.