A'udhu billahi mina sh-shaytaanir-rajeem! Bismillah...

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Goodbye Mom's milk...!

Source- google



...yes, a lot of things are happening in life. Like Liya mentioned in her previous post, I SUCCESSFULLY stopped breastfeeding her. It wasn't as tougher as I anticipated, though a few new things have popped up as a consequence.

Honestly, I was clueless on how to stop nursing. Like My friend S often says, people always tends to do experiments with first child, definitely I did this time.  There are quite lot of 'tricks' moms use back in Kerala. Many of them embrace cold turkey approach and stop it in a day. This is usually achieved by 'convincing' child through some tricks that breast-milk is no more tasty *poor kid*. Applying an ayurvedic herb Chenninayakam (Aloe Vera) on nipples is the most accepted way. Some moms use different herbs or products like Neem juice (Azadirachta indica), cumin juice etc... **yuck yuck** which would convince the child that something is wrong with momma and child develops an hatred towards nursing.
I am not going to debate on whether it is right or wrong way. But I must admit that most of them were successful in the mission. But I PERSONALLY did not want to go for cold turkey. It is widely known that stopping breastfeeding abruptly, may invite troubles. Your breasts will continue to get filled with milk.  Since the baby will not be emptying them, they may get engorged and/or get infected, and lead to severe discomfort, at the very least. I have personally seen moms falling ill after abruptly stopping breastfeeding.
Source- google
How did we do it?
Well,  experiences and situations may vary from mom to mom, hence I always believe a mom knows to choose the best for her child, than anyone else. I chose to stop it gradually. Mainly because I could not agree with 'cheating' my little one and getting her out from her favorite food all in a day. While living away from my extended family, there are many things I have to manage myself and I did not want to fall ill either. I had reduced the frequency of feeding a few weeks back itself. Over the days I began cutting down the duration of feeding. The next step was stopping feeding at night. This was quite tricky.. believe me I had bad time going against my will- my heart was dying to let her suckle when she demanded at nights, but I had to deviate her with rhymes, stories etc in my half sleep mode...or sometimes I had to even pretend that I didn't hear what she was asking for. 

Over weeks, it was dropped into once in a day and gradually I began making it alternative days, as well. Liya was demanding for it, but *Alhamdulillah*, I was able to distract her all the time. Also, I must say that her daycare admission has helped me positively. She learned to spend all the day without me around and learned to be independent and to do things herself. She was always been proud on doing things and appreciating herself with a  "yay..good girl" shout. This has helped me a lot. Thank God. My in-laws, who were not very convinced of the idea of putting her in daycare seems to be glad that schooling has a positive impact on her, and especially made it easy for me to quit breastfeeding.
source- google
30th Sep 2011- That's the day I breastfed LIYA for the last time. But, I didn't know that, it would be the last one. In fact, I had a plan to feed her after a day but she did not ask for two days and it went on to three days. Third day she asked and I tricked her with books. I was watching out how she was behaving. Nothing bad happened. My MIL suggested that it is a good time to stop it. Anyways, she is not much knowing that she was denied it and been away from breast-milk for three days and getting her back to the habit might make her more sticky to it. The days gradually went on, she asked me often but did not cry for it. Later on she began re-phrasing her question **ha ha haa... *** Instead of asking for du-du she points to my dress ask me "what is this" expecting me to give her fav answer. I began replying her this is momma, this is momma's dress... and pointing to something else and asking her what's that..:)


But she did not forget it at all. She asks me "what's this question" everyday, (believe me) even today. 


How did it affect Liya? Though, the process of quitting was easy for me, there are some consequences I am facing. Liya began disliking me over her dad. She pinches and scratched on my face with her nails. My face has so many scratches that it really hurts when I pour water on my face. She beats me, bites me, bumps on my body. One day she bit so hard that blood clotted in that area for two days. If I pretend as if I am crying, she consoles me and engross me with kisses all of over my cheeks. If I stop pretending she re-starts her reckless or malicious behavior. So a lot of pseudo whines (this time momma, not baby) and melodramas happening around our sweet house. :)
 
The good part is that she is eating well nowadays... and eating properly at daycare, as well.



Kudos Girl! Well done and way to go my little sweety.

Disclaimer : Opinions expressed in this post are purely my personal thoughts and I am NOT a childcare expert. I may be right or I could be completely wrong. Please do not consider this as an authentic source for any info.
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3 comments:

  1. dear shahana,
    congratulationS! i also used same tricks for my last one..my husband helped me too..
    kisses to liya...:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. That was a good way to stop nursing. Although I have another year before I stop breast feeding Aisha, I have started worrying about it now itself. Hope everything goes fine.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I am glad things went good for you. I also stopped my breastfeeding by reducing it slowly. I however cut the daytime ones out first and left the night time ones to last. Karima

    ReplyDelete

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