Cow Tales: The finale

It's over.

The shop is closed.

We did it.

The morning of his birthday, after barely breastfeeding for a couple of minutes, Henry bit me and showed zero sign of wanting to nurse.  I decided that was it.  He had been distracted when he nursed for at least a week, if not longer.  And when he did nurse, he mostly bit me.  He was obviously done nursing.  We made it one year and a feed, which was my ultimate goal.

I told Henry, "No more boobs until college."

In the last couple of weeks, my supply just kept dropping.  I was faced with a couple of choices.  I could supplement with formula, just switch immediately to cow's milk, or drive myself crazy trying to pump around the clock.

I decided to go with a fourth option and supplement with cow's milk.

We started slowly.  Just an ounce of cow's milk with 4 ounces of breastmilk.  Then the next week, it was 2 ounces of breastmilk.  And then 3 oz of breastmilk.  Now we are on all cow's milk and he's doing pretty well.

I like supplementing with cow's milk for a couple of reasons.  (1) It didn't make sense to me to get him used to formula for a couple of ounces a day for just a few weeks.  (2) I was concerned about Henry rejected cow's milk because of the taste and gradually supplementing helped him to get used to the taste.  (3) My body was able to gradually reduce nursing so weaning really hasn't been uncomfortable.

So that's it!  We made it to our breastfeeding goal!!  The next step: getting him off bottles.  But I don't think I will attempt that for another month or so.

{My big boy needs his own chair}