Petra is fifteen months old now, and I’ve been feeling lately that I’m about ready to stop nursing her. She hasn’t been nursing at night for a few weeks now, and she’s been very unfocused about it during the day. She won’t sit for regular nursing sessions, but instead wants me to sit exposed all day long so she can come and go for a little snack as it suits her fancy. I tolerated this for a while, since she was teething and fussy and fighting a cold, but now I’m tired of feeling like a snack bar–I just want my body back.
So, to that end, I employed the old mustard-on-the-nipples trick that I learned from a Norwegian midwife back when I was ready to stop nursing Tage. The idea is that I wouldn’t be denying him the breast, but that it wouldn’t be the tasty treat he was used to and he’d decide it wasn’t worth his time. It worked like magic with him, and in just a couple days’ time he was totally weaned, with no fighting at all.
On Saturday evening, Petra got her first taste of mustard, and the trick worked even better with her than it had with Tage. She had to try on both sides, to make sure they were both “blah,” but then she wanted nothing more to do with nursing. At. All. It was amazing.
Saturday night went well, and all of Sunday, without her even asking to nurse. By evening, my breasts were feeling uncomfortably full, but I resisted the temptation to try to nurse her. Instead, I hand-expressed a bit of milk and went to bed, making a mental note to buy some cabbage leaves for my bra the next morning.
Sunday night was HORRIBLE.
My boobs progressed from uncomfortably full to hard, feverish and nigh-on to bursting. It felt like they contained not nourishing, harmless milk, but molten lava. I was feverish as well, alternating between teeth-chattering chills and full-on sweats. At 4:30 in the morning I finally broke down and brought Petra to my bed to nurse. Luckily, in her sleepy state, she appeared to have forgotten the mustard travesty, and she relieved the engorgement quickly.
But not quickly enough, unfortunately.
It became apparent within a couple of hours that the cold-turkey weaning had resulted in a lovely case of mastitis for me. I spent all day yesterday in bed, and I’ve been nursing the babe like nobody’s business in hopes of clearing up the red, swollen soreness as soon as possible. I do feel much better today than I did yesterday, but I think I’ve still got a day or two before I’m completely back to myself.
And in the meantime, I’m back to square one. Those thirty-odd hours of freedom from nursing reinforced my feeling that I’m done, but I’m not sure now how to convey the message to Petra in a manner gradual enough to let my body keep pace. Any ideas?
*I exercised considerable restraint in not entitling this post “When Weaning Sucks.” I like to avoid being too obvious, when I can, but in the end, it was just too punneriffic not to get at least an honorable mention. Humor me.
I think the whole mustard thing is brilliant but as you’ve discovered, don’t try it without having some cabbage leaves on hand. If you do get mastitis again, my midwife told me to rest (i.e. only get out of bed to pee), drink tons of fluids, nurse as often as possible and to stick raw potato peelings in my bra. Yeah – sounds gross but did the trick. I was better after 24 hours.
I don’t have any advice on how to wean gradually. I weaned the oldest one quickly (I was put on some anti-depressants) and just pumped & dumped to allow my body to get back to ‘normal’. My son (same age as Tage) needed some formula supplementation at about 5 months. The nursing became less and less of a concern and he could’ve cared less about it by the time he was a year old.
Sorry I don’t have any better advice. Good luck!
Huh, I hadn’t heard about the potato peelings — that’s an idea I’ll definitely keep stored away in case I need it later.
I didn’t have any problems weaning either of my older two, so this time I was caught totally off-guard. I’ll have to do some more careful planning next time I decide it’s the last time!
Ugh! You poor thing! What about cutting back to only allow her to nurse for half the time she usually does? Or progress to only nursing at night and in the morning? I think that is how I weaned my son, because the only time I remember the hot molten lava feeling was in the very beginning when he wouldn’t latch on.. Perhaps that way you wouldn’t go from bursting to mastitis. (ha – just realized that masTITis has the word tit in it. Sorry for the juvenile humor.)