This photo was taken on 14th July 2017. It’s the evening we saw Bryan Adams at our local rugby club (which was AMAZING, but the way!) It is also the night that my then 14 month old breastfed for the very last time.
We got home, and she fed literally ALL NIGHT, then never asked again…
Don’t get me wrong, I was actually quite relieved at the time to get my bed and body back, but it meant I definitely had toddlers rather than babies, and knowing she was going to be my last baby made it actually quite poignant. It was a happy accident that both of my children breastfed for over a year; I let each of them stop when they were ready. Thomas had cut down gradually, so I cannot date his last feed, but he had weaned off me by the time he was 12 months old, but Katherine was a real milk monster. Breastfeeding was the only way to get her to sleep most nights, and she wouldn’t take a bottle until she was nearly a year old.
When she turned one, I started a ‘don’t offer if she doesn’t ask’ approach, but that didn’t cut down the number of feeds, as she still asked all the time! If I’m honest, I was starting to get annoyed sometimes when she wanted a feed half an hour after breakfast, wouldn’t go down for a nap without a feed, relied on me all the time. So it came as a real shock when she didn’t ask again after the mammoth night feed that night.
And the truth is, I do miss it.
Initially, I relished that we had our bed back to ourselves, and I didn’t have to wear clothes that had easy boob access all of the time and I could finally have some SPACE; but the reality was, she still woke at night but wanted comforting in her own bed, which was much harder as it involved actually getting up, I still wear the clothes that I wore when breastfeeding as they are comfy, and I miss the cuddles.
I even miss the night feeds; just me and her awake in the middle of the night (and 2am. And 5am…) Then I was all she needed; I could solve all her problems, I was the only one who could comfort her. Now she will lie in bed with a book and go to sleep by herself. Now, if she does wake in the night, she wants daddy to go to her for cuddles.
Onwards and upwards though, since then I have got back down to fitting into my pre-Thomas-pregnancy clothes, and the boobs have shrunk back to normal proportions!
But a part of me will always miss that bond that we shared for 14 months. Just me and Katherine against the world.
Bittersweet.
Team Mills 