No More Boobies

Day 6 and counting.... fatty has not touched my breast milk. I am saddened by this state of affairs. While I have heard of babies self weaning, I don't think they tend to do that at 9 and a half months. I think even further, that they don't just stop cold turkey, with nary a warning as to why.

On Tuesday, July 7 he went with out breastfeeding. I choked it up to him teething (and yes he is). But then the next day and then the next day and then the next day, still he refused to feed. I was starting to think something was wrong with him. But he was drinking and eating fine. So was it my breast milk? Did he just decide he was tired of my milk and wanted it no more. I was not ready, mentally nor physically, to give up on breastfeeding so soon. After all, I had my goal in mind. I wanted to reach the one year mark and then go from there... see how long he would take the boob. After all, I did it with Princess and I was pregnant at this stage of the game. And she still went 14 months on my milk until she weaned herself completely. But before the age of one, she was still a hardy nurser. And I had to start slowly weaning her myself. So why now, has my fatty weaned himself?

My friend mentioned that I could be pregnant and he sensed it and now wants nothing to do with me, er, my milk. But as I think that highly unlikely (actually hoping and praying that that is not the case), I have moved on to other theories.

Could he really just be getting to be a big boy now and just wants to stop with the 'baby' milk? Has my milk gone sour (just kidding, but I wonder if the taste has changed)? Was it something I ate and now he is scared to ever breastfeed again?

I have tried him countless times and in different positions and he fights me off; he refuses now to even open his mouth where as before he would take the boob but bite it. I miss the days of him blissfully breastfeeding. I get depressed thinking of it. How could he wean so soon. And not like a normal baby would by dropping a feeding here and there, not all at once. Weaning slowly would have been easier on my boobs too.

All night he went without a drop of my milk. That day, I put him down for a nap, went to the store and when I came back and tried to breastfeed, he just refused it. And kept doing so since. And those first 2 days were a nightmare. My boobs swelled up like two huge balloons, yet I felt as if 2 rocks had been placed right on my chest. My back hurt, to bend over hurt, to lift my arms hurt. Even pumping hurt (resorting to hand pumping as I have no breast pump). I finally hand expressed some milk while taking a hot shower and using the water to help alleviate the bulk. It worked and the next day my boobs felt better. I did it again the following night and then that following day I expressed a sizable amount of breast milk in a bottle, hopeful that if Fatty wouldn't take my boob, he would at least drink the milk.

I was wrong. He refused the milk as he had the breast. He was done with it. And now my mind races as to find some sort of explanation that does not involve 'pregnancy'.

While I fear I might 'dry' up and lose my milk supply before Fatty decides to start breastfeeding again, I have been attempting weakly to keep my supply up by hand expressing occasionally.

All the questions I had finally led me to google, where I looked up reasons why an almost 10 month old baby would self wean and came across a term that I had scarcely heard before. 'Strike". My baby was most likely on a strike , not self weaning as I initially thought. And since Princess had never been on strike before I never thought to consider it a possibility. I didn't even know babies could strike, yet alone strike against breastmilk, their comfort and most important food supply.

I often tell people Boobie weaned himself, but as it is unlikely a 4 month old would do such a thing, now it seems he was on strike and I only helped his strike along by offering formula . My milk was gone and it was too late. I don't want the same thing to happen with Fatty.

So I have concluded that Fatty's reluctance to breastfeed is one of two things: I am either pregnant or he is on strike... hoping and crossing my fingers its' the latter. I just hope his strike ends before my milk says "bye bye" for good. As for the former being a possible explanation for Fatty's refusal to drink my milk, I must wait and see what happens at the end of this coming week, when my period is due. And so the wait begins.