Today was Day #3 of Lydia's "Nursing Strike". She has not nursed since Saturday at 5:30 in the morning! Her 3:00 weaning had been going so well. She had still wanted to nurse at 6am, 8:30am, 12pm and 6pm with no problems.
Friday afternoon we headed to Austin to visit Lydia's Pfeiffer grandparents. She nursed at bedtime at 6:00, I dreamfed her at 9:30, again at 2:30am and then at 5:30am. At 5:30, I brought her into our bed and nursed her. She bit me on after we switched sides and I told her "no", we tried nursing again and she bit again and I said "no" and said we're finished. It didn't seem to bother her much, since she soon fell back to sleep until 6:45. After that, no more nursing. When I tried nursing her before her morning nap at 9:00, she started screaming at me and pulling away. I tried to nurse every time we normally do, but she screamed each time. By 5:00pm, I was dying and had to go out and get a pump from Wal-Mart. I put the breast milk in a sippy cup and Lydia downed it! So, obviously, she still likes my milk!
I tried dreamfeeding her Saturday night, but even though she was fast asleep, she still refused to nurse. The nights have been the hardest. Without nursing to go to sleep, she doesn't want to sleep! We were up over an hour trying to put her back to sleep. Last night (Sunday night) was the worse night in a long time. She woke up at 9:30 and didn't got back down until 11:15. Despite rocking her for 1/2 hour straight, she wouldn't go to sleep. I tried giving her a bottle of breast milk and a sippy cup, but nothing worked. I tried letting her crying it out, but I couldn't handle the screaming. Her crying caused me to cry and I didn't know what to do to help her. Finally, by 11:15, she was exhausted enough to fall asleep.
Today, she refused to nurse several times, so I pumped instead. She downed her milk in a sippy cup this morning, and snacked on 3oz throughout the day. She had 2oz in a bottle to go to bed. Hopefully, tonight she will either take breast milk in a bottle or sleep really well...or I can handle her crying.
I'm worried that my milk supply will go down. I don't want to give up nursing quite yet - I wanted her to at least nurse once a day until 12 months. I don't really think she wants to give up nursing, but I haven't figured out why she isn't nursing. She doesn't have an ear infection, she's not teething, she's eating everything else so it's not her tummy. Hopefully this "strike" will end soon and we'll get back to normal.
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