All About Awesome Asher: January 2009

How many moms out there started mixing up names of family members quickly after starting your own family? I find that I frequently start to call Asher Brent or Brent Asher. Does this happen more frequently when mothers have sons? Has anyone ever mixed up names for family members of different genders? I wonder if it happens more often when husbands and sons have names that start with the same letter/sound. It's a curious phenomenon.

Happy 15 month birthday today, Asher! We are not actually celebrating, but I've been thinking lately about weaning from breastfeeding. At first, I said I would breastfeed until he's one year old, as recommended by the AAP. It got hard when I went back to school in September and had to pump, and Asher would not accept formula supplement. Pumping sucked, even with a pretty good environment (a private space, understanding faculty). So when we cut down to just morning and evening feedings--no pumping--it was SO much more relaxing/less stressful/enjoyable! So then I said I wanted to keep nursing until he got his MMR shot, because you know, all the good immunity stuff in breast milk. Well, that happened last week. So now what?

Last weekend, I attempted to give Asher a sippy cup of cow's milk first thing in the morning, while sitting in the rocker where I usually nurse him. NUH-UH, MAMA! Asher was NOT having that, angrily hitting the sippy and kvetching/crying! After this rukus woke up Dad, I just went ahead and nursed him. My gut said it might be easier to cut the evening bed-time routine feeding before the morning feeding, even though you always hear the night feeding "should be" the last to go. But it just makes more sense to me to keep nursing him, and thereby cuddling him, when he is groggy in the morning, and try to adjust his night routine when he is up and about just before bed. On the other hand, breast feeding does tend to calm him down for bedtime, but then sometimes he also gets excited/excitable again when we brush teeth (which logically follows his last feeding).

But I haven't tried this adjustment to the night-time routine yet. Part of me wants to wean because I have this idea that it would be easier and I would be freer. But I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, I've been happy about nursing him since I cut out the pumping and went back to wearing non-nursing bras. The AAP also recommends breastfeeding as long as it is mutually desirable for mom and baby. Well, I can tell that Asher is still plenty contented to have the breast, and I do enjoy having that time with him--cuddling and kissing his feet. So maybe I'll just keep going a little while longer. Maybe a month, maybe 3? My only fear is that Asher will be too attached to want to self-wean, but I guess the bottom line is we'll just see how it goes.