Operation Wean Success.

M2 has now officially been exclusively on formula for 1 week. She hasn't grown a third eye (yet). Actually she is doing really well, and I am glad that the transition to formula hasn't seemed to affect her. Of course bottle feeding her wasn't the issue, she has always taken to a bottle just fine. And when she was being fed mostly breast milk and some formula she didn't seem to mind either one or notice a difference. Two weeks ago I cut out our morning nursing session after a few more biting incidences. I continued to pump once a day for a few days, then every other day, and now it's been a week since I pumped. I'm ready to pack up the pump and bid it farewell for awhile.

I do have some regret about not making it to 1 year of breastfeeding. If M2 had been a better nurser and I'd been able to get her to breastfeed well after becoming a SAHM it would have been a lot easier to keep up. But pumping multiple times a day is not very much fun. I did it for 7+ months, and that mechanical dairy farm feeling never goes away, if anything my hatred for pumping got stronger over time. Also, pumping while M2 is crawling around on the floor, or crying/whining from the pack n' play was really not fun either. My decision to quit with the pumping stemmed from my realization that pumping was starting to affect my ability to be a good mother. I was stressed out about pumping, spending lots of time pumping (time I'd rather be playing/interacting with my child) and it was making me start to resent her just a little.

The final straw was when my milk supply rapidly tanked in half due to some medical issues, and for a week or so after that I was spending twice as much time pumping and getting half as much milk. Totally unproductive. I still think that breast is best, and I hope that with my next child I will be able to exclusively breastfeed and not have to deal with the pump very often. But as they say, you do the best you can for your children with the circumstances at hand.