Why are we awake at 4 am??

What do you do at 4:44 am when you are up with the baby? You blog about WHY you are up with the baby, of course!

This little guy has been changing things up lately. And it's right in the middle of a flu outbreak at my house. I am pretty sure he is starting to wean, which is ok, we just need to figure things out.

For awhile now, we have been nursing five times a day. It has been different for me because he is now 15 months and we are still nursing this much. All my other kids were completely weaned by 13 months! I like to let the kids wean themselves, so when we hit 13 months and he wasn't weaned, I let him continue on. I thought it would be good for him since he has food issues and is allergic to cow's milk.  I also wanted to keep nursing him through cold and flu season, but I had NO idea we would be hit so hard this year with sickness!!

Anyway, Saturday around 5 pm, I went to nurse him as usual and he pushed me away, which was very odd. I tried to put him on again and he wanted nothing to do with me. I thought Ok, this is kind of a fluke. We will just try again later. I don't mind skipping one feeding.

We got ready for bed and we settled down to nurse to sleep and again, he pushed me away. Now this was really weird! I couldn't force him to nurse, so I got him a cup of water and I rocked him to sleep. This is the first night EVER that we did not nurse to sleep!

So after this, I was convinced that he was weaning cold turkey. I knew I could not skip two feedings and then not feed Micah all night, so I dug my pump out of the attic and pumped off 6 ounces!

I was not expecting Micah to nurse in the morning. I told myself we were done, but when we got up, he wanted to nurse! Ok then! And he didn't only want to nurse in the morning, but he nursed his usual times all throughout the day along with taking a two hour nap! But when we hit bedtime again, he wanted nothing to do with me. He struggled for over an hour to get to sleep on his own and finally, he gave me the "milk" signal and he nursed to sleep. This was at 11 pm!  He is usually sound asleep and in bed by 9:30.

The next morning, again, I was just going with the flow. He was up around 7:30 and we nursed throughout the day. He actually ate three times before lunch, probably due to the fact that he wasn't feeling too well and it was comforting. He never took a nap all day and last night, Megan, Micah, and I went out and got groceries. He fell asleep in the car on the way home at 7:30 pm. I could not get him to wake up when we got home, so I just put him right into bed. Because we missed this bedtime feeding, I went and pumped off another six ounces.

Hence why we are up at 4 am this morning! Since he went to sleep around 7:30 pm, he sleep 8 1/2 hours. Now, are we going to nap today??

As for weaning, I am pretty sure we are on our way. It takes awhile to go from five feedings a day to nothing and if it is done right, it shouldn't be a problem. I just want to do it slowly, so I don't get mastitis. Matt told me last night that he thinks I should wean him and I said, "Right in the middle of a flu outbreak at our house?? Breastmilk is the best thing for him!" Matt agreed! I told him that I do want him weaned by summertime. That just gives me a good goal and this will still give him the antibodies he needs through the next couple of months.