Remember that ad for Viva paper towel where the mum and her kid are shaking up bottles of soft drink and spraying them all around the kitchen? Totally lacking credibility in my opinion.
The mere spray of a hastily opened can of Fanta is a hideous, sticky event where droplets can be found on window panes ten feet away three weeks later. To shake up your 1.5 litre bottle and spray it recklessly around the kitchen ON PURPOSE is not only stupid in the extreme, but takes on the proportions of a fizzy orange tsunami which no amount of Viva applied by the most ardent paper-towel-packing mama could possibly hope to contain.
See? Not credible. No mother I know would ever indulge in such shenanigans.
Picture this as a plausible alternative: [Start Scene] Breast feeding mother decides in a spontaneous fit of madness to wean her 18 month old daughter by going cold turkey. She manages to deflect, distract and cajole the baby away from the breast all day long and finally gets the baby into bed, without a feed, at 7pm. Hurrah!
BUT! She has been so busy worrying about the baby's emotional wellbeing that she ignores the swelling, pressing tightness inside her bra - her own personal dam, if you will. Because her body is used to demand feeding several times a day, there is a serious backlog of breastmilk threatening to burst through the dam wall, that she has forgotten to pump off during the day. Twenty-four hours worth of breast milk welling to DD proportions and not a breast pump in sight. So she grabs a wad of Viva paper towel and hand pumps breast milk into it. Millilitres of the stuff. Practically a cup full! And by golly that Viva paper towel is amazing! It absorbs every last drop. Happy days! [End Scene]
Okay, so that particular scenario might not have been completely accurate. There MAY have been a glass of chardonnay involved. There MAY have been a few teary moments where the mother suddenly realised that she would never get to breast feed another child ever again. Never. Ever. There MAY have been a moment when the woman's husband's eyes nearly fell out of his head at the size and shape of his wife's bust.
All in all, the weaning has gone surprisingly well and I think going cold turkey was the way to go. Dropping a feed here and there and dragging it out would have been too confusing to my curious, enquiring, very sharp little girl.
There was one melt down on day two when I put her down for her daytime nap and ended up having to cuddle her to sleep. There have been a few tugs on mummy's top (see picture above), to which I've just told her that "the milk's in the bin" (she understands "bin" - lots of things that are, and aren't rubbish end up in the "bin"). There have also been some wistful looks at the Breasts-Formerly-Known-As-Food-Source as she toddles into the bathroom and sweeps the shower curtain aside with a smiley "Hi!" while I'm in there. But all in all, I'm so proud of the way she has handled it.
Fortunately, I also had a continually running support line from my mother's group tribe who stayed with me that first, emotional night on Facebook and kept me strong in my resolve. Thanks gals!
So there it is. The end of an era. And I don't know about you, but I like to end my eras with wine. Lots of lovely, guilt-free wine. A totally unexpected and unanticipated benefit of weaning *clears throat*. Who knew?
hihi...well done!
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