Clocking out! And what I have learned about weaning.
My husband bought me a cake from Milk Bar (get it?!) to celebrate my last pump, which was 6 days ago!
I made it to 5.5 months without having any kind of goal. I am not a goal person. It was not my plan to EP and I can’t believe I made it this long.
I wanted to share a short list of things that surprised me while weaning:
- SO MUCH PEEING. It was like early postpartum again where I had to pee constantly! I guess it was just my body reabsorbing all the milk but it really surprised me.
- I am shocked by how much extra time I have. Before it was like everyone else in the world had a 27-28 hour day and I was just working with 24. Now I get to do things for myself during naps!
- You gotta take ibuprofen and ice your boobs. More than you think. Weaning is the LEAST convenient time to get a clog because you are pumping less by default.
- I am not exhausted by 7:30pm anymore and it’s actually messing with my ability to fall asleep quickly at night.
- I was overzealous and rushed back to “normal” more tighter fitting bras too quickly and now I have a painful clog about a week later. I can manage it fine, but I probably should have waited longer. It could also be from holding my baby a ton because my husband has been out of town. Who knows, just be careful.
Thank you so much to this community and space. I got so much good advice and support here, and I found so much purpose in helping other moms who were earlier in their journey.
EPers are the biggest baddies out there. I hope you guys have cake when you’re done too ❤️
PS: the second pic is a weaning schedule I got from my LC if anyone wants to see what it looks like! I was pumping 5x per day for 35-40 oz at my peak and I am very prone to clogs so this is a slow weaning schedule. For rapid weaning you just do 24 hrs instead of 48 between each change. I found that I was handling it all fine about half way through so I upped the speed.