Almost 11 Months

It felt kind of strange to get on the bus this morning and not be carrying my pump. I’ve become so accustomed to having two things with me in the seat; it felt so roomy without it! So far I’m feeling OK. Not too full or too achy, though obviously a little of each. However, I’m sure I’m going to put Veronica straight to the boob the second I get home and get my coat off. I picked Friday to be my first day without pumping knowing the weekend would be right there in case it sucks. But I really don’t want to have to spend money on more milk storage bags and honestly, I don’t think pumping is worth the trouble anymore.

So now that Ronica is on the homestretch of weaning – whether she knows it or not is a different matter – I’m looking forward to seeing how this affects our sleeping patterns. She continues to be extremely difficult to get to bed at night, requiring multiple tries to get her to stay asleep. She continues to wake up between 2am and 4am and sometimes even earlier. (She often wakes up the second her father gets home from school or band practice or work, like she can sense his presence.) I have noticed that she’s less demanding of food when she wakes up and is more interested in being held. But since I’m so used to sleep nursing, I still just give her a boob so I can lay back down. And she still doesn’t really know how to fuss herself to sleep since we don’t leave her in her crib to cry and disturb her brother. I’m hoping that’ll work itself out as she gets older but it’s definitely something I’m wary of.

I think we’ll probably try to find a free or cheap toddler bed before jumping straight to bunk beds for the two of them. My guess is that once she can climb out of bed herself she’ll end up climbing in with her brother, again just needing the comfort of someone next to her in the middle of the night.

Ronnie is still not quite walking. Rather, she can walk and has taken a few steps, but she chooses not to. She is so incredibly fast at crawling that it would be inconvenient to walk instead. She does let go and free stand more and more often so I’m sure she’ll start doing more than just moving between the couch and ottoman before long. She’s learning to get down from the couch feet first and that’s a skill she’ll need for getting out of her bed and invading her brother’s.