The mutual torture of weaning

By the beginning of April, nursing was limited to nights & weekends, and Baby was drinking well from the cup... bottles abandoned months ago. The freezer provisions allowed Mom to stop pumping at work. Even once a day was detracting from her productivity. Weekends were reduced to twice, then once during the day. All was going smoothly, we hit the one year mark formula-free. The transition to cow's milk was gradual: 20%, 50%, 100%... one week at a time. Now if we could only stop the waking up twice in the middle of the night...

The books & doctors say take out a feeding at a time, which worked well with Baby #1. However, this is a whole other person, with his own say in the matter. And he screams! The whole household is up through the night, exhaustion sets in. Instead of more sleep we are getting less. Tiredness will play tricks with your mind, the alarm clock displays random numbers. Mom gives in at the wrong time, the schedule is off. Dad, sleepwalking, will hand over Baby to a sleeping Mom, which she will notice attached to her breast hours later. Madness is looming in the horizon, so we return to the normal schedule before another attempt. Frustration is counter-productive...

Sleeping in for two days does wonders for your mind. Mom is sane again, regrouped, and ready for the next attempt. She tries the cup, with water or milk. She tries holding, cuddling, singing. She will not sleep through the night, but she will not give in... Then, out of the blue, Baby sleeps the whole night through. A blessing in disguise, engorgement sets in and the temptation to nurse in the morning is too enticing... resistance is futile. We try again the next night, the cup, the rocking... Two nights, three... not much sleep but the cup is now accepted. Baby gives in, resigned. A hug & a kiss, turn over and back to sleep...

Now we are down to the end-of-the-day feeding, but at least no nursing to sleep. The pleading eyes, the sad puppy expression... mercifully abandoned as pressure tactics. The screaming has mostly dwindled to Baby making sure his complaints are noted in the logs. Then he turns over and falls asleep...

Ready, set...up

It is amazing how one's view on life can change without notice. A year ago all I knew for sure was that the baby inside me had to come out. I was ending my postdoc contract and had 8 week of comp-time to pay back after my maternity leave, due to my pre-term labor mandatory bed rest. Stuck-Here Town seemed like a dead-end road and I was miserable.

By the time I was ready to get out of the house, I was contacted by my first postdoc adviser, who needed help getting his lab back in gear. The "dead-end" sign morphed into a "no outlet" one... six months was all he could offer me. Better than no job at all... I was in limbo but I had gained some time. I kept telling myself it was a step back before the two forward ones that were just around the corner. Believe it or not, I was right... Out of the blue came this unexpected grant, shining a light in the dark tunnel. Five years... I haven't planned this far ahead since I started graduate school! The cherry on top is not being associated with GradSchool-Postdoc-Postdoc University anymore... after 10 years there.

So here I am, embarking on this new adventure, or at least provisioning the boat. It is amazing how much work goes into setting up a lab from scratch. Compound on that the fact that you need to provide for experiments you (and everyone else on the project) have never done before... voila! my current life (minus the kids, untidy house & all the other stuff I escape from every weekday morning). When I was propositioned last year, all this seemed like a dream. Now that I started and the money is ready to be spent, it is more like a fairytale... shopping spree et al.