Night weaning successful

We are a week and a half into the night weaning and it has been a resounding success. I now feed her at 10:30 p.m., before I go to bed, and set my alarm to feed her at 5:30. By 5:30, when my boobs have had over five hours to refill, they are like boulders, so she gets a buffet for her wait.

Besides those two feeds, she sleeps from 7 p.m. to 8 a.m. and takes two good naps per day of about two hours each. She’s sleeping a good hour or two more each day since we started this, which makes her happier and more well-rested.

I look back at things I wrote just two weeks ago and marvel at how quickly it all can change. I’m SO glad we did this, as it’s been beneficial for the health and well-being of the whole family.

**


In less good news, I remain at my consistently overweight state. After wearing the same two pair of maternity pants non-stop for months, I finally had to accept reality and go buy some fat clothes. I needed a dress for mother’s day weekend and while I was at it, decided that a pair of jeans and a coat that fit would be useful too.

Mark had covered for me while I attended another conference. So to try to give him a break in return, I dropped River off at a friend’s house and took Willow shopping with me. She woke up from her nap just as I’d started trying things on and began to scream. I knew she needed to be fed, so decided to try to quickly finish trying on the clothes, then go feed her in one of the armchairs near the entrance to the changing rooms.

A lady tried to open the door of my dressing room, without knocking, and with me half naked.

“Excuse me!” I said.

“I really think you should pick up your baby,” she said.

“Thank you,” I replied, lacking a comeback in the stress of the moment. If she’d come back again I would have told her that if she had a lactating breast she wanted to offer, she was welcome to do so. But otherwise, she’d have to trust me to handle it.

I try to remember that such intrusions come from good intentions, from a pain many women feel at hearing a child crying. However, I am the mom, I know what she needs, and I know when and how I can best give it to her. Some people are helpful, such as an employee who offered to push the stroller while I was paying or people who offer to hold her when I’m not able to. But those who just tell me what they think I should do are not helpful at all. At such times, I wish there was a way to remind them to butt out.


**

Over the past week or so, I’ve been doing a little bit of work. Not a lot, just an hour or two per day. But still, that hour or two is about the only time I have to concentrate. Which doesn’t leave time for anything else.

I finished the item I promised to deliver and don’t plan on doing much more until my return to the office in July. Now that both my statistics class and this work project are over, the small chunk of daily free time is now available for me. I can read, I can write, I can walk, I can try to cross some items off my to-do list.

Today I was able to walk to the library, sit in an armchair and read a book for fun. This was such a strange experience that after about an hour, I started feeling anxious at my lack of productivity. I’m not used to having an hour or more to read. I’d love for this to happen more often, because the list of books on my to-read list is daunting. And I miss being able to immerse myself in a book for hours, the way I did as a kid. Crossing my fingers this may happen more often.