That Bites!

The biting started sometime around month 9 or 10. He doesn't even breastfeed anymore, but he's still biting me. They say that whe baby bites your nipple (yes, it hurts even worse than it sounds-- think tiny little sharp teeth) it's a sign that they're done eating anyway, so you might as well take them off. You're supposed to reprimand firmly and remove. Well, I would do that but it never helped. Maybe because I have no willpower and as soon as he cried I'd stick him back on-- most of the time. But now it's just random bites. My thighs, my belly, my arm... whatever is in reach. He prefers fleshier places, of which I have plenty lately.

He doesn't bite his father, though, which I think is a sign that the biting is related to breastfeeding. I wonder how he'll react when his new sibling is born. I think he still remembers breastfeeding his enjoyment of it.

Pump it Up: Frozen Breastmilk

I have three or four little baggies of frozen breastmilk sitting in my freezer. They've been there for... ho hum... maybe a year. Who knows why they didn't get used. At some point we switched to formula for those rare occasions that I wasn't around to breastfeed him on demand. In fact, I don't know if I ever pumped for the purposes of feeding after about 6 months when he started on solids. I know I pumped a couple of times out of paranoia after I popped a milk blister on my nipple and was afraid that the backlogged milk in the duct may have gotten infected or something (there may be no basis for thinking this, but we all have our neuroses-- I'm just choosing to share mine here).

A milk blister, by the way, is what happens when for some very strange reason, you get skin growing over a milk duct. The milk wants to escape but it cant, thereby forming a blister. Any CYA post you read about it on line will tell you to go to a doctor to get it popped but I just had DH do it for me the first time b/c I hate going to my doctor and I ended up just doing it myself whenever they popped up after that. Then you have to clear the duct of milk, which may or may not have semi-solidified and might come out like toothpaste. Gorgeous.

Later on I developed what may or may not have been thrush. I think not. Thrush is basically a yeast infection that the mother and baby keep passing back and forth to each other when breastfeeding. The mom shows signs of it on her nipple and baby shows signs of it in his mouth. But DS didn't have any signs of it as far as I could tell. I think it was just misdiagnosed dryness that I'm prone to.

Back to the freezer milk. So I don't know what to do with it. Obviously, I'm not going to feed it to my kid at this point. Most people would just tell me to throw it out but that seems so... wrong somehow. Maybe I can donate it to science. The local university might find use for it. They can do a study what happens to breast milk after you keep it in the freezer for a year. Or on something else. Like if my baggie leaches chemicals into the mik. Gosh, I hope not. Though once they start teething, you never know what you'll find them sucking on.

Senti-mental

Sometimes I get sentimental about my breastfeeding days. And this is at eighteen months! About 4 months after weaning! I really should enjoy my time off now, though. In a few months I'm going to be starting all over again.
Other times, I am really glad that breastfeeding isn't going on anymore. I remember how difficult it could be some nights -- many nights at a stretch, really, when he would wake up and accept nothing but the breast as an incentive to calm down. That's when we realized that it would have to be DH who got up every night with him if we were ever going to get past that stage. It took a few days but eventually it worked.
I don't remember my last breastfeed. The truth is, it probably contained more than a few screams from me because towards the end he made a pretty regular practice of biting me-- hard-- when he was finished eating. Have you ever been bitten on your nipple by little razor-sharp teeth? It is a most unpleasant experience. When DH complained about the noise of my cries, I offered to bite his nipples to see what he would do. He doesn't have a very high threshold for pain. He demurely retreated back to his side of the bed.

New Interest

DS has become newly re-interested in my breasts. Even after he was well weaned, he'd still put lay his head there for comfort, but now he wants to touch them and look at them-- and bite them! all the time. I'm not sure what the appeal is. Maybe with the pregnancy they're much bigger now. Or maybe he's just becoming more aware of bodies and differences. He doesn't seem to want to nurse-- he's just paying some extra attention.

Breast Changes

When I was pregnant last time, my nipples got all dry and cracked. I think I now know why. It was the chlorine in the pool where I swim. It doesn't happen to me when I'm not pregnant, but it happened to me after just one time in the pool now. It doesn't hurt, but it sure looks wierd to me. I solved it last time by putting some baby oil there.

Breast C

Dun da Dun Done

Really, we're done now. I haven't nursed in at least three weeks, I think. I can't remember exactly when the last time was, but I do remember that we were trying to get him down for a nap. At that point, I hadn't nursed in a day or two so it was really a very frustrating experience for the both of us.
I know the process is complete because when he cries at night and I pick him up, he doesn't go straight for my boobs anymore. He just snuggles in to my shoulder. There have been times in the last few weeks that he did aim for that region, or at least that's how it seemed to me, but it was relatively easy to distract him with a book or a snack.
So right now I'm in between. I just weaned one child and I'm on my way to having a second. I'm back to choosing from a selection of all the bras in my drawer and not just from between my four nursing bras or two comfy, non-underwire ones (though I definitely still wear those sometimes too.)
The wierd thing is that what I thought was blocked milk ducts and what the doctor thought was thrush is still there. I have these little white dots all over my nipples. I have yet to try messing with them-- squeezing them and pulling them off-- because I have been cold for the past three months straight and I can't touch any part of my body that's not otherwise exposed because I'm just too damn cold. Also, I'm just very sensitive there, as most people are -- but not pregnant sensitive, just regular everyday sensitive.