Buh-bye boob

My baby is one next week. One!! How did that happen??

Anyway, with his first birthday comes the time when I must return to work and as such put N into nursery for four days a week. No more sleeping when the baby sleeps, having a tidy house and being able to wear joggers all day.

However, this week we have faced a bit of a fork in the feeding road.

You see, N has had an upset tum and bad bum generally. "It's his teeth!", I hear you cry. Well, yes, it might be. Or it could (as many of you will know with kids) be any other number of things such as the moon not being in Taurus.

Because of this, we cut out the whole milk from his diet I had been using to try to wean him off the boob (or at least day time feeds). But has it made an impact in the last three days? Has it hell.

The helpful health visitors *note sarcasm* have read their baby books aloud to me and advised that N shouldn't be on whole milk before 12 months (yeah, coz a couple of weeks will make a huge difference in his life) *note more sarcasm*. Instead he should be on the great and good formula. But my quandary is - does he really need to be?

Yes, he needs to be on something NOT breast milk by he time I am back at work in x amount of sleeps (this is one countdown I refuse to count), but does it need to be formula?

Apart from being sicky with the whole milk before (when he was up to two feeds a day on it and given he has always been a little pukey) it didn't really bother him. So do I carry on as normal or do I take a chance on something completely new and spend the next two weeks getting him weaned onto that?

I honestly do not have the answer here. My gut is confused for the first time in a year. Google has also proved pretty useless as I already know N can drink from a bottle and I can't find any threads of mums who have breasted for a year and then are returning to work so the kid needs to drink something else.

Before this whole conundrum began I had been planning a blog about how sad I was to be stopping breast feeding, and in many ways I still am. But this has put somewhat of a cloud over the journey coming to a slow halt.

All through the past year, my Taurean stubbornness has made me believe that formula was a failure (which it completely is not - I know this deep down); but even now I feel a hypocrite to bite the bullet and put N onto formula.

What did you lovely lot do?

Whatever I choose (and by I it means my hubby too), the decision needs to be made quickly as it's so important for me that N has time to be weaned properly and not just overnight. Help!

Looking back

Facebook kindly reminded me this morning that it has been exactly a year since I began the wonderful world of maternity leave. 

Apart from having the kid, it has put me in somewhat of a reflective mood. So, what have I actually achieved with 353 days off (its a leap year remember)?

-have eaten cake on 351 out of the 353 days I have been off

-managed to go 10 months without a full nights sleep

-achieved a 97% attendance record at Rhyme Time

-spent only 75% of my life in pj's or joggers

-nailed the disapproving mum look to all workies and tw^ts who decide to park over the entire pavement making any movement around it nigh on impossible

-watched every single episode of homes under the hammer at least once (and teletubbies for that matter)

-discovered that B&M sell cheap wine (you're welcome) 

-had my card declined buying said cheap wine in B&M 

-appeared to hold it together in public but secretly lose my shit when the kid finds discipline hilarious

-spent my entire mat pay on nappies and starbucks

-taken an overtired child on a flight on my own

-reached level 172 of candy crush

But obviously, I am not perfect and there are some things I haven't done

-learnt fluent italian

-killed or maimed the child

-been able to walk past the doughnut counter in sainsburys without picking up at least two packet of what is essentially mat leave crack

-missed work #sorrynotsorry

-put up the blackout blind in the child's room (11 months later...)

-achieved rock hard abs by following the breastfeeding diet (see cake eating achievement) 

However, I still have a few weeks to achieve all this and more....or there is always next time around (!).

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