Nurse-a-thon

Julian is undergoing a growth spurt. In addition to eating like a horse, he also wants to nurse about every 30-60 minutes. It's like having a newborn all over again, except I have to prepare meals of solid food for him too. After he has a big meal, he often likes to wash it down with a milky digestif.

He has been nursing about 2-3 times a day for the past few months, so this is quite a change. Twice-a-day toddler nursing is a welcome bonding and cuddling opportunity. Twelve-times-a-day toddler nursing is a pain in the ass.

He was nursing 3-4 times at night before, and now it's just once around 3:00-5:00 am, and I cut that off pretty quickly if I can. So now that he's not being allowed to nurse as much at night, I guess he's decided to take over my boobs all day long.

He's very assertive about it too. He comes up and says "Milk!" (a great improvement on "Bock!", which is how he first verbalized it) and frantically makes the milk sign with his hand right in my face. There's no ignoring it. Sometimes I try to, but then he inches even closer, so that his hand is pumping practically right in my eye. Or I'll respond exasperatedly, "What? You want milk AGAIN? You just HAD milk!" and then he laughs. He knows he's pestering me, but he just can't shake that milky monkey off his back.

I finally got my period back last month after doing some night-weaning, so now my rusty reproductive wheels are gearing up and starting to turn. That means nipple tenderness around ovulation, oh joy, which only adds to my general irritation at this nurse-a-thon. Supposedly drinking more water helps, but so far it just makes me pee like a faucet.

I'm sure this is just temporary, and when his growth slows a bit he won't need to nurse so much. I mean hey...I'm GLAD he's growing so fast, and his verbal skills are really extraordinary too. He says and understands new words every day, and is just absolutely bursting with excitement at finally being able to communicate. He even said his first sentence the other day, "I want that." A pronoun-verb-object sentence! Woohoo! PROUNOUNS baby! That's very advanced. Not "Ju-ju", not "baby", but "I". Wow.

I partially attribute his extraordinary intelligence to breastfeeding, and all the fish oils and veggies and vitamins and antioxidants I've been taking, so I'm not going to give it up anytime soon. But if it slows down, even just a little, I'll be quite happy. These boobs need a break.