We went with Honey and Poppa to our neighbor's weekend house up in the Appalachian foothills. We enjoyed a lovely lunch and Annie had a blast trying out her cheese smile.
She wasn't very interested in a family photo.
She just wanted to play!
Now on to the rest of the story. I mentioned in her 16 month update that we had dropped a nursing session and that Annie was having a hard time with it. After two weeks, she was still having a really difficult time without it, even though I replaced it with a snack (and she loves table food). Like 30+ minutes of fussing, whining, and climbing in my lap and rubbing her cheeks against my chest. Then she started biting during nursing. I followed the advice of the baby book. First I said "no," and put her down. This resulted in tears pouring down her little face. When that approach didn't help after a couple of nursing sessions, I tried giving her a startled "ouch! that hurts Mommy!" and removing her from my breast for several seconds. This led to a nursing strike that thankfully only lasted two feedings (and I waited till she was sound asleep, then nursed in her sleep so I didn't have to pump).
At that point I started wondering if she was ready to wean. I looked up "baby led weaning" on the LLL website and the experts said very rare for that to happen before the age of 18-24 months. So I looked up "nursing strike." Ah, ha. Of the possible causes of a nursing strike we hit at least half of them (teething, stuffy nose, out of routine, a strong reaction by Mom to a bite).
So the next day we went back to our old nursing routine and our problems were gone. There will be a time to drop that feeding but this day is not it.
(I'm thinking when she goes from two naps down to one will be a good time--changing up her routine should make it easier.)
I'm so proud of you for figuring out what is best for Annie and then doing it. Too many times we get caught up in the decisions we've made and think we have to stick with them - even though they may not be the best. It's always a challenge to figure out what's best for our kiddos. Welcome to lots of years of trying to do that. :) You're doing such a great job!
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