The End Is Near...

So the time has finally come. What we thought might have happened at 6 months, 9 months, and then at a year, has finally come. It's been 13 months in the waiting, and now our wait is no more. The only problem is, we have no idea what to do. We have no idea how to do it. And we have no idea if it's going to work.

This weekend, Kaylani is going to go to bed without nursing...for the rest of her life. To this day, it's only happened once, and that was 3 days ago in Orlando and it was only because Kaylani passed out on the bus ride home. She was so tired that she let us change her clothes and transfer her into her pack and play without even waking up. Something tells me that this weekend will be nothing like that.

Kaylani's pediatrician recommends that Mommy nurses Kaylani for as long as she can, but with Kaylani having 6+ teeth now, nursing has become far from enjoyable. We actually meant for Kaylani to stop nursing right at her one year birthday, but with guests, holidays, and vacation, the right time never came about. This weekend though, is the right time. This weekend is the first weekend we've had home without distractions for almost a month. This weekend is when I can be around to put Kaylani to sleep without Mommy. This weekend is it. So...what now?

My gut feeling is that this isn't going to go well. Kaylani is going to cry. She's going to scream. She's going to figure out that it's just me and her reading a book. She's going to realize something is up when she's drinking her bottle with me instead of nursing from Mommy. She's going to find it odd that she's brushing her teeth after her bottle instead of right after bathtime like normal. And most of all, she's going to freak out when Mommy kisses her on the head and then leaves just the two of us in the room.

It might not be that different from sleep training I guess, except this time she might not be drowsy, but not asleep. This time, she'll be on alert, and when I put her in her crib, it'll kick in that she didn't nurse. Hopefully we can do 5 min, then 10 min more, then 15 min more without giving in and sending Mommy in to nurse. Hopefully that's all it takes, because if it goes on longer, who knows what we'll be able to do. And then, let's just hope that we don't have to go through it for several days/weeks in a row.

So D-Day is 2 days away from now. Any suggestions? Or better yet, anyone want to come babysit while Mommy and Daddy leave the house? No? Just us? Alright, well then I guess we'll see what happens! Wish us luck!

From Booby to Nuby!

Kaylani hasn't had a bottle since she turned 2 months old. Well, she hasn't had more than an ounce or two of milk in a bottle since then, and it's not something we've tried very hard to remedy. Mommy's been okay with breastfeeding for now, even though she had previously said she would try and ween Kaylani off at the 6 month mark. And honestly, we haven't even tried the bottle for a few months ever since our last experiment failed. But with Mommy feeling pretty tired lately, we thought we'd give it another shot so Daddy could help out in the mornings or at night. But this time, we mixed it up a little bit.

For the most part, Kaylani's been decent at drinking water out of her Nuby sippy cup. If you watched the end of the Veggie Puff video, then you can see that she likes to shake her cup around, turn it upside down, and maybe take a few sips every now and then. Well that's all fine and good when it's just water (except when she grabs the spout and makes a giant mess), but when we decided to try it with breastmilk (or liquid gold as we like to call it), there would be little shaking and leakage tolerated.

On Tuesday morning, Mommy gave Kaylani 1 oz of breastmilk in her Nuby sippy cup right after she woke up. And wouldn't you know it, she took it! Sure she shook it around and there was a little spillage because Mommy couldn't see her, but she took it. First thing Wednesday morning Daddy gave it a go. He gave Kaylani 1 oz of breastmilk to start, and after Kaylani grabbed it and pumped most of it onto her bib/shirt (oops), she took the refill of 1.5 oz just fine. And this morning, Kaylani took almost 2 oz of breastmilk from her Nuby sippy cup. So after 3 attempts, I think we're ready to call the Booby to Nuby experiment a success!

We may have declared success, but we're still going to work on it just a little bit. 2 oz is enough to hold her over so Mommy can sleep an extra 30 minutes to an hour in the mornings, but it's not enough to let Mommy get away for some solid Mommy time. Once Kaylani gets up to the 4-5 oz mark, then I think we'll be officially ready for a full half day of Daddy-Daughter time. And after that, maybe it'll even mean there's time for Daddy-Mommy time. That'd sure be something!

So we'll keep you posted on how our Nuby experiment goes. Hopefully she won't be a noobie with her Nuby for too long so I can give Mommy a real break and spend some good Daddy-Daughter time with Kaylani. But until then, we're more than okay with a whole lot of family time. And since it's Thursday night, that means its time for me to wish everyone a Happy Fatherhood Friday! Don't forget to check out Dad-Blogs for all the other great FF posts. And while you're there, check out my latest Sports IllustraDad post on why Lebron James sucks for brainwashing kids!

Sorry, We're Closed

I'm going to talk about something that I know very little about: Nursing. I haven't done it since I was a baby and frankly I don't remember it anyways. I've definitely never nursed Kaylani either and lucky for me, she's never tried to nurse from me. But I do see a lot of nursing going on. Let me clarify, I do see Kaylani nursing quite often (just wanted to make it quite clear that I don't spend a lot of time watching other moms nurse their babies). And there are certain things I can see which means I'm highly qualified to talk about them.

There are times when Kaylani's not all too interested in nursing. She'll nurse for a minute, then pop off to see what's going on around her. Then maybe go back for a bit, and then right back out. It's like the girl doesn't want to miss a thing. When you think about it, it's kinda cute. At least to me it is. To Mommy, not so much.

This is where I cross over from what I see to what I hear. I can see Kaylani turning her head in then out over and over again, but I have no idea what that feels like. However, Mommy does tell me about it. More specifically, she tells Kaylani to cut the crap or she's gonna get fired. Apparently it doesn't feel that good. So after a few drive by nursings on Kaylani's part, Mommy calls it quits for a minute and closes shop.

The funny part is that Kaylani has no idea that she's been cut off until she turns back for her next shot. It's kinda like being cut off at a bar. You think everything is going just fine and you're just having a good time checking things out, but then when you go back for another round, you're persona non grata. Most people in this situation would cause an uproar. Scream, shout, make crazy arm motions to try and get your point across that you didn't deserve to be cut off. Well, Kaylani's no different in that regards.

Unlike the drunks at the bar, Kaylani doesn't get cut off for the night very often. It usually takes a few minutes of calming her down before she's ready to nurse for real. And on good days and nights, she'll have learned her lesson and not take any quick shots. She knows better so she'll stock up like a chipmunk in the winter just in case the shop closes on her again. Or on bad nights like tonight, she'll be content not nursing and just stare at Mommy or Daddy with a big ol' grin on her face instead of nursing. The glow of Papi's face in the laptop might just be too compelling for her to nurse, so I guess I should wrap it up. So move along now. We're closed.

All Bottled Up

I don't think Kaylani keeps her feelings to herself. She definitely makes everyone around aware when something is bothering her, so I guess I wouldn't say that she's all bottled up emotionally. But when it comes to taking a bottle, she's definitely all bottled up, and not in a good way. Unlike Daddy, she wants no part of a bottle when it comes her way, and unfortunately, that's not a good thing for us.

For the first 6 weeks, Kaylani took a bottle without a problem. She even switched back and forth from nursing to bottle feeding no matter when it was and this was great for 2 reasons. First of all, Daddy got to share the burden of feeding (during the day, but more importantly in the middle of the night) with Mommy. It actually sounds like it would be a hassle for Daddy, but I loved it because it was time I got to spend with my little girl. And also, it lead to the second reason why bottle feeding was great, which was that Mommy got to take a little breather.

Once Kaylani got on a more normal sleep schedule, I would wake up with Kaylani in the morning sometime between 6 and 7am. Then, I'd kick off my day by feeding her and putting her back to sleep before getting ready for work. That was enough to get me off to a great start to my day with some quality time with Kaylani and let Mommy sleep for just a few more hours after a couple of night shifts. But for the last 8 weeks, that hasn't happened, and tonight, we took action. We bought a new bottle with a new nipple (Playtex NaturaLatch) that was supposed to be closer to breastfeeding, and gave it a shot. Sadly, we misfired.

Kaylani wanted nothing to do with the bottle, just like 8 weeks ago when we last tried. Actually, that's not true. Last time she screamed at the top of her lungs at the thought of it. This time, she played with the bottle for a little bit, took some milk and spit it out down her neck, then cried until we took the bottle away. We tried this for about 20 minutes to see if she would adjust, and she did maybe a little bit, but not enough where we could say she actually took the bottle.

So unfortunately, Kaylani is not back on the bottle yet. Daddy's not either yet because of the diet so maybe we can have a little competition to see who takes a bottle first. I'm really hoping Kaylani wins, and I hope she wins soon. After all, a bottle means I get my quality time back, and more importantly, it means Mommy can take a breather again. And maybe, just maybe, it also means that Mommy and Daddy could take a breather together while someone babysits for a few hours. Now that's what I call motivation!