A Major Milestone!

Jayden was down to just a few diapers. I told Esteban and he said he would go in the morning to pick up a box. Morning came and Esteban put Jayden’s final diaper on. I reminded him to go to the store to get diapers, but he was still tired and crawled back into bed. Not even 10 minutes later, Jayden came to me and said ca-ca. Oh-no. Please don’t go poop. I am completely out of diapers. I go back to the room to wake Esteban and he rushes off to Wal-Mart.

Jayden continued saying ca-ca. We went to the bathroom and I removed his diaper. I sat down on the toilet and told him to sit in his potty chair. He sat down but got up again saying ca-ca. I know, poor boy. He has to go and is probably mortified that he doesn’t have his diaper on. The phone rings and he rushes out of the bathroom. Oh no. I quickly finish up on the phone and go back to the bathroom with Jayden.

I sat down and he sat down. Guess what he said? Ca-ca! He was about to get up when all of a sudden, he does the deed and quickly resumes his position on the potty chair. I reassured him that it was ok. As soon as he was done, he shot up and looked at the potty and said ca-ca. I know, I know. It’s ok. Look. I take the inner potty and dump the contents in the toilet bowl. This makes him happy because he now gets to flush the toilet, which to him is one of life’s greatest pleasures.

I tell you I was thrilled. I was full of praises for Jayden. What a good boy! A big boy! Yeah Jayden! I whisked him away to his room for a clean-up and put his old diaper on in the meanwhile. I called Daddy to inform him of Jayden’s accomplishments. While I have been feeling like a failure in the nursing department, this was clearly a victory in potty training. Of course, Jayden went poop in diaper two times afterwards without telling me first, but that’s ok. I understand that this is the beginning in the long process of potty training. My little boy is growing up.

To Nurse or Bottle-Feed? That is the Question.

I successfully got Maya back to nursing and was quite pleased with myself, but I was anxious to see what I would find the following week. I was pleasantly surprised to find no problems at all on Wednesday. I was so excited. Maybe she gets it. Maybe she is beginning to learn the difference. Relief! Thursday and Friday came and went with no problems whatsoever. Fantastic! Maybe she was starting to get the hang of the differences. I’m so glad that was over. I wasn’t ready to stop nursing. I love that special time I have with her and even though sometimes I feel restricted by her nursing schedule, I am not ready to give it up and go to bottles.

Two days after her last bottle feeding on Sunday, she started to fight me again. At first it wasn’t too bad, but as the days went by, our nursing sessions started to get progressively worse. Yesterday was the worse day yet. In the morning, she gave me a hard time with her feeding day and cried for about 10 – 15 minutes. I did not give in. Instead, I switched her from left to right and vice versa and when that didn’t work, I tried to manually express in the hopes that it would entice her to latch on. Finally, she settled down and fell asleep. Then, at her evening feeding, she would not latch at all and screamed for 30 minutes. I felt so bad for her. She was probably wondering why there was no milk for her. Then I felt bad for Jayden who was just running around being his usual self and getting into a whole lot of trouble. Poor guy didn’t understand why Mommy was so mad. He looked afraid at one point so I stopped trying to nurse Maya and just carried her until she stopped crying and fell asleep.

I had some time to think while she was napping and clear my head. By the time she woke up, I was sure I wasn’t going to give in and give her a bottle. Instead, I mixed up some cereal and attempted to give it to her. At first, she just smiled and cooed. She spit out most of everything I put in but she was entertained and that was all that seemed to matter. (I should have gotten a picture of this. Shame on me.) Poor Jayden sat down right next to me waiting for his turn for a bite. He leaned his face forward, raised his eyebrows and slightly parted his lips. All I could do was laugh. Well, Maya got bored really fast and started to fuss, until finally she started to cry. At this point, I put Jayden down for the night and focused all my energy on relaxing and feeding Maya. Even though she fought it, she still nursed enough to satisfy herself and fell asleep. Thank you God.

I have so much more luck getting her to nurse when I’m not distracted by Jayden. It’s not his fault though. I get stressed out pretty quickly. It’s frustrating when I finally get Maya to latch on and Jayden squeals over a toy or something he’s seen on TV and Maya is startled, loses her latch and then it’s back to crying again. I called a lactation consultant and I’m waiting to hear back from her today. I am praying there’s something I can do to postpone the inevitable.