“a portrait of my daughters, once a week, every week, in 2014.”
daaniya : taking big bites into her yogurt. she loves her snacks!
niyya : sleeping soundly, sucking her thumb subconsciously.
this week i started niyya on cow’s milk. well, i am trying to start her on it. she doesn’t seem to be taking to the taste very well. it’s funny because daaniya was all about her milk. she really enjoys it to this day. so anyway, i have decided that i’m ok with that. niyya can get her dairy in other ways, like here, eating plain yogurt and chopped berries, in addition to some cow’s milk here and there. i’m really actually only concerned with their water intake. i want them to be avid water drinkers so they can hydrate their growing bodies and keep ailments at bay.
with the introduction of cow’s milk i typically start to reduce how often i feed. so we are now down to two feeds daily. i plan to continue nursing until at least a year, but we will see how things go. niyya will be my last baby for now, and while i’m happy to lessen the daily feed, i’m in no rush to stop. i experimented with the timings a bit with this reduction and as she kept waking up earlier than normal, apparently thirsty for her “doodoo”, i landed at one in the morning and one before bed. i think, i hope, we have found a happy medium as the unexpected early mornings this past week this mama is not really up for!
how did you approach the “weaning” process? is this considered weaning? should i not know this already?! i love getting feedback from you and like talking about motherhood and all its ups and downs. so, talk to me.
MashaAllah your gurls are adorable!!!
alhamd I think so too! 😉😉 thank you 😘
My son is nearly 16-months old and we are still breastfeeding; planning to wean him by the time he’s 2 Inshaallah. How do you plan on getting niyya to get used to cows milk? maybe she doesn’t like the taste of it, have you thought about trying other kinds of milk like goats milk? I hear it’s much closer to breast milk and better for kids. I haven’t thought about what to give my son when breastfeeding is over … but I am pretty sure it won’t be an easy transition :(
I’m not sure how I’ll get her used to drinking it in the same way as daaniya, but for now I’m happy with a little bit at one or two meals/day or at snack. I think an effective way to wean in some cases is to divert attentions. for example, niyya usually drinks when she wakes in the morning, after her first nap, after her second nap, and just before bed. so in cutting out out the day time feeds, what I found to work was to take her downstairs into her high hair immediately after waking for a snack. as we speak she is eating a prune and sipping on cows milk. do you think that might work for you. also introducing milk while continuing to breastfeed might be a good move in that you son might start to enjoy his milk and eventually not miss the nursing… also, I was talking to a friend today about alternative milk sources. I never thought about goats, milk, but I’m definitely going to look into it. thanks for the tip!! i am concerned about all I hear about what is in our milk these days, so other sources of calcium are good to me!