Week 5 of weaning is done and it was ROUGH!
But not for the reasons you think. I dropped a pump at the end of week 3 and spent all of week 4 letting my body adjust. I did finally see a small reduction in my overall production so I was working on being thankful my body was doing what it was being asked.
Monday, we had scheduled pictures with Santa at our local mall. I had actually forgotten we had them scheduled and it wasn’t until Brian reminded me 30 minutes before we needed to leave that I realized that I hadn’t showered or washed my hair in a few days so I was rushing to get myself ready and my husband and I tag teamed getting the baby ready.
He was clingy, whiny, and wouldn’t really eat anything we offered him but I didn’t think too much of it as that’s not been super out of the ordinary because he’s teething.
We did our pics with Santa and he wasn’t his normal, smiley, silly self but I didn’t think too much of it because, again, he’s been teething. When we got home, he was SO tired which wasn’t normal and he felt a little warm, but he usually ran a very low fever when teething. What I should have realized was a bit of a red flag was he did not protest a contact nap. He passed out right on my chest.
When he woke up, he was SO warm. Much warmer than he was before his nap. I took his temp and it was 99 so I popped him in a bath but he was inconsolable so I ended up giving him motrin. He fell back to sleep shortly after his bath and when he woke up again, he felt hot. I took his temp, and again, it was 99. He was very fussy and clingy and he continued to get hotter so I took rectal temp and it was 104. That felt like a big leap and when I looked at when I had last logged his temp, it hadn’t even been 30 minutes. He was also very sleepy and I was having a hard time keeping him awake which was starting to scare me.
I called our peds and they had me call 911 as his temp rose so fast and we were concerned about a febrile seizure. I called 911, popped him into a 95 degree bath and waited for paramedics to arrive. They showed up about 5 minutes later and immediately took his vitals. He was perking up at that point and his temp had come down to 102. They monitored him for another couple of minutes, my husband got home, and they deemed him well enough to stay home but would take us to the hospital if we wanted. We declined as he was doing much better and we all cuddled up on the couch.
Well, my husband cuddled up with the baby and I had to still pump!
I actually ended up adding a pump BACK in this day because I wanted to make sure the baby got as much milk as he wanted and that it was fresh so it had the antibodies he needed to fight things off.
I am so appreciative of having taken this process so slow so I had the option to add a pump back in and offer him the freshest milk possible!
He recovered and was basically back to himself by Tuesday but then I got sick Wednesday evening and stayed sick pretty much the rest of the week which was a huge bummer. But since he recovered so quickly, I opted to not pump a 4th time the following day and have been slowly trimming off a few minutes of my 2nd pump of the day in hopes that I can eliminate it by the end of week 6. Output actually went back up this week, which was a little weird but I am wondering if that’s because my body knew the baby would need it. We might not ever know!
Because I was sick most of the week, I decided to drink some of my breast milk…just to see! My throat had been on fire/hurting for 4 days straight and I was over it, so I felt like it couldn’t hurt. Made a little video of it – my husband did it with me! I did wake up the next morning with no sore throat but still a ton of congestion so not sure if it was the milk or the fact that I actually remembered to pull the humidifier out and actually use it.
I haven’t had much else happen – not a ton of anxiety, no night sweats or insomnia which has been nice. Just tried to rest and stay hydrated and fed while my body fought off the Seasonal Crud.
I will say it feels illegal to a mom and be sick though!
We’ll see how week 6 goes and if I’m able to drop another pump or not!!