Bittersweet

These are the adorable (or silly, you pick) faces of girls who have slept through the night 3 nights in a row. You would think that I would be thrilled at such news after 18+ months of waking who knows how many times during the night.

I am super proud of them for doing this on their own - I knew they would at some point - and never listened to the people (most everyone) who said that I should let them cry it out so that they would sleep through the night, that they didn't need to be waking up to eat, etc. I trust them to know what their little bodies need, and I think they do a great job on that front (with the exception of eating sometimes). I am also glad we don't have to try to resort to who knows what to get them to sleep through the night without breastfeeding before the new baby comes. However, there are several reasons I am not excited about this new phase: They are not sleeping full nights. They're going to bed around 9 and getting up between 6 and 7. They used to sleep more like 11 hours or so. They had only been waking up once a night for the past month and a half, which is quite manageable. (and I think if they continued 1 waking, they would continue to sleep longer). I get up in the middle of the night anyway - I fall asleep with them, generally, then need to get up in the middle of the night to eat dinner and work on my class (not a good pattern, and one I am trying to break). Their one feeding was my alarm clock. :)

Most importantly, as the title of the post indicates, them sleeping through the night is indicative, to me anyway, of the coming end of our breastfeeding relationship. I think part of why they've given up on waking up is that when they do I don't have much of any milk for them. I know they're almost 19 months old and by all physical and mental indications are big girls instead of babies...and that I'm 5 months pregnant...but I have always been hesitant to wean and sad about it. I was hoping to wait until we were all ready, and instead my body has decided that it doesn't feel like making enough milk for 2 while growing 1 (I can believe it, but am still mad about it), so that has forced things. They are certainly not weaned, but just like I was sad about their first solids, I am sad that they are now drinking more from a cup than they are from me. They also finished the last of my frozen breastmilk today...it truly is, as Andrew said, "the end of an era." So while I embrace all of their other signs of big personhood and always have (I'm not sure I'll ever understand people whose favorite age is a tiny baby one), I will continue to mourn (and be angry at my body for) the impending end of this one last sign of their babyhood.