Ethan turned 11 months old the 11th. His weight gain has slowed so much! He has been 22 1/2 pounds for a couple of months. At first, it scared me, but I realized, if he continued to gain like he did when he was first born, he would be a huge boy (overweight.) I don't want that. I want him to be healthy. He is a perfect weight. He's so tall, though. He's about 31 1/2 inches. He has always been tall. He was 21 inches when he was born. So, I knew right then that he was going to be tall person, like his Daddy.

His nursing is so erratic. You never know how many times or how often he will nurse. Some days it's every hour. Some days, it's only a couple of times throughout the entire day. It's been hard to adjust to his unpredictable schedule. He has also been waking up a lot at night . He use to sleep through the night amazingly. I really enjoyed the sleeps that I got. They were uninterrupted & expected. I knew, no matter how hard of a day I had, I could always count on a good night sleep. Not now. I never know how my night is going to be. More bad than good, lately. He wants to nurse all night & it has really been hard on my back. We bought a really good mattress, but no matter how good the mattress is, my back still hurts. Laying in one place all of the time tends to make you stiff.

He is eating some table foods, but his gag reflex is still so good. He chews it up (6 teeth, now), but when he goes to swallow it, he gags & sometimes throws up. I guess all I can do is just continue to offer it to him.

I'm still pumping, but since I'm off school for the summer, I only have to pump once a day for his cereal. I was thinking about starting him on cow's milk, but I'm not sure if it's too early. If I could get him on cow's milk, I wouldn't pump anymore.

We have been thinking about his first birthday party. I had planned to make him a cake with breastmilk in it, but I'm not sure if I'm still going to. We want to have cake & ice cream, but we don't want to make a huge deal out of it, since we'll have so many other years to go all out. We'll take a lot of pictures, though. He's growing up so fast! That's what I enjoy most about nursing, now. I can hold him, calmly & quietly & not have to worry about anything else. It's so peaceful!

Until next month, happy nursing!

Read my last months journal.

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