The Side-Effects of Weaning
Tuesday, February 23, 2010 by Amy
Oxytocin. I've been a slave to its narcotic properties, an unwitting addict, for more than 6 long years. Now I've gone cold-turkey, completely unaware of how it has its little mitts involved in every aspect of my life.
Sleeping. Why do people tout night-weaning? For 6 years, someone or another has dictated how I lay in the bed, how lightly, or deeply, I slept. Calmed me to sleep through nursing and a flood of oxytocin, woke me gently in the morning when Avery partook of her early-morning nursing session, the sun rising through the window alerting me that it was time to slowly wake and start the day. I've lost my own internal sleep rhythm. I don't know when to go to bed, I am not tired when I force myself to retire, I lay awake, my mind won't calm down. Not without oxytocin. And the dreams! The dreams! I sleep deeply and uninterrupted, for a while, and the dreams, so vivid, attack me. I toss and turn all night. I wake angry at whatever whoever did to me in my dreams (I'm pretty sure that I verbally assaulted Rudi in my sleep last night, as I dreamed that he was laying in bed talking incessantly). At 5am, I ran down to sleep on the couch, my foggy brain fuming for another hour or so about how inconsiderate and rude my husband was, and how I would blow him a new butthole in the morning. Luckily, by morning, I realize that his transgressions were purely imagined.
I don't know when to get up in the mornings, without the nursing signal. The kids finally succeeded in getting me out of bed at 10:30 yesterday morning, and only because I looked at the clock and realized that it was, in fact, 10:30. I wake every morning with unimaginable pain in my back, shoulders, or neck, my body forgetting how to lay in a bed without nursing.
I am never hungry, and yet I am always eating, because that's what I used to do when nursing. I make bad food choices, while all food simultaneously repulses me, and nothing tastes good. It's like my body used to tell me exactly what I needed; fruit, veggies, carbs, protein; and now I don't know how to read my own hunger signals and nutritional needs.
This is all made worse, of course, by the fact that Avery nursed at least 12 times one day, and the next day was DONE. Cold turkey, indeed. This sucks. Hard.
Sleeping. Why do people tout night-weaning? For 6 years, someone or another has dictated how I lay in the bed, how lightly, or deeply, I slept. Calmed me to sleep through nursing and a flood of oxytocin, woke me gently in the morning when Avery partook of her early-morning nursing session, the sun rising through the window alerting me that it was time to slowly wake and start the day. I've lost my own internal sleep rhythm. I don't know when to go to bed, I am not tired when I force myself to retire, I lay awake, my mind won't calm down. Not without oxytocin. And the dreams! The dreams! I sleep deeply and uninterrupted, for a while, and the dreams, so vivid, attack me. I toss and turn all night. I wake angry at whatever whoever did to me in my dreams (I'm pretty sure that I verbally assaulted Rudi in my sleep last night, as I dreamed that he was laying in bed talking incessantly). At 5am, I ran down to sleep on the couch, my foggy brain fuming for another hour or so about how inconsiderate and rude my husband was, and how I would blow him a new butthole in the morning. Luckily, by morning, I realize that his transgressions were purely imagined.
I don't know when to get up in the mornings, without the nursing signal. The kids finally succeeded in getting me out of bed at 10:30 yesterday morning, and only because I looked at the clock and realized that it was, in fact, 10:30. I wake every morning with unimaginable pain in my back, shoulders, or neck, my body forgetting how to lay in a bed without nursing.
I am never hungry, and yet I am always eating, because that's what I used to do when nursing. I make bad food choices, while all food simultaneously repulses me, and nothing tastes good. It's like my body used to tell me exactly what I needed; fruit, veggies, carbs, protein; and now I don't know how to read my own hunger signals and nutritional needs.
This is all made worse, of course, by the fact that Avery nursed at least 12 times one day, and the next day was DONE. Cold turkey, indeed. This sucks. Hard.
