An everyday mummy: Bye Bye Baby, Hello Todler

So as any mum knows when you have a baby you get asked the question "breast or bottle?". I had always envisaged breast feeding my first child but unfortunately mother nature made this slightly difficult for me. For a start Rex was 9lb 3oz when born so quite the little chunk, and secondly he had a high palette which made it difficult for him to latch properly. He went jaundice and the nurse suggested I should top up formula feed to help him as well as me. This ment a quick trip to tesco to grab bottles and agonize over which formula to put him on. By the end of our first week together he ended up getting thrush which ment no more breast feeding but I carried on combo feeding by expressing off what I could. Once we got the OK I tried to get back into breast feeding but it was like a little shark biting at me, I was bleeding, he was crying, it was a sorry state of affairs. I carried on with this boobie torture for another 3 weeks but as we were nearing Xmas and our first holiday away I just couldn't deal with it any more. I didn't want to be sat away from my family for 7 hours while I expressed off measly amounts of milk. It may sound selfish but it was making me miserable. I made the tough decision to stop the breast milk and go fully formula. I felt like such a failure that I couldn't provide for my little boy, and even to this day I still do. There's such a pressure put on you to breast feed but it was down to what was best for me AND my little boy. Once we switched he was fine and started sleeping through the night which was great.

Anyway fast forward 17 months and it has come to that time to stop the formula. Ive always said I'd stop when he was 18months and today is the day. It just so happens I used up the last of the formula tonight too. It feels like my little boy is finally becoming a toddler. He relies on me a lot less nowadays which is upsetting, but its so lovely seeing him grow into this gorgeous little human who will be the love of my life forever more.