SwagBucks

Friday, November 14, 2008

Meeting our Goals

Mr. Bean, my husband, pointed out to me yesterday that I met my breastfeeding goal of 1 year! Of course, this goal is a revised goal as my original goal was 6 weeks. Once I hit that, I extended my goal to 3 months...then 6 months...now 1 year. According to this link, only 17.2% of breastfeeding moms in the U.S. made it to this milestone in 2003. Only 5.7% made it past 18 months (kudos to my co-blogger, Amy, who is in this elite group of women).

I am quite proud of myself for making it this far. As I've mentioned before, I ran into lots of common breastfeeding problems. Here are a few:
  • String Bean was a lazy sucker
  • String Bean had a recessed jaw (which has now resolved itself)
  • I had to exclusively pump for the first 4 weeks of her life until she was strong enough to overcome the lazy sucker and recessed jaw problems
  • I had surgery when String Bean was 4 months old (gall bladder removal) which caused me to lose my milk supply all together
  • I had to go on drugs to increase the supply since none of the traditional methods of increasing supply worked
  • String Bean has her father's metabolism which translates into barely hanging onto the charts those pediatricians give you that say how heavy your baby should be. This meant a lot of stress about getting enough into her to help her maintain and gain weight.
All those concerns are behind us now. I accomplished my goal! I'm not planning on adding a revised goal at this point since I know I've done what the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends for breastfeeding. I'll continue to breastfeed String Bean as long as she wants to. If she's still breastfeeding at age 2, I may just cut her off though!

What goals are you working toward? What goals have you accomplished? Brag here. Brag away!

7 comments:

Today said...

Thanks for the welcome back to blogging! MMM.. breastfeeding. I think I remember that.
Verna

Allyson Kellner said...

My goal with all three kids was breastfeeding for one year. Sadly, my oldest two didn't read that memo. Sarah quit on me at nine months. Joanna quit at eleven months. Looking back, I also realized we were undergoing a major move across the country at both those times. Hmmm, coincidence? Probably not--I'm assuming now that the stress reduced my supply and I probably could have resumed once the dust settled. Oh well. I've made it six months with Lydia and we'll see what she does!

On a similar vein--my gooal is to have NO dishes on the counter top or in the sink overnight tonight! I think breatfeeding Lydia for a year is a more attainable goal.

Madge said...

my goal is to set some goals...

Amy said...

Cashew is the only only one that I've made it to a year with. I'm not sure she's ever going to quit, now.

Christy said...

Well done!

Cary said...

congrats! i set goals like that with my son too... he was so hard!! so many obstacles, but it really is worth it. my daughter was an easy nurser, despite being a preemie. i nursed my son until he weaned at 2 and 1/2 and i just kicked my daughter off when she turned 3. i guess i am probably in a very small percentage:) great blog!

Kelly said...

Congrats, that's great news! I had massive problems nursing baby #1, and made it to 7 months, mixed with formula. Baby#2 nursed til he was 2.5 and DD is going strong at 13 months. Good for you.