we made it to 1 year!

i thought i would never be able to nurse dd to a year. when i started bf-ing, it was my aim to reach 12 months but now we are through the goalposts! it hasn't been extremely hard to do although i have to admit that i have yet to night wean dd.

the main reason for not night weaning is to keep up my supply, as i would now like to see if we can nurse till she turns 2; i read that early night weaning could sometimes lead to total weaning. also, i think that my experiments with night weaning in november resulted in my period returning after a few months' lapse.

backtracking a bit: to my chagrin, the first time AF (aunt flow) came was just when dd was introduced to solids and still sleeping through the night. she has since singularly failed to sleep through without wailing for a feed. in fact she stopped sleeping through the night when we undertook a car journey to singapore when she was 7 months old - that 1st night in singapore she kept crying every few hours and the only way to pacify her was to nurse. and this has continued ever since! we don't know if it is due to the travel upsetting her and us falling into a pattern of nursing at night, but we adopted co-sleeping because of the night nursings.

copycat razzes

lately we've noticed that dd picks up things very quickly. but we were still a little taken aback at what she did this evening.

one of our (ok, *my*) favourite amusements is to blow raspberries on dd's belly and to sometimes do a "bwah bwah wah wah bwah" noise too. she's always giggled and gurgled to bits whenever i did that and it's a fun way to "tire" her out and get her in a good mood just before a nap.

anyhow, we were preparing for her final nursing this evening on the bed, and dd was larking around a bit --- her usual routine is to nurse for a short time and then crawl to the foot of our bed where her cot is to pull herself up and do little squats. sometimes she'd try to grab whatever toy is nearest her in the cot. tonight she did that for a bit and then turned around and crawled back to me.

but instead of heading straight for "dinner", she face-planted herself on my belly, and proceeded to make strange noises, "bwah bwah bwah". dh and i looked at each other. but before we could say anything dd went on and blew a raspberry on my tummy. she didn't look up at all but continued (oh, probably for a good 5 minutes or so) to alternately razz my belly and make those "bwah bwah" sounds. in between breaths she'd giggle and laugh to herself.

the truly amazing part about it though is that for a first attempt at raspberry blowing, she was expert with raspberries that any 5 year old boy would be pleased with (wet, sloppy and full volume)!

so, our razz times must have entertained dd so much she decided she had to do it to mommy...