Mommy Guilt

As moms, we inevitably do it to ourselves...mom guilt. Why? I don't know. I compare myself to other moms. I compare myself to how I relate/mothered my different children. I compare myself to my "ideal" mom and wish that I could better measure up. I guess it's because in some ways I see my kids as an extension of myself and, of course, as any mother does, I want the very best for them.

All that to say, Jack has been fighting me on nursing for quite a while now. I've struggled with production since he was about 10 weeks old, but have drank my weight in water, tried herbal supplements, teas, prescriptions, pumping...you name it. Anyway. We were in a groove and doing better until he started waking up at night. I wrote it off as a growth spurt, but it continued (remember when I dropped the dream feed a while back?). The 11 pm feeding was only gone about a week and then he started waking up in absolute hysterics. Well, by that point I had absolutely no milk, so we began giving him a bottle at 11. Then, about 2 weeks ago he refused his 4 o'clock feeding. I mean rigid body, pushing me away, craning his neck away from me. I tried the "he'll eat when he's hungry" route, but that only got him hungrier at night (we had worked our way up to an 8 oz bottle at 11 at night!). So, I began giving him a bottle at 4. Then he didn't want to nurse at 8...

I have felt so guilty! Obviously, I don't think formula is rat poison or anything, but I felt bad that I had nursed my other two longer. Like I wasn't doing the best thing for him. I felt like if I weren't as busy I might care/try harder. I was sad. I was scared of being judged as a bad mom. I had a few friends tell me how lucky I was that my baby was weaning himself and I could be free with no guilt. While true in some senses, I wasn't ready to hear it. Chris was awesome and totally helped me not feel like I was completely failing Jack and encouraged me to totally wean him. I wasn't ready to do that, so I just carried on, nursing twice (once in the morning and then noon) and bottle feeding twice (afternoon and bedtime). We were back to 13 hours of sleep at night and it was glorious.

Last week he rejected my noon feeding. Today, my 8 am. I'll try again in the morning, but I guess that's it. I'm a little sad, I've never had a kid so ready to drop me like a bad habit before. At the same time though, I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty freeing (I've never had much help in the feeding department, so it's been nice).

Anyway, that's what's been on my mind. How do you kick the mommy guilt habit?