Get Me Off The Milk Train

Holy lattes, Batman, who knew it would be so hard to get information on how to STOP lactating?! I looked in What To Expect in the First Year, which had nothing. Let me qualify that, it had nothing about mommy, just about baby. How to wean baby. But how to stop the milk? That just magically happens, I guess, because the author totally skipped that step. Thanks. Bitch. I hate those books anyway.

Then I looked in The Nursing Mother's Companion, which one of the lactation Nazis--I mean nurses--gave me. Good Lord, I'm glad I haven't been reading this book. First of all, the info on weaning is in the toddler section. As in, I live in a hippie commune and am going to nurse until my child enters elementary school. That was the first red flag. Then there's this bit of encouragement, and I quote:

All mothers have mixed feelings about nursing at times. Keep in mind that weaning will not help your child sleep through the night, improve your relationship with your partner, make you less tired or less bored, or make the baby less dependent on you.

Um, can you say intimidation? Where did the author get this inspired bit of twaddle? Oh. My. God. If ever I was going to burn a book, I think this might be the one.

Did I mention that I'm crabby? That's one of the symptoms you get when you are trying to stop lactating. I'm not kidding. So I researched on the internet and found some useful information, but it wasn't easy to find. What's up with that? So basically what you do is what I thought: pump less often. And pump less milk. As in, don't pump until you're empty, because that stimulates more milk production. But there's this delicate balance. If you don't pump enough, you get engorged (such a nice word) and your breasts feel like you've been hit by a truck, and you can get plugged ducts and even mastitis. Super. But if you pump too much, you aren't making any progress toward stopping the milk production. You have to basically fool your body into stopping. This seems very strange to me, just on an evolutionary level. Why haven't our bodies adapted to stop the milk easier? I mean sure, maybe in cavewoman days, I would have needed to breastfeed my cave-baby for years and years and so my body wouldn't naturally want to stop. But hello? No more cavepeople? For like, a long time now.

Other little nuggets of advice I found:

• Don't bind your breasts to stop milk production, this can cause plugged ducts and mastitis. Holy cow! Like I would ever do that! Jesus, it's called torture, people.
• Use cabbage leaves, as in, put them in your bra during the day. They help draw out moisture and dry you up. And underneath you look like Venus sprouting from the sea. Or something arty like that. But cabbage? How freaky is that? But I have heard it works, from a mom who had plugged ducts. I also hear you'll never eat cabbage again. Like I'm eating it a lot now? Will it ruin cole slaw, too?
• Do overarm exercises, which will help reabsorb the milk from your breasts back into the rest of your body. So I'll just have milk floating around? Weird.
• Take 2000 mg of B6 for five days. That's like 10 million percent of the RDA. Sounds kinda dangerous, think I'll skip that one.
• Drink Sage Tea. Hmm, maybe I'll try that. It probably tastes like crap.
• Wear a supportive bra. That's easy enough. But the idea is just kind of funny to me, that if you're not holding your breasts in place, if they're all dangly and loose and running to and fro, they'll fill up with milk easier. So I have to box them, restrict their movements, to stop the milk.
• Don't restrict your fluid intake. Well, that's good, because it's hard enough for me to get a glass of water as it is. I don't like matchy-matchy boring sets of glasses (or any dishware, really), so I have all these interesting glasses with colorful images (like Camp Snoopy or Walt Disney World) on them, and Lily is now grabbing for them when I try to get a drink.

It should take 2-3 weeks, but of course everyone is different. I could deal with a couple more weeks of this. But after that, if it's not stopping, I don't know what the hell I'll do. I've heard about these pills you can take to stop milk production, that are also used to treat Parkinson's, but there's a lot of conflicting information out there about them, including that they have bad side effects. But one woman said her doctor gave them to her but was very stingy about it, didn't want all these mothers running to him for these pills just because they didn't want to breastfeed. Like that's his call? Oy. I don't really want any more pills, I'm taking enough pills. But we'll see. I guess I have to go buy some cabbage now. Pray for me.