Weaning Woes

I'm finally finished! Kara is completely done with nursing! I started trying to wean her around 9 months because of several reasons but she was not ready to give it up. So I took it slow, cutting back on the nighttime feedings first and then slowly elimintating a feeding at a time during the day. Because I stayed at home with her and didn't have to work during her first 6 months she never took a bottle (pumped milk or formula) so this made weaning very hard. I tried at first to get her to take formula from a bottle, but she was not having it at all! I never had much luck with pumping, I could spend 20 minutes pumping and only get a couple ounces. Plus my supply had really dropped off by 9 months, so I knew pumping wasn't an option.
Then I tried formula in a sippy, nope. Formula from a regular cup with a straw, nope. I tried flavoring it to make it taste better, no dice! So I continued to nurse, even though I knew she was not getting a whole lot, because I didn't want her to go without anything at all.
By 11 months I decided to just start trying whole milk (don't tell the AAP), my body wasn't producing hardly at all anymore, so it was either that or nothing because formula she refused to take formula, she just hated the taste of the stuff. I know all the Dr.'s say to wait till after 12 months, but I had been giving her milk products for a long time and she never had a reaction. Plus both mine and Jack's parents gave us milk (per the Dr.'s recommendations) well before age 1 and we're fine obviously :)
So now she drinks milk out of sippy. (I've been buying the organic stuff with DHA added) She still doesn't drink it super fast, or quite as much as I would like her to, but at least she'll drink it!
I'm super thankful that I was able to nurse both of the girls (Kirsten till 9 months/Kara till about 11 1/2 before she was completely done). It saved our family a ton of money, makes feeding time super easy once they get the hang of it, but man is weaning a completely breastfed baby hard work!