Category: Feed with Love and Respect

The Big “W”

Originally posted March 30, 2007, when my daughter was two and my son was five.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about weaning. Not as in, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that my daughter should wean”, but more like, “I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of weaning, and what that means to me and to my daughter.” I suppose I could have just used that as my opening sentence in the first place.

When my son was born, I set a goal of nursing him for two years. But because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with such a huge undertaking, I made it a series of smaller goals. My first mini-goal was one year. The next was 18 months. The final goal was two years.

Before he was 18 months old, he started cutting back his nursing sessions. He had been nursing eight to 10 times a day, but when he was about 15 months, he nursed just six to eight times per day. The next month he cut it back to five or six times. The next month was three to four times, and the last month was just once per day. I neither encouraged nor discouraged it. My son weaned completely of his own accord and on his own schedule. I had talked to many women during my time nursing him, and so many of them had told me that when their babies weaned before they (the mothers) were ready, they were heartbroken and disappointed. I knew I never wanted to feel that way. So when my son began his weaning process, I was surprised to realize that I was ready; I was at peace with the whole process. When he was completely weaned, I felt no sadness, no disappointment. It was a good transition that he and I made together. I didn’t make my time line goal of two years, but that didn’t matter, because the end had been so peaceful.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I did not set an arbitrary time limit, but as a more experienced mom, I knew I just wanted to follow her lead. I very soon realized that she was a completely different nurser than her brother. My son liked to do his bit, take in his nourishment, and then leave; he was never big on comfort nursing, or nursing at times when food is not the first goal, but rather the cuddle time and the calming effect of suckling. My daughter has always been a big comfort nurser. My son was a very difficult baby to nurse, (which I know now is because of all his oral difficulties) while my daughter has always been such an easy baby to nurse. He was a biter; she has always been so gentle. He was a concentrated little nurser, who focused on nothing but the task at hand; she has always been so distractible!

Time passed, and my daughter reached her first birthday, and she was nursing as much as ever. She hit 18 months, and showed no signs of slowing down. She’s now two years old, and is still as excited about nursing as she was 18 months ago. This was fine with me. I have no problem with nursing a toddler (either in theory or practice) so I just took it in stride. True to my beliefs, I continued to follow her lead. She seemed to still needed to nurse for comfort and security, so we continued happily.

But after a recent very bad day, where one of the many many things that went wrong that day was that my daughter started biting me seemingly out of the blue, I began to consider the possibility of weaning. My son was a biter, but being bit by a six month old is completely different than being bit by a two year old toddler! No comparison, really. I was in pain, I was angry, and as everything, everything had gone bad that day (with both kids) I was at the end of my rope and out of patience. I made the decision to wean.

Weaning lasted exactly six hours. Weaning is a huge decision, and I realized that I want my daughter’s weaning to be as peaceful as my son’s. To wean her suddenly would be traumatic for her, and that’s not how I wanted it to end. But she had reached two years old – the age that I said my goal was for my son. Was that not also my goal for her? We had reached two years!

Over the next two days, I flip-flopped between the decision to wean and not wean about twenty times. I finally realized that my decision to wean had been made when I was at a very vulnerable point, and I know myself enough to know that I don’t want to have to live with any regrets or guilt about weaning. But on the other hand, how wonderful would it be to wear pretty bras again? To have my body all to myself! To sit down and read the paper and not be asked to nurse! And she did have two years of nursing – I had given her a great start in life!

But, after a few days of experimentation with weaning, I realized the fact that my daughter herself is not ready to wean. She still relies on nursing for comfort and safety. That was made very clear to me during those days, as she was in obvious distress. How can I take such an important source of comfort and nurturing away from a two year old? It seems cruel. And I know that in my heart, I will not feel good about weaning unless my daughter is the one to initiate it, as my son had. I will not be at peace with with the process if I am the one to force her to wean when she is so obviously not ready. Instead setting the goal according to the calendar, my goal is set to her.

So here I am, still lactating after all these years. My daughter will nurse until she decides she is done. She will sleep with us until she decides she is ready for her own room. (My son was 2 1/2 when he chose to go to his own room. I suspect my daughter will be later.)

And no, she has not bitten me since that one day, and that is the only time she’s ever bitten me. It took me three days to heal enough to not wince when she latched on.

The Big “W”

Originally posted March 30, 2007, when my daughter was two and my son was five.

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about weaning. Not as in, “I’ve been thinking a lot about the fact that my daughter should wean”, but more like, “I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the process of weaning, and what that means to me and to my daughter.” I suppose I could have just used that as my opening sentence in the first place.

When my son was born, I set a goal of nursing him for two years. But because I didn’t want to overwhelm myself with such a huge undertaking, I made it a series of smaller goals. My first mini-goal was one year. The next was 18 months. The final goal was two years.

Before he was 18 months old, he started cutting back his nursing sessions. He had been nursing eight to 10 times a day, but when he was about 15 months, he nursed just six to eight times per day. The next month he cut it back to five or six times. The next month was three to four times, and the last month was just once per day. I neither encouraged nor discouraged it. My son weaned completely of his own accord and on his own schedule. I had talked to many women during my time nursing him, and so many of them had told me that when their babies weaned before they (the mothers) were ready, they were heartbroken and disappointed. I knew I never wanted to feel that way. So when my son began his weaning process, I was surprised to realize that I was ready; I was at peace with the whole process. When he was completely weaned, I felt no sadness, no disappointment. It was a good transition that he and I made together. I didn’t make my time line goal of two years, but that didn’t matter, because the end had been so peaceful.

When I became pregnant with my daughter, I did not set an arbitrary time limit, but as a more experienced mom, I knew I just wanted to follow her lead. I very soon realized that she was a completely different nurser than her brother. My son liked to do his bit, take in his nourishment, and then leave; he was never big on comfort nursing, or nursing at times when food is not the first goal, but rather the cuddle time and the calming effect of suckling. My daughter has always been a big comfort nurser. My son was a very difficult baby to nurse, (which I know now is because of all his oral difficulties) while my daughter has always been such an easy baby to nurse. He was a biter; she has always been so gentle. He was a concentrated little nurser, who focused on nothing but the task at hand; she has always been so distractible!

Time passed, and my daughter reached her first birthday, and she was nursing as much as ever. She hit 18 months, and showed no signs of slowing down. She’s now two years old, and is still as excited about nursing as she was 18 months ago. This was fine with me. I have no problem with nursing a toddler (either in theory or practice) so I just took it in stride. True to my beliefs, I continued to follow her lead. She seemed to still needed to nurse for comfort and security, so we continued happily.

But after a recent very bad day, where one of the many many things that went wrong that day was that my daughter started biting me seemingly out of the blue, I began to consider the possibility of weaning. My son was a biter, but being bit by a six month old is completely different than being bit by a two year old toddler! No comparison, really. I was in pain, I was angry, and as everything, everything had gone bad that day (with both kids) I was at the end of my rope and out of patience. I made the decision to wean.

Weaning lasted exactly six hours. Weaning is a huge decision, and I realized that I want my daughter’s weaning to be as peaceful as my son’s. To wean her suddenly would be traumatic for her, and that’s not how I wanted it to end. But she had reached two years old – the age that I said my goal was for my son. Was that not also my goal for her? We had reached two years!

Over the next two days, I flip-flopped between the decision to wean and not wean about twenty times. I finally realized that my decision to wean had been made when I was at a very vulnerable point, and I know myself enough to know that I don’t want to have to live with any regrets or guilt about weaning. But on the other hand, how wonderful would it be to wear pretty bras again? To have my body all to myself! To sit down and read the paper and not be asked to nurse! And she did have two years of nursing – I had given her a great start in life!

But, after a few days of experimentation with weaning, I realized the fact that my daughter herself is not ready to wean. She still relies on nursing for comfort and safety. That was made very clear to me during those days, as she was in obvious distress. How can I take such an important source of comfort and nurturing away from a two year old? It seems cruel. And I know that in my heart, I will not feel good about weaning unless my daughter is the one to initiate it, as my son had. I will not be at peace with with the process if I am the one to force her to wean when she is so obviously not ready. Instead setting the goal according to the calendar, my goal is set to her.

So here I am, still lactating after all these years. My daughter will nurse until she decides she is done. She will sleep with us until she decides she is ready for her own room. (My son was 2 1/2 when he chose to go to his own room. I suspect my daughter will be later.)

And no, she has not bitten me since that one day, and that is the only time she’s ever bitten me. It took me three days to heal enough to not wince when she latched on.

On support and breastfeeding

Lily nap-nursing as a newbornToday my daughter, Lily, is two years old. I’ve been feeling under the weather, so I took an opportunity to rest by napping with her this afternoon. As we snuggled up in my bed, her head tucked into its favorite position between my arm and my breast, I thought about the day of her birth. Lily is a child who knows what she wants and is not afraid to ask for it (it has been suggested that she is the spitting image of her mother in that respect). So minutes after her birth, I put her to my breast, she latched on, and, with the exception of a few trips to the bathroom and the occasional snuggle from Dad or the grandparents, she remained that way until we left the hospital just over a day later. Nurses who were not even assigned to our care popped in to see if it was true that she was on some sort of nursing marathon. I laughed, assured them that it was OK, and nursed on. We have spent much of the last two years this way, and I will be the first to admit that there have been many times when I was ready for a break.

I was reminded this week both why I have continued to nurse for as long as I have and how I managed to do so.

Why?

As if all the World Health Organization (WHO) breastfeeding recommendations, proof of health benefits of breastfeeding, and the obvious joy Lily experiences while nursing were not enough, this month the Foundation for the Study of Infant Death concluded that breastfeeding also reduces the chance of SIDS (or, as the British call it, cot death). And researchers in Canada and Belarus also finished a comprehensive study, for the first time controlling for education and socio-economic factors by dividing mothers in Belarus into two groups: one in which mothers were encouraged to breastfeed by their care providers and one in which no additional encouragement was offered. The results showed that breastfed children are smarter, and perform better in school than their formula-fed counterparts.

How?

Although the difference in IQ points and academic performance were the main thrust of the story, I was struck by another of the study’s conclusions related to the role of care providers in encouraging breastfeeding:

Those in the breast-feeding encouragement group were, on average, breast-fed longer than the others and were less likely to have been given f*rmula in a bottle.

At 3 months, 73 percent of the babies in the breast-feeding encouragement group were breast-fed, compared to 60 percent of the other group. At 6 months, it was 50 percent versus 36 percent.

In addition, the group given encouragement was far more likely to give their children only breast milk. The rate was seven times higher, for example, at 3 months.

If simply encouraging breastfeeding has such a huge and measurable impact on the success of breastfeeding, why do doctors still continue to pass out free f*rmula at prenatal and well-baby visits? Why are there so few hospitals with the WHO’s Baby Friendly designation, or with trained lactation consultants on staff? Why do so many store owners, airline stewardesses, and other members of the public ask breastfeeding mothers to leave, stop nursing, or cover up?

Why am I so lucky to live in a place where I am surrounded by other women nursing toddlers? This is the real answer to how I’ve managed to breastfeed my daughter for two years: support from other breastfeeding mothers.

Yes, my supply was so immense after Lily’s birth that she literally choked on my let-down. But I had someone there to tell me that it wouldn’t last forever (and it didn’t). Yes, Lily rubbed her tender gums on my nipples when she first started teething, the discomfort of which, especially at night when I was trying to sleep, was agonizing. But again, someone was there to commiserate and to offer advice and support. Lily has had periods of twiddling, pinching, poor latch, and marathon-nursing. But I have been able to find all the support I needed from my local API support group, various online groups and forums, and blogs like this one. It has helped me not only survive the past two years, but enjoy them in a way that would not have been possible if I had gone it alone.

– Julie

Spare the crib, spoil thyself

While taking my one year old son for a stroll a few days ago I stopped into my neighborhood coffee house. I noticed a woman with a similarly aged child sipping a coffee in the corner. We oohed and aahed over the babies and began to talk about our parenting experiences with the fervor of isolated stay at home parents.

“Are you still nursing?”
“Yes I am. It’s just so convenient.”
“Me too, you never have to worry about running out…”
“And it’s always the right temperature!”
“Do you stay at home?”
“Yes, staying at home is so great.”
“Yes, a little isolating, but very rewarding.”

We enjoyed the instant friendship created by our shared experiences, thrilled to have a few minutes to share conversation with an adult in the middle of our child filled day.

She asked me if he was sleeping well at night, as her baby kept getting up around two a.m.
“He sleeps with me, so he gets up some, but I don’t really notice.” I informed her.
“You still sleep with him? You are spoiling him.” She said in a sweet, caught you with a second slice of cake, voice.
“No way,” I responded “I don’t believe that for a second.”
“You’re right,” she said smiling. “You are spoiling yourself.”

She’s right. Like a great massage, or that sexy red pair of cuban heeled shoes, or a box of exclusive chocolates, snuggling up to my baby every night is a treat, and a way I can spoil myself. My daughter turns seven this year, so I know how quickly the baby time goes. I also am fairly certain this is my last child. So there is a part of me that snuggles up to him at night, warm and fuzzy in my bed, and feels like I am catching hold of as much of his chubby babyhood as possible.

For me, attachment parenting is mostly about getting the most out of my children’s childhood as I can. There is also a big laziness component. I like not having to walk the floor for an hour to get my baby to sleep before setting him in his crib. I love not having to get up and heat water for f*rmula when he wakes up hungry at 3 a.m. I like the extra sleep I get by popping a nipple in his mouth when he starts to stir. I don’t have to be very awake to nurse him when we are sleeping side by side. I find slings easier to carry in my diaper bag than strollers. However, as important as these benefits are, the true reason behind my decision to co-sleep, nurse, and baby-wear, is the extra coziness, of close contact with my baby.

The baby years seem so long when you are in the middle of them, but in reality they are so fleeting. They crawl before you can get the fog of motherhood out of your head, they walk before you can get used to them crawling, they start to talk about the time you are really understanding their non verbal cues. Suddenly they are two, and stridently demanding their first taste of freedom. Then they are going to school, and a part of their life is lived outside of you. The small precious baby who once required you for everything is suddenly a small person with their own friends, and experiences that you are no part of at all.

So I co-sleep, and nurse, and baby-wear, so I can keep my baby closer to me for just a bit longer.

– Scylla