Astoriamom

When to Wean

When I was single and uninformed, I remember thinking it odd that anyone would nurse a child old enough to verbally ask for it. Little did I know I would be nursing a little girl who would say, "Can I have the other side please?"  But now, after two and a half years, I think Willa's breastfeeding days may have come to an end. 

While many Americans hold my former beliefs, I now know that the World Health Organization actually recommends children nurse for at least their first two years. And in other parts of the world, the average to stop nursing is beyond two. So why do so many Americans feel that nursing a toddler is strange? Since, unlike almost any other developed country, the US fails to provide any paid maternity leave, many mothers need to go back to work within a few months. And that provides a real challenge to to nursing exclusively. Plus, even though most pediatricians say they support breastfeeding, many do recommend formula at the first sign of an issue.

While I know many mothers who faced real medical obstacles to nursing, I know others uneducated and unsupported in it. One mother told me that she must have had far too low a supply because her newborn would cry to nurse almost immediately after finishing a feeding. And I thought, so did mine and I just nursed them again. Since your supply grows to fit the demand, supplementing with formula or not nursing when your infant wants it is the very way to decrease your supply. 

My first personal experience in this area was a tragic one. Two days after my first baby Sylvie was still born at 20 weeks, my milk came in. And the not nursing was very painful. I remember going to a crowded Target with my mother, heartbroken with my breasts engorged and my body still recovering from labor, searching through racks for some kind of sports bra. For another week or two after, I had frequent painful let down, each surge reminding me of the daughter I had lost. 

But then I was blessed with two near ideal nursing experiences. I had done my research prior to Nate's birth with a series of books and Youtube videos. I knew what latch issues could come up, the signs of mastitis, what holds I could use. This research probably helped my confidence, but honestly it didn't really matter. With my baby in some unknown location away from me and my husband entertaining his parents elsewhere, I remember crying alone in the recovery room after my c-section. Having just labored for 15 hours before having an undesired surgery, I still hadn't held my baby. I told the nurse that I wanted to breastfeed. They brought him in and, when faced with what Steve Jobs called the only intuitive interface, that little guy knew exactly what to do. He latched immediately with almost no guidance. I remember a feeling of motherly pride that my boy was such a breastfeeding champ!

That champ nursed every hour, 24 hours a day for the first couple months. As in, I would start nursing him at noon, be done at 12:20ish and then nurse him again starting at 1. I was a complete zombie and the first couple weeks certainly involved a lot of pain. But I caked on the lanolin and soon it was all good. I did feel a bit isolated until I became comfortable enough to nurse outside. We'd be at the park and I'd just throw on the nursing cover if I needed it. When I got pregnant with Willa, I started to gradual wean Nate. My doctor told me that nursing while in the second trimester could cause preterm labor and I did not want to risk that again. I gradually replaced each feeding with a bottle feeding (now not a method I recommend since then it was hard to wean Nate off the bottle!). By 18 months, he finished nursing at bedtime, the last one to go.

I had a V-BAC with Willa and so was able to nurse her much sooner. Her initial latch had some issues and caused some pain, but I was able to correct that quickly. Her nursing was not quite as frequent as Nate's, more like every 2 hours. At around one year, the doctor suggested I limit feedings to 3 or 4 set times a day to help encourage her eating solid foods. I worried a rigid schedule could be problematic, but we adjusted without difficultly. She dropped her nap around 2 years, so I just stopped that afternoon feeding. I was in no rush to stop nursing altogether but the time came just recently when I felt ready to be done. I was tired of her reliance on me as part of her bedtime routine. The removal of the last two feedings was gradual. I worried she would not be able to sleep without nursing, but I had really tried to always put her down awake - talking to her as I set her in her crib with a little "You're going in your crib now. Good night. I love you." She did and does ask for it, but barely fusses when told no. She has now not nursed at bedtime for a week.

Our last feeding was a morning one. Comfortably lying down, knowing it might be our last. And since I doubt there's more kids in our future, I think it was probably my last time ever nursing. I feel so lucky for those experiences and also for being able to choose when I wanted to stop. The choice is a very personal one. Too often people are judged by ignorant individuals, like my former self, who think breastfeeding is only for babies. Mothers nursing toddlers is the norm in most of the world and the decision of when to wean is entirely theirs.

 

 

The Kindness of Strangers

Last week, I headed out to an event at Nate's school with Willa. We left the house with her lovely grey knit hat securely on her curly head, but it was missing when we arrived at school. "Where is my hat?" she asked. I had no clue. I asked her if she took it off and she said yes. I asked her if she threw it out of the stroller, and she again said yes. Great. Her only good winter hat, gone.

After a fun event, we left the school for home with Willa's two fleecy leopard mittens on her hands. When we arrived home, she asked innocently, "Where is my other mitten?" I looked and saw one of her hands was bare. "Willa, did you throw it out of the stroller?" "Yes".  Erg.

I have other mittens and hats for Willa at home, but her pickiness about what to wear means risking a meltdown to put her into any of these cold weather alternatives. Ignoring the problem, I decided to simply send her out hatless and mittenless for a couple days since it rained anyway and her only outdoor excursions occurred under the rain cover of the stroller. On our way home from school the first day of sunshine after her unfortunate hat and mitten loss, we saw a strange sight. Perched on top of a fence next to the school was her lovely grey hat. Muddy, but otherwise perfectly fine. Someone had clearly found the hat on the ground and kindly put it in a dry, obvious location. I tucked it into the stroller, happy that I would not need to buy a new one. We continued our stroll home, only to find a few blocks later Willa's leopard mitten draped over another fence. Again someone (most likely a different someone since they were separated by several blocks) had found a tiny, muddy mitten on the ground and put it in a safe spot so that it might be possibly be found.

I felt happiness not only that I'd been spared the trouble of purchasing something new, but also that two individuals had reinforced my long-held belief that most people are basically good. Yes, we are all selfish to some degree. Having focused my Masters studies on Darwinism, I know that as living organisms we almost have an obligation to follow our own self-interest (which of course includes what is best for our children). I acknowledge that some people take this selfishness to a disgusting degree and totally disregard how their behavior affects the world around them. I recently saw a man throw a bunch of tissues out of his car window and when I called to him that he had "dropped something", he called me an "f-ing skank", not a term I often hear applied to myself, and said I was welcome to his dirty tissues. Not a very nice person. And of course bad people exist who do terrible things, even to the detriment of their own selves. But these people are rare and often mentally ill. My belief, as cock-eyed optimistic as it sounds, is that most people will do the right thing, so long as it's not too inconvenient. 

I hear the opposite sentiment quite often. "People these days", "Morality is at all time low", parents more afraid for their kids of stranger danger than the far more likely possibility of a car crash. I disagree with this way of thinking. I think people have more or less always been the same. If anything, morality is at an all time high. I love MLK's quote that "the arc of the moral universe is long, but I believe it bends towards justice". What a great, and hopefully accurate, image! When I hear nostalgic talk of "the good old days", I wonder exactly what are people referring to? The recent past in this country of segregation and prejudice? The turn of the century when half of the population was denied the vote? Slavery? Witch trials? The Spanish Inquisition? How can it possibly be argued that life in the past was better when almost every element of society has improved over time?

Picking up a child's abandoned hat and mitten may not have required extreme moral courage or physical effort, but it was a simple act of kindness. And it sure saved me the unnecessary effort and money needed to purchase new ones. So thanks, whoever you are! And thanks for encouraging a positive world view of humanity.