Explaining WHY you are still nursing your toddler

Have you ever been challenged on why you are nursing an older child?

I certainly have.  I'm nursing an almost 2 year old (gasp!) with no signs of stopping.  And, like most of us milky mamas, I have friends and family who "get it" and friends and family who do not.

If you're like me you get really hot and heavy and want to jump on your soap box and wax the benefits of nursing into or beyond the toddler years.  But this doesn't usually go that well.

Maybe, like me, you wish you could deliver zinger speeches and one liners (like Alicia Florick on The Good Wife) whenever challenged.  Here are a few good ones I'd like to try:


-Are you still nursing?
-No, I stopped quite a while ago, but daugther still is.

-Are you still nursing?
-I know, I'm such a bad mother.  (wasn't that what they were insinuating?)


But if you don't feel like being sarcastic, what else can you say when family, friends, or community members challenge your extended nursing choices?

Norma Jane Bumbagrner, author of "Mothering Your Nursing Toddler", gives this advice:
"Tell [the person] how much you rely on his/her support for you as a parent.  Tell her you know how much she cares for you and your child...  Remind her that you're acting out of concern for your [child].  You have learned from the experience of other mothers... and from reading... that no harm comes from continuing to nurse.... Emphasize the enjoyable parts of your continued nursing relationship."

Looking for a shorter response?  I've had some great success with this simple one-liner when challenged on the fact that I'm still nursing my 20 month old:  "I still really love it," I say.
It's hard to argue with that.

Of course, some people will be persistent in their criticism and "concern".  If you're not getting anywhere in the dialogue, you may need to be more firm.  One mother chose to leave the room every time the challenging began.  She just got up and walked out without saying another word.  After several episodes like this, her extended family ceased the criticism, realizing they weren't going to make any progress.

Regardless of how you go about communicating with the dissenting and challenging opinions around you, the important thing is that the attention and criticism doesn't change your course.  Mamas need to do what feels right for them and their babes regarding weaning timelines.  Seek support and find a place to vent and talk when the opinions of others are getting you down or pushing you to wean before you and your babe are ready.

I'd love to hear from you!  Please respond and share some of your own stories about being challenged for extended nursing!

Should formula-feeding mamas feel guilty?

This is a seriously hot topic right now.  The guilt that moms feel when they choose to or must formula feed their babes is often pretty intense.  And some would say that the breastfeeding community's surge of pressure in the last few years is unfair.  Mom's job is hard enough, should she also be made to feel guilty when she feeds her baby formula?

According to Bonnie Rochman, a Health & Family writer for Time Magazine, "Although most women are feeding their babies formula by six months, the message about the importance of breast-feeding has penetrated the culture — and it’s rubbing some moms the wrong way." (see article here)

And "at Mommyish, Lindsay Cross wrote about how she 'felt so guilty at the thought of not breast-feeding' that she says she would have even experimented with prescription drugs to try to increase her milk supply." (credit)

Many would argue that this guilt is unnecessary and unfair to formula feeding moms, but is there a way to support, encourage, teach, and normalize breastfeeding in the US without some resulting guilt for formula feeding moms?  If breast is best, and it is, then when we either can't or don't offer our children "the best", personal reflection and sometimes negative feelings will surface for most moms.  If we make a concerted effort in the breastfeeding education, awareness, and advocacy communities to lessen the "pressure" to breastfeed and subsequent guilt for non-breastfeeding mamas, don't we risk dramatic decreases in breastfeeding rates in this country where rates are already very low?  

The good news is, most individuals working in the breastfeeding support and advocacy fields are hugely compassionate toward moms who struggled to feed their babes at the breast.  Because at least 98% of women are capable of breastfeeding successfully, typically, failure to breastfeed is a result of not getting the right support, making breastfeeding education for medical professionals and parents extremely essential.  I learn so much from the stories of my friends who tried unsuccessfully to breastfeed, especially when I inquire about the nature of their support, or lack thereof.  And for moms who chose not to breastfeed, there is equal compassion because typically these mamas are making their decisions based on community, familial and/or societal norms with which they are most comfortable.  This is another area where breastfeeding awareness and advocacy work is crucial.  Changing how we view breastfeeding as a culture can make big shifts in our success rates. 

In 3rd world countries, there is little breastfeeding education, and yet breastfeeding rates are much higher and reports of breastfeeding problems are dramatically lower than in the developed world.   Why?  Because in these communities, breastfeeding is the norm.  Girls and young women are all breastfed themselves, they see their siblings breastfed, watch their neighbors and community members breastfeed, and are supported in breastfeeding by all the women around them.  It is a societal norm, and no one questions it.   

But back to guilt.  "Dr. Kathleen Marinelli, chair-elect of the U.S. Breastfeeding Committee, thinks the conversation about guilt is misguided. 'We talk about guilt-tripping, but I don’t honestly think we make mothers feel guilty,' she says. 'I honestly think it’s grief and it comes out as guilt. When you really talk to these women, they have grief that they didn’t understand enough to give it a try or they tried and weren’t supported. Women get very emotional about it.'"(citation)  

From my perspective, the answer is not to make a concerted effort to reduce pressures and guilt, but instead to:

•  compassionately focus on helping mothers struggling with breastfeeding to be successful with mixed or exclusive breastfeeding,
• improve breastfeeding education for parents, and health care professionals (especially OBs, GPs and Pediatricians),
• and begin to make breastfeeding the accepted norm for babies in the US.

I would love to hear from you!

What do you think about this question of guilt around formula feeding?

Would you or have you considered taking prescription drugs to increase your milk supply?

What do you find is the societal expectation around breastfeeding in your immediate community?

And please, consider following me by entering your email at the top of my blog home page!

Going "Natural"

When I was in high school I told everyone I was going to adopt.  I claimed that my choice was rooted in a deep desire to nurture and care for abandoned and unwanted children.  It sounded really good coming out of my mouth while I sat around in my doc martens and smoked clove cigarettes.

But it was total BS.  Total.  The truth was that childbirth absolutely terrified me.  

I recall sitting at the kitchen table with my mom and two of her friends.  Hippies turned yuppies that they all were, they had all had unmedicated births in the 70s and early 80s.  I was about 12 years old.  My mother's friends shared that they hadn't found childbirth to be so bad.  A silent, deep, internal sigh of relief came over me.  This thing that loomed out on the horizon some day for me wasn't so bad?  I felt my gray matter and my shoulders soften as if they were letting go of some little thing that was holding them slightly suspended.  Then my own mother spoke.  "Really? I thought it hurt like hell." 

My tension resumed ten fold.  My body seized.  I adopted my "adoption" plan, and hid behind it. 

20 or so years later, my husband and I were lucky enough to find ourselves pregnant and considering the cornucopia of childbirth preparation course options.  My friends had kids.  Most of them had had epidurals.  A few had chosen to have natural births.  I was in awe of these unmedicated birth stories.  They humbled and excited me.  And I realized that somewhere between high school and marriage, the terror of childbirth had been replaced by the terror of having an anesthesiologist stick a needle in my spine.  And so, we enrolled in a 12 week Natural Childbirth Class.  

I'm not gonna sugar coat it.  Laboring and pushing out a baby without medication is no picnic.  Ayun Halliday, in her book, "The Big Rumpus" describes it as "a white hot lighting rod of pain, ripping me in two".  And how!  (By the way, if you dig natural birth, extended breastfeeding, cosleeping, and a good laugh, walk don't run to the nearest book store and buy this book).  

There were a few times, around 9 centimeters, when I thought to myself, "I really respect those epidural mamas.  They are smart mamas! I'm a crazy person!"  

My cousin, who's had two home births, said to me, "In labor, I felt pushed to my limit, but never past it."  I held on to this information like a life jacket.  And she was right.  Except for one little detail she forgot to mention:  There are 'limits', and then there are 'labor limits', and they are really fucking different!  The 'limits I was pushed to in my labor are not the same ones I am pushed to in my daily life.  Not even close.  I felt like a super hero.  My husband, blown away by the strength and stamina required, was convinced I could have pushed our volvo onto its side.  

Natural Childbirth was very important to me.  It was a right of passage.  It was something I wanted to fully know, to feel, to experience, and I believed in my body and it's ability to birth my baby.  I believed in my health and in the natural process of birth.  And I knew that by birthing my baby naturally, I would dramatically increase the chance that both of us would be healthy and safe. 

So, laboring and pushing out babies without medication and intervention isn't for everyone.  And I try really hard to respect that.  I think it's all about finding peace in your process.  Finding peace in your approach to pregnancy, to birth, to breastfeeding, and parenting is essential.  If you gather the information and you make your decision and you find peace with it, then you're doing what's right for you.  I think what's hard to accept is the lack of information shared with pregnant families by their providers.  

The information on the benefits of unmedicated birth is essential, and how it relates to breastfeeding is big.  Here are just a few to whet your palate.  

• Breastfeeding in the first hour of life exponentially increases the chance of breastfeeding success.
• Interventions during birth, including pain medications, increase the chance of complications or the need for a surgical birth; thus separating mothers and babies during the first hour of life.
• Babies born on epidurals are often groggy and slower to take the breast.
• Moms who labor on epidurals are more likely to receive other interventions which can lead to birth complications resulting in the separation of mom and baby.
• Inducing labor is likely to lead to the need for other interventions which can lead to birth complications resulting in the separation of mom and baby.

After my birth, I said to my husband, "Find the urology department and get a vasectomy.  Now."  

I. Was. Not. Joking.  

But I'm glad he didn't listen to me.