Jamie has a lovely meditation on weaning her youngest child.
Timely, for our extended family!
On getting one’s body back.
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6 comments on On getting one’s body back.
Comments
6 responses to “On getting one’s body back.”
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I think the idea of such extended breastfeeding creeps me out because at a visceral level I just couldn’t do it. My baby is at 14-months, and I am starting to getting those flashes of REALLY not liking it anymore. It feels like being covered in spiders or something. For some of us, it’s just like someone flips a switch from handling it fine to absolutely hating breastfeeding. (A friend actually just weaned cold turkey her only child at age 3 after hitting this tipping point.)
If I had been able to make it until each kid was age 3 or 4, I probably would not have half my kids. I have never ovulated until at least two weeks after the last time I nursed a baby.
I could not imagine nursing for 17 years straight. But I’ve been changing diapers for almost 11 years straight, with at least another two years to go.LikeLike
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I think that as moms we’re like the Three Wise Men. We each come bearing our own special, particular gift to the child(ren) we have.
Some, it’s extended nursing, others, it’s a certain type of night time parenting. Others, it’s a cuddle and a book, or amazing intercessory prayer. Some it’s taking care of the allergy diet(s) that your child(ren) require, homeschooling, or driving car pool. It’s a unique gift we offer. We learn to give of ourselves in the way our family needs us to at that moment.
Feel no guilt, Barbara C. I don’t know you except in this combox, but I’m sure you’re a great mom doing your best.
It really was a beautiful meditation, Erin. Though my breastfeeding experience was/is different, I do understand the stepping back as my oldest turns 15 tomorrow. I still have a 2 year old and am so grateful for such a long run at so many things I love so much. Yet ultimately there is a letting go and the prayer that they are safe and well and that they know they are SO loved.LikeLike
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Barbara, I hear you. That’s exactly how I felt — like I was going to crawl out of my skin if that child latched on one more time, a real revulsion — and it’s why all of mine have weaned before 16 mo. (And unlike your experience, extended nursing carries no fertility-suppressing benefits for me.)
Like Tabitha said, we offer our children other gifts in place of that particular one. But I’m glad that extended nursing has been such a boon to Jamie’s family and to Bearing’s.LikeLike
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I just want to say — I’ve mentioned this before — that I get the horrible revulsion too. And so I completely understand wanting to wean when it starts to happen more frequently.
It’s just that I have been fortunate never to have experienced it (except maybe once in a great while) quite so early — and always when tandem nursing, i.e., after the nursling’s younger sibling was born.
I’ve always dealt with the occasional flashes of nursing revulsion simply by ending that particular nursing session immediately. “We have to stop now. We’ll have to do this later,” etc. I usually tell the child something like “my breasts are sore” because they understand that concept, even if they aren’t necessarily happy about the situation. But I do not try to nurse through that awful feeling. It’s never, ever happened to me when I was only nursing a baby so young that they could not wait to nurse or understand the meaning of “later.”
Obviously, such behavior on the part of the mother is part of the weaning process. Like other weaning behaviors (such as introducing solid foods, declining to nurse in certain situations such as out in public, or getting a child to learn to sleep straight through without night-nursing) they don’t have to mean immediate onset of total weaning.
For me I have always felt that honoring the revulsion feelings I get occasionally — by listening to them and doing what they are telling me to do — has helped me continue to have a rewarding nursing relationship with each of my children past their third birthdays.
But that’s just to say — I KNOW the skin-crawling feeling you’re describing, and boy does it stink, and when it happens frequently with a baby that is objectively old enough to wean comfortably, it is one possible sign that it’s time to initiate weaning if that’s what you want.LikeLike
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I have not nursed straight through with my children, but I have been in a pregnant and/or nursing cycle since 2004. I’m not sure what I will think when that streak ends, but I probably will feel wistful and sad.
When I set out to nurse my oldest, I had never known anyone who nursed for more than a few weeks. My initial goal was for six months which seemed so far away. Looking back, that goal was just a blip on the radar. I love nursing my kids–well except for that “I’m going to attempt to hang upside down while eating” phase.
I think my attachment to it has a lot to do with my working. I may not be there with them all day, but I can give them milk. I’ve read some objections about comparing lactating women to cows and while I generally agree it is not apt, I wonder how much time these objecting women have spent pumping. I have spent more time than I care to remember hooked up to my double electric. It definitely lends to feeling cow-like. Moo. I hate pumping. It’s time consuming and annoying and its eleventy billion parts need washed everyday. But I do it every work day because it is my gift to my children. It’s my way of staying connected and giving my presence to my baby during the day. It’s probably why I’m also not one to force the night weaning. If I am physically available, I want to be there.
I’m not sure I have ever had the feeling of revulsion specifically about breastfeeding, but mine have always weaned sometime during the first trimester of the next baby which means I had feelings of revulsion about everything. We’ve had pretty gentle weanings because I get so sick and tired and the milk tastes weird (or so they say). I’m not sure what I’ll do when there is no new baby pushing the older one off.LikeLike
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Jenny, you are not the only working nursing mother I have heard that from — that night-nursing occupies an especially important place in the mother-baby relationship. It makes sense to me…
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bearing blog 