First of all, I want to welcome all my readers from the Motherwear "Carnival of Breastfeeding" readers. You are in the right place. For my regular readers who are unsure what that may be, I have written a short essay on the topic of "beginnings and endings" relating to the nursing relationship. Other bloggers wrote on the same topic and as a part of the carnival you can read their essays as well. Their links are at the bottom of this post. Now, for the essay:
I never realized how complicated the nursing relationship could be. When Katherine was born, my goal was to exclusively nurse for 6 months, continue to a year and see what happened after that. It was what the AAP recommended, what I saw suggested in all the books and it sounded like a good goal.
I read books on breastfeeding and really wanted it to work. I had great examples in my family and friends of people who nursed their babies. I was lucky and we did not struggle with any of the common nursing issues. My baby was made to nurse.
I had read that to establish a really good nursing relationship you should wait to introduce the bottle until 6 weeks so that is what we did. Well, Katherine took a grand total of 3 bottles in her entire babyhood. It was partly our fault. When she was hungry we just could not stand to hear her wailing so I would give in and nurse her. I was not away from her often at that point so there was not really a need to force the bottle issue. It did become more of an issue later though when I wanted to be away from her for more than 2 hours but could not due to nursing.
Katherine loved to nurse and I loved to nurse her. I never had schedules for her though that surprised many of my friends. My parenting style and my personal style were at times different. Nursing on demand was our method. With my goal of seeing what would happen after a year I never imagined that I would nurse as long as I did.
Katherine is now 23 months old and she has been weaned for one month. The process of weaning her was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. I knew it was time. I had never intended to nurse a toddler. It was becoming awkward in public when she would grab at my shirt and say “milk”. She was eating well and some days would go all day without nursing so I knew that she no longer needed it as food.
My husband and I went away for one night for our 5th anniversary. Katherine stayed with my parents. She did fine without nursing and did not even ask for it when we returned. We decided we would try to wean at this point and see what happened. The next day was harder. There were a few times that she would crawl into my lap and almost become desperate to nurse. I would distract her with snacks or books or daddy. It was the week of Christmas so we were busy with family and easily distracted. It was good that we were with so many family members so that Katherine had enough attention when mommy was not nursing her. The hardest part for me was that for about a week I felt like I could not cuddle with Katherine. Anytime she was in my lap she would want to nurse. I hated being distant from my sweet little girl. I cried often.
For three weeks she still asked to nurse every day. Toward the end, it was funny, almost a joke to her to ask. I never gave in though I was tempted many times. I sure missed that sweet time with my baby girl. We have now replaced our nursing times with other sweet things. Every morning we either read or snuggle on the bed to watch Sesame Street. After nap we sit at the piano together, read or watch a video. My little girl seems to be more snuggly now that she is not nursing. I guess that is because before, when she was done with her milk, she would get off my lap to move to the next activity. Now we are able to enjoy that time in different ways.
The other day one of my friends was nursing her baby. I was not sure how Katherine would do. I halfway expected her to ask to nurse. She stated matter of factly that her friend was eating milk, went over to watch and was not bothered about it. What surprised me was how sad it made me. I was the one that was jealous. Long after nursing is no longer a memory for Katherine, I will always remember it fondly as one of my favorite aspects of parenting.
I am due with our second child this summer. I am looking forward to nursing them like I did Katherine. I have no idea if it will go the same way or what my goals will be the second time around. I guess we will just see what happens :)
Please visit these other Carnival participants at their blogs (list will be updated as I receive links).
Showing posts with label breastfeeding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breastfeeding. Show all posts
Sunday, January 27, 2008
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