How weaning (eventually) happened

After I took the girls for their check-ups in January, I joked with Brian that when the pediatrican asked me whether I’d considered weaning, I nearly answered “Which one?” Because of course our pediatrician was asking about Lyra and of course I wouldn’t have said anything of the sort. The fact that Adriana was still nursing at four years old wasn’t something I was trying to hide, but it wasn’t something I was going around advertising either. I wasn’t ashamed of it, but it’s not exactly the norm in mainstream parenting, and I’m not the kind of person who wants to stand out. And so I debated whether to write about this, but it’s such a milestone for us, perhaps particularly for us, that it would be a shame not to. And I think that, because it’s outside the norm, it’s worth sharing.

We went through stages when people would ask me about weaning. The first was when Adriana was a newborn, and people would ask how long I planned to nurse; when she was a little over year it came up again, since it’s very common to wean around the baby’s first birthday; and finally, people who knew she was still nursing when I got pregnant again asked if I had plans to wean. There were times all along when I considered it, even right at the beginning when I was tired and depressed and had thrush, and particularly when I was pregnant and it wasn’t always as comfortable as it had been. But it never seemed like the right time to wean completely, and it seemed as though it would happen eventually.

She got older and began to eat a bit of solid food, and she backed off of nursing a bit then. There was a point sometime before Adriana’s second birthday when I started pushing her to nurse less in the afternoons, because I found it frustrating to stop what I was doing so often to nurse her (and once I was including her more in what I was doing, she stopped asking so much--what she had really wanted was more of my focus). Sometime around the time she was two and a half, I began to refuse to nurse her in public. And because we were always going somewhere, pretty soon she was nursing only around sleep--to fall asleep at nighttime and naptime, and then when she woke up. That was our pattern when I got pregnant and it worked. She gave up napping not too long after her third birthday, so then those nursings were gone (although for the first couple of weeks, I would still lie down and let her nurse for a bit at what would have been naptime--she seemed to need something like that to make it through the afternoon). I pushed to get rid of the morning nursing, which worked for a few weeks, but then mornings got rough and we added it back in. A couple of months later, we dropped it without much effort.

It feels like a confession of sorts to say that after the baby was born I wished Adriana would stop. I was glad it was comforting to her, but the contrast between nursing a newborn and nursing a preschooler somehow overwhelming to me. I was ready to be done, but I also knew it was the wrong time to stop her. It was what she knew to do. It was reassuring to her. And with the adjustment to having a new baby at home (and then knowing that we’d be moving over the summer) it seemed like too much to ask.

There was one misguided attempt on my part to cut her off cold turkey. In June, I spent three nights in the hospital with a stomach bug of some sort. Lyra was in the hospital with me so she could nurse, but Adriana was at home with her grandma. She fell asleep for those three nights without nursing (but cuddled up with Grandma), so on my first night home, I laid down in her bed with her at bedtime, just like I always do, but this time I refused to nurse her. It was awful. Within a few minutes we were both in tears. Finally I nursed her, sad to not be done, sad to have tried and failed, relieved that it was so easy to make it all better again.

After we moved last summer I began talking to her about weaning. I told her that she was the only one of her friends that still needed “mom milk” to fall asleep, and talked about other ways to fall asleep. On nights when she did fall asleep without nursing (because we were in the car when she fell asleep, or because I hadn’t been home, or because she was tired and fell asleep during her story) I would point it out to her in the morning. Sometime before our move, I suggested that when she was four she wouldn’t nurse any more. I tried to talk about it as casually as possible, and it seemed to work. She began talking about it herself. And it went on for several months like that, and then in December one night she told me that she wouldn’t have milk to fall asleep. I got into bed with her, read her some stories, and then we cuddled up together. After about 15 minutes of tossing around, she told me--on the edge of tears, trying to be brave--that she needed milk after all. I assured her it was fine, and she nursed to sleep. She talked about it in the morning, and didn’t suggest it again.

I teased her the night of her fourth birthday about not nursing. She laughed, and said “Maybe when I’m eight,” which gave me a good laugh. But I knew I wasn’t going to cut her off because she had turned four that day. Then one night about a week later, nursing became uncomfortable for me, so I stopped her. She cried and yelled and hit and kicked, and then she fell asleep in my arms. The next night I stopped her before she was asleep. She cried a little, but didn’t throw the same fit as the night before. For two more nights I read her long stories until she fell asleep. On the fifth night she asked to nurse, and I told her that she was four and a big girl, and that I would stay with her as long as she wanted, but I wouldn’t nurse her. And that was it. That was the end.

I had been dreading bedtime. I was done with nursing and waiting for the right time for Adriana. Now bedtime can be so nice. (I won’t say it always is, because, look, she’s four; sometimes she’s going to fight it, no matter how tired she is.) Most nights I just lie in bed with her and read her stories. Sometimes she falls asleep during the story, and other times she just lies in my arms and I rest my face on her hair and feel the moment when her body relaxes and she falls asleep.

On extended breastfeeding and nursing in public

As I wrote yesterday about being self-conscious nursing in front of someone, I wondered when that happened. At first I was a little nervous about nursing in public, but the fact that the baby needed to be fed overwhelmed my nervousness every time, and pretty soon nursing in public didn't bother me at all. And nursing in front of someone else when they were in my own house? When Adriana was a week old and friends started calling to see if they could come over for a visit, I would eagerly invite them over and then warn them, "but you might see my boobs, because we're not very discreet at nursing yet." I don't think it really occurred to me that I could go upstairs to feed the baby when people were over. I liked nursing in the armchair in the living room and if that's where everyone else was, then they were just going to have to tolerate it. I have heard that some people find their friends or relatives very uncomfortable around nursing moms, but everyone was totally accepting: after all, babies need to eat.

I think the self-consciousness came when people would see me nursing and ask how long I intended to nurse--which I think began around the time Adriana was 16 months old or so. The questions were never offensive, but the questioners were just surprised and curious. I had heard that people asked such questions and were critical about extended breastfeeding, but with my friends and family that certainly has not seemed true. And because of their curiosity and lack of criticism, I didn't feel compelled to use any stock answers, such as "Oh, just another few minutes," or make too many smart comments about waiting until she was ready to go to college. I would answer them honestly that I figured I'd probably nurse until Adriana was two, and then see how interested she was then and how I felt about continuing.

I do think it's kind of funny that "extended breastfeeding" seems to mean any breastfeeding beyond one year. Before I had Adriana, I assumed for some reason that most children nursed until they were two. In reading about breastfeeding before Adriana was born, I learned that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends nursing for at least the first year, the World Health Organization recommends doing so for two years, and La Leche League encourages nursing until the child has outgrown the need. It seems to me that a lot of the women I know wean around 13 or 14 months. Many say that their children self wean then, and I can see how a busy toddler that age would stop asking to nurse. And some say that that is when they felt the need to wean, which I also understand: I went through a bit of a struggle with it at that time, where it seemed as if Adriana always wanted to nurse and was never going to quit, and it was sometimes physically uncomfortable for some reason. But I could tell that she wasn't ready to wean and began to realize that part of what was going on for me was that I was overwhelmed by toddlerhood and it somehow seemed that if I could wean Adriana everything would be better. But as I read Mothering Your Nursing Toddler I began to understand that if Adriana were totally weaned, I wouldn't have my "magical" way of soothing her or our times of quiet connection. I stopped worrying about how I was going to manage nursing a toddler and began wondering how mothers who don't nurse their toddlers manage.

Regardless, these days I am more conscious of when and where I nurse. If Adriana asks to nurse while we're playing at the park, I often offer her a snack of "real food" first, or just try to distract her. There are times, though, when I know she needs to nurse when we are out in public--she has hurt herself and needs the comfort, or is just overstimulated and needs to focus on nursing to get back to being herself--and then I put my self-consciousness aside. And I am always pleased when I see another mother nursing her toddler on a bench at the park.

You know who I never thought I'd have a conversation about breastfeeding with? Brian's grandpa. Perhaps that is silly of me. I mean, yes, he's an 81-year-old man, but he is also the father of six, grandfather of ten, and great-grandfather of one.

Last month, Grandpa Glenn spent the night with us before heading back to Colorado. I had been a bit self-conscious nursing in front of him that afternoon, just as I had when we visited him back in June, but as we poured the last of the wine into our glasses after dinner and watched Adriana play, he turned to me and said that his wife had always found that a glass of wine in the evening had helped with her milk supply. A little surprised by the comment, I told him that I found the same was true, although only with red wine.

And then he told me that only one of their six children had not be breastfed. She had a milk allergy and had to have soy formula. Another one of their babies had thrush early on, and while the baby was being treated, Brians' grandmother was expressing milk to maintain her supply for when the baby was better. It seemed wasteful to throw the milk away (I am still unsure whether the baby was drinking some of the pumped milk or was receiving some sort of formula at that point for some reason), so one morning the whole family had breastmilk on their cereal. Grandpa made a face as he remembered. "That was the sweetest, richest milk ever. No wonder babies love it."

The conversation made me realize how things have changed since the 1950s. Now many mothers of babies with milk allergies cut out dairy products themselves in order to continue nursing. And Adriana and I nursed throughout our experience with thrush. Perhaps it would have cleared up sooner if we hadn't, but pumping seems like a lot of work and I was terrified of nipple confusion. But it also told me how much things stay the same. Brian's grandma nursed her babies, his mom and mine nursed theirs, and here I am nursing mine.

Nursing nursling

Today at yoga, as we mamas began our sun salutations, Adriana picked out a baby doll from the toy box. It was naked, but she found a little t-shirt for it, and, unable to coordinate actually dressing the doll, wrapped the shirt around the doll and carried it around for a while. Finally she sat down next to me, lifted her shirt, and pushed the doll's head against her chest. My little nursling pretending to nurse! She nodded seriously and made the noises she does when she's imitating adult conversation, while we all laughed.

World Breastfeeding Week

Today is the last day of World Breastfeeding Week. I've been wanting to write about it, but sort of stumped as to what to say. My birth story gets a fair number of hits with people Googling for answers to their questions about labor and c-section recovery and the like (I really hope the person who Googled "nine months pregnant back pain contractions five minutes apart" stepped away from her computer and just called her midwife), so I thought that by writing about my experience with breastfeeding, I could help someone who is searching the internet for anecdotal information about nursing.

When I was pregnant and stressed out and worried about becoming a parent, and crying because I was sure it would be too hard and I was hormonal and everything seemed like too much, Brian would try to help me focus, try to help me overcome my fears and worries by talking to me about the baby, but also by trying to get me to focus on the positive and talk about it. One time he asked me what I was looking forward to most when it came to taking care of the baby. "Nursing," I told him. "I just want to nurse the baby." I had images of a blissful breastfeeding relationship, where after the baby was born on the big bed at the birth center, she was placed against me and we were wrapped in blankets and we would nurse and she we look into my eyes and we would bond and everything would be perfect. Focusing on that image helped me get through so many of the fears I experienced during pregnancy.

And now I just have to say that nursing sucked at first. It was hard. The blissful bonding didn't happen immediately. We got there eventually, but it took work.

Adriana didn't nurse immediately after birth. At first we were separated because she needed to go to the nursery while I was stitched up after the c-section. (I'm told some women may get to attempt nursing while still in the OR, but I was bleeding a bit more than they expected, and that wasn't an option for us.) We attempted nursing in the recovery room, but she was sleepy and I couldn't yet sit up or turn on my side, so it was awkward, and I'm not sure she got much. Then I was sent to x-ray for tests and told by the radiologist that they contrast dye they were giving me would mean that I couldn't nurse for 48 hours. I panicked. I knew that my odds of successfully nursing the baby were already reduced because we weren't together nursing right at that moment. I worried about immunity and nipple confusion, but I consented to the test. That afternoon and evening, Brian syringe-fed Adriana her first food, formula. She wasn't getting immunity from my colostrum, but at least once our 48 hours were up, she wouldn't have become accustomed to a bottle nipple. I pumped colostrum, trying to get my milk to come in that night. I meant to wake up every few hours to pump while Brian fed the baby, but I was sleeping deeply, and he decided I needed the rest to help myself recover. So I slept, and dreamed dreams about nursing the baby that were realistic enough that I awoke confused about whether maybe I really had.

The next afternoon the hospital lactation consultant breezed into the room, told me that the radiologist had been wrong, and it was time to get the baby to nurse. We struggled then and we struggled for the next few days, as we tried to find a position that worked for us, tried to help the baby latch on (and stay on--if her arms weren't tightly swaddled she tended to push herself away after a few sucks, and then scream because she was hungry and not nursing), tried to feed her every two hours even when she wasn't hungry. We didn't know what we were doing, and we were making ourselves crazy, but Brian and I were both desperate to make breastfeeding work. Our desperation made us determined, and our determination made it work. We would get the baby latched on and my milk would let down and for a few minutes I would be lost in a haze of "happy nursing hormones."

But even though it was working, it was hard. I had read that before, but I didn't realize how true it was. It's natural, I thought; it shouldn't be hard. I mean, cats don't have lactation consultants or breastfeeding videos or La Leche League meetings or lanolin, and they somehow manage. Why can't humans? With each feeding it became less of a struggle, and with each day I worried less about whether Adriana was getting enough to eat. It helped that I stopped panicking when she didn't want to nurse every two hours, and that when we saw her pediatrician when she was six days old, she had stopped losing weight, and had even gained a couple of ounces since we'd left the hospital. By the time she was a week old, we were doing okay. And then the pain set in.

It was different from the pain I'd felt the first few times I'd fed Adriana--more of a burning that was strongest right after a feed. I was reading The Nursing Mother's Companion (my favorite breastfeeding book--easiest to use when you are in the new baby haze and with the most detail on some of the problems that occur early on) while feeding the baby, and diagnosed myself with thrush. The pediatrician confirmed this at the two-week checkup, and got us started on treatment. The treatment was slow, and although our case of thrush never got as bad as some people's, I was upset that feeding the baby was causing me pain. I felt guilty when the baby would want to "cluster feed" in the evenings and I would get annoyed because I was in pain. A couple times when she started to fuss for food, after nursing only 30 minutes before, I would leave Brian to try to comfort her while I took a hot shower, just to get a little break. I was worried because my baby was hungry and I wasn't feeding her; what kind of mother was I? But I needed those few minutes away. The thrush finally cleared up about five weeks after we first started treatment, after talks with a midwife and a La Leche League leader to figure out what could be done in addition to what the pediatrician had prescribed (answer: rinsing with a vinegar solution after every feed, applying the ointment after every feed, and taking acidophilus each day).

It took awhile before I was nursing without pain. It took some time before the baby and I could get her latched on with ease. It was awhile before I could nurse without a boppy, or using a coat rolled up like a boppy. It took awhile to be able to nurse lying down. But everything is fine now. My fears in the hospital when I wasn't allowed to nurse right away were unfounded: not being able to nurse for the first 24 hours sucked, but in the long run it didn't hurt us at all. Now, every couple of hours, every single day, Adriana and I curl up together so that she can eat, and the wish that I tearfully expressed to Brian last fall has come true.

Food!

On Sunday, Adriana got her first...well, "solids" doesn't seem like the right word, as it wasn't very solid. And "food other than breastmilk" isn't quite right, either, as I mixed the cereal with milk so that it would taste familiar. But anyhow, she got her first cereal over the weekend, and it was a ton of fun watching her experiment with the spoon and react to the taste and feeling of the cereal.





I'd been reluctant to start Adriana on solids. I was determined to wait until six months to make sure she was really ready, although some of my friends, I think, didn't quite get why I was waiting. Honestly, it took me awhile to figure out while I was waiting too. I mean, part of it was logistical: I knew that it would take time and make a mess, and I wanted to wait until we were settled into our new place before getting involved. But I realized that I was also nervous about what it meant for nursing. I love nursing her, and I was afraid of losing that relationship. It turns out that a couple of tablespoons of rice cereal doesn't much interfere with nursing, and I think that's just the way it should be. Eventually she'll eat more solid foods and slowly wean, but it's going to be a long process that will give us both a chance to adjust. And I think trying her out on some avocado tomorrow is going to be all kinds of fun. By which I mean a big, slimy, green mess.

Baby's first rally

Today Adriana and I are headed for Capitol Hill, for a nurse-in to support the re-introduction of Congresswoman Maloney's Breastfeeding Promotion Act. You can read about the rally and the legislation here. And if you're in DC, you should join us.

I can't be the only one to find the acronym 'NIP' funny

I am not as uncomfortable nursing in public as I thought I would be. I knew I would do it, of course, but I thought I would be self-consious. In fact, I've found that I'm not uncomfortable at all at this point. ("I guess I'm just that kind of girl," I told Brian today as I settled down to feed the baby in the grass at Farragut Square at lunchtime.)

The first time I had to nurse in public was at Kaiser, when we took the baby in for her first visit with the pediatrician. I nursed in the exam room while we were waiting for the doctor and I thought Adriana was full, but when we went down to the lab so I could have some bloodwork done, she started fussing to be fed again. The waiting room was small and full, with no corner to hide in, and since we were only just getting the hang of latching, I wasn't sure I could be very discreet. I bounced the baby and hoped she could wait. Finally, Brian went to ask the receptionist how much longer I would be waiting, figuring that we could go find a place to nurse if we were going to be waiting much longer. We were assured it would be just a couple more minutes, but Adriana was getting more vocal about her hunger, and I decided I'd rather have people see me nurse than be the woman with the screaming baby. As I struggled to unfasten my nursing bra without lifting up my shirt (learning quickly that turtleneck sweaters are not appropriate for new nursers to wear in public), I noticed that there was a man standing beside me, looking down at me. He was just looking at the baby, I'm sure, while he was waiting his turn in line, but his presence made me fumble more. Before I could get the hook undone, my name was called, and I handed the baby to Brian, hoping he could keep her gone while I was in the back. Once I was done, we found a quiet corner near the pharmacy where I could feed the baby while facing away from everyone else.

Since then, it hasn't been a problem. In the beginning, I needed a boppy to get into a good position to nurse, but was able to improvise with the diaper bag, my jacket, or the sling. Now, I've nursed the baby in various bookstores, by the receptionist's desk at my former office, the birth center, a La Leche League meeting, a babywearing meeting (okay, perhaps those last three aren't surprising in the least), Whole Foods, a yoga studio, a restaurant at brunch with friends (holding baby with one hand, mimosa with the other), the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum (just feet from the Wright brothers' plane!), and in Farragut Square. For the most part I think I've been pretty discreet, although sometimes I see someone looking at at me and I start to wonder. One day I sat in the cafe at Barnes and Noble to feed Adriana. I got her latched on and looked up to see a man a couple of tables away staring at me. I knew that with the angle of the tables and where the baby was, he hadn't seen anything, and I don't think I would have cared if he had. I looked back down at the baby, but when I glanced up again, I saw that he was still looking my way. I made eye contact with him and smiled. He looked away. I kept checking to see if he was going to stare again, but he never even glanced in our direction. I was disappointed: I thought it would be funny to wink at him if I caught him looking again.

Brian asked me at one point whether there were laws in Virginia and the District to protect breastfeeding. I remembered that a year or two ago there was a bit of a stir when a woman was asked not to nurse her baby in a Starbucks in Maryland, which violated both Maryland law and Starbucks corporate policy. La Leche League has a good list of breastfeeding laws on their website. I was happy to see that Virginia does protect women's right to breastfeed in public, and that they even exempt breastfeeding women from jury duty. The District isn't so great: there are no breastfeeding laws in DC. But federal law does protect women breastfeeding on federal property--including museums, so we were totally cool at Air and Space last weekend.

I complained about the lack of laws in DC to a friend, who pointed out that there may not be any laws on the books because it hadn't been necessary: women breastfeeding in public generally aren't asked not to do it. I thought he had a point. And I don't know if he was just unobservant, or if I am really becoming more discreet, but he had no idea I was feeding the baby at the table at brunch that day.

Out on the town

Yesterday I had my first successful solo outing with Adriana. (Actually, the first time wasn't completely unsuccessful. I was just too nervous to even go into Target to buy one thing without panicking.) I packed Adriana and the stroller into the car and headed to the mall, where I had scheduled an appointment at the salon to have my brows done. The only crisis was a small one: once I was in the parking garage, I couldn't figure out to unfold the stroller, even though I'd practiced before we'd left the house. Reasoning that not using the stroller, which is just a frame that holds thecarseat, meant that I didn't have to worry about whether I got the carseat back into the car properly at the end of the trip, I tucked Adriana into her pouch and went on my way. She lay quietly on my chest while Jasmine did my brows, and slept while I visited a couple of other stores in the mall. When she started to stir, about an hour after I'd figured she would want to eat, I headed to the mothers lounge inNordstrom . By the time I got there she was asleep again, but I needed to adjust her in the pouch anyhow and I thought that would wake her up. No luck: she slept solidly when I took her out and put her back in. An hour later, as I was waiting in line at the bookstore, she woke up angry that it had been four hours since her last meal. Deciding that carrying a screaming infant all the way back toNordstrom was more frightening that trying to nurse in public, I found an armchair in the store and fed her there. The man in the chair beside mine looked up and nodded at me, but went back to his book, and I think I managed to be pretty discreet (although Adriana is a noisy eater and I am not yet a graceful nurser, so even if you couldn't see any skin, it was quiet obvious what we were doing). Who needs a mothers lounge?

But I'm glad I went into the lounge that first time anyhow. It gave me a chance to sip the cold drink that I bought on my way in, and to talk with another young mom who was there. Her son was seven months old, and it was nice to chat with someone who was relatively new at this mom business but still more experienced than I am. Throughout the trip I discovered that Adriana is a better conversation piece than Zorro (although I haven't tried that on the Metro). Whenever I went into a store the salespeople would talk to me about her, several people stopped to ask me about the carrier I was using, and other moms would gush over her hair and her size (they all thought she was so tiny, until they knew that she was only a month old). I, however, refrained from chasing after a woman I saw heading into the Gap with a stroller identical to mine to ask her how the hell to open the damn thing.