Ever since my hus­band set up this blog for me, I have got­ten a kick out of read­ing the searches that direct peo­ple to my blog.  I get a lot of searches about dairy free breast­feed­ing and donat­ing blood.  I also get a lot of searches about let­down and breast­feed­ing although I have writ­ten very lit­tle on that sub­ject (but plan to do more if it in the future).  The other day, I was look­ing at the search results and I found this one:  “What is the goal in breastfeeding?”

I loved that ques­tion, because I think it is such an open ended ques­tion.  One thing I would sug­gest to the per­son who typed it in is that she (?) ask her­self “What is MY goal in breast­feed­ing?” Breast­feed­ing is a method of feed­ing a baby, but it is also a very per­sonal expe­ri­ence.  It is a rela­tion­ship between a mom and a baby.  There is def­i­nitely a place for a sup­port par­ent (mom or dad) in the breast­feed­ing rela­tion­ship, but the pri­mary rela­tion­ship exists between mom and baby.

There are many rea­sons peo­ple choose to breast­feed.  Here are a few:

• Money sav­ings (even if you sub­tract the cost of a pump)
• Just because I always knew I wanted to
• Breast­feed­ing can help some moms lose weight
• In some stud­ies, breast­milk has been linked to lower rates of SIDS, fewer ear infec­tions, fewer aller­gies, lower rates of dia­betes, lower rates of obe­sity, and lower rates of cer­tain can­cers
• Breast­milk changes in com­po­si­tion over time, so as baby grows, the milk becomes just what he or she needs at that age.  New­born milk is dif­fer­ent than 6 month old baby milk or 1 year old milk or tod­dler milk
• Breast­fed babies’ dia­pers sink less.  Lets face it, poop is poop.  Some is just less nasty
• Palate for­ma­tion
• Less envi­ron­men­tal waste (no for­mula pack­ag­ing or pro­cess­ing, no trans­porta­tion, no energy used to heat)
• It is a way to be with baby and pro­vide for baby when a mom is at work or away for other reasons
• Breast­milk is the stan­dard that for­mula strives to equal.  There are no health ben­e­fits for formula.

If you search for rea­sons to breast­feed, there are lists and lists of rea­sons out there on the inter­net.  Some rea­sons may rea­sonate with you more (Breast­feed­ing decreases both a mother’s risk and the breast­fed daughter’s risk of devel­op­ing breast can­cer) than oth­ers (That’s what breasts are for).  Both rea­sons are true, but I find some rea­sons to be a lot more per­son­ally rel­e­vant than oth­ers.  I am con­cerned about aller­gies, asthma, eczema, and can­cer.  To me, these things are some of the rea­sons I keep on going on some of the tough days.

I also joined the Jan­u­ary Breast­feed­ing Car­ni­val and wrote a post on my own goals for nurs­ing.  These were goals spe­cific to my sit­u­a­tion at the time.  I had a 3 year old tan­dem nurs­ing with a 1.5 year old.  My goals may be dif­fer­ent than yours.  These weren’t always my goals, but they are now at this time at this place in my rela­tion­ship with my boys.

So, I would sug­gest to the per­son who was search­ing for that answer to do her research.  Dig into the research that sur­rounds breast­milk.  Talk to friends and fam­ily who have breast­fed.  Con­sider your own sit­u­a­tion.  The goals that were right for oth­ers are not nec­es­sar­ily right for you.  That is the amaz­ing part about par­ent­ing.  You and your baby work together in a part­ner­ship.  You learn about each other. You respond to each other.  You form a mom/baby pair unlike any other.  Then, you change.  You keep on chang­ing as each of you grows and matures and devel­ops new desires and needs.

Think­ing back to the time before K was born, I can share with you my goals for breast­feed­ing.  Please, God, please let me make it to six weeks.  That was my first goal.  I read some­where that a mom should keep on breast­feed­ing through the first six weeks, because those are the hard­est days.  After that, things seem to set­tle down and it becomes more rou­tine and more man­age­able.  I am so glad that I heeded that advice.  My first six weeks with K were hard.  Once I reached that point, I was able to set a new goal, and I decided that I would nurse him until at least 3 months, then 6 months, and a year.  After that point, my goals became less time based and more behav­iorally based.  Be there for him.  Breast­feed on demand.  Be pos­i­tive even when I didn’t feel positive.

I know I have said it over and over again, but breast­feed­ing is a rela­tion­ship.  When baby is young, the baby’s needs take prece­dence much of the time.  As baby gets older, it becomes an ever chang­ing rela­tion­ship that can be molded and formed to meet the needs of both parties.

So, what is the goal of breast­feed­ing?  To me, it is to meet the needs of my chil­dren in the moment that we are expe­ri­enc­ing. What is it to you?

“Mod­est” and “Discreet”

Those are two words that cause many breast­feed­ing moms to cringe.  Breast­feed­ing is a sen­si­tive topic for many women.  It is also one of those top­ics that can be eas­ily sen­sa­tion­al­ized.  How many tv news reports have you seen about the lat­est breast­feed­ing study, the lat­est for­mula study, or some sort of extreme breast­feed­ing behav­ior?  It def­i­nitely makes news.

It has been mak­ing news quite a bit in North Dakota in the past month or so.  North Dakota is one of a small hand­ful of states that does not have a law to sup­port a mother’s right to breast­feed in pub­lic.  There is a bill which has passed House and is wait­ing to be heard in the Sen­ate.  Great, right?  End of post.

Unfor­tu­nately, no.  The bill which was intro­duced pro­tected a woman’s right to breast­feed in pub­lic and gave women the right to pump on work breaks.  After mov­ing through com­mit­tee and being heard in the leg­is­la­ture, the bill was changed.  It now allows a woman to breast­feed in pub­lic in a “mod­est and dis­creet” fashion.

There are those who think that we should take what we can get.  Not every­one under­stands nurs­ing or nurs­ing in pub­lic.  This might be the best that we can do.  We should sup­port it because some­thing is bet­ter than noth­ing is what they are say­ing.  Unfor­tu­nately, the bill as it stands now doesn’t pro­vide the pro­tec­tion and sup­port a breast­feed­ing bill should pro­vide.  What is mod­est?  What is dis­creet?  Is pub­lic nurs­ing itself immod­est?  Should a mom be required to wear a nurs­ing tank top?  Should the mom and baby have to be cov­ered with a blan­ket?  Should the mother be fac­ing away from the room or any peo­ple who might walk past?  Should the mother be using the bath­room?  Who defines mod­est and dis­creet?  Is it the mother, the busi­ness owner, the leg­is­la­ture, or in an extreme sit­u­a­tion the police?

Let me be clear that while I think the words mod­est and dis­creet are inap­pro­pri­ate for a breast­feed­ing bill, I do not think that women should actively work to be immod­est or inde­screet.  Women should be focused on their babies and the needs of their hun­gry chil­dren.  Breast­feed­ing is not a show nor is it a lewd act when done out­side of one’s house.  It is an act of par­ent­ing and a mother choos­ing to feed her child.

I do not think that the North Dakota leg­is­la­ture should pass some­thing that is as open to inter­pre­ta­tion and unclear as this bill is in its cur­rent state.  It is a dis­ap­point­ment to say the least, and it does not do much (if any­thing) to sup­port moth­ers or babies.

If you don’t want to read about nurs­ing, today’s a good day to take a break from the beau­ti­ful let­down.

First, nurs­ing bras. Who makes these things? Why do they all sag? I have yet to find a nurs­ing bra with good sup­port. Even when I take the lit­tle adjuster things (the plas­tic clasps on the bra that make the straps longer or shorter) and push them over the back of my shoul­ders, I am still not get­ting decent sup­port. I have been wear­ing nurs­ing bras since Novem­ber of 2005, and I’m still unim­pressed. Any suggestions?

Sec­ondly, nurs­ing in win­ter. I need some new win­ter clothes or some­thing. Nurs­ing in clothes that keep me warm is a tough job! Sweat­shirts are too bulky. Some of my under­shirts are a lit­tle too tight. Some shirts don’t work out that well with a nurs­ing tank­top. Sigh… Appar­ently, I’ve been hav­ing apparel issues lately.

Next, falling asleep while nurs­ing. Nei­ther of my boys have ever been the nurse to sleep type. A did for a while, but he stopped that quite a while ago. K never really nursed to sleep even as an infant. I’m not sure if it was the turkey or what, but in the past few days, both K and A have fallen asleep in my arms while nurs­ing. It’s such a sweet feel­ing. They’re just so sweet and pure and loving.

Then, there’s three years of nurs­ing and almost eigh­teen months of tan­dem nurs­ing. After three years of nurs­ing K and about 18 months of nurs­ing K and A, I’m start­ing to feel ready for K to get ready to wean. At this point, I don’t think that I will do any­thing about my feel­ings. If K isn’t ready to wean, I won’t push him. I’ve con­sid­ered lim­it­ing the num­ber of times he nurses in a day, but I don’t think that’s fair to him. If he did it out of bore­dom or habit, I might con­sider it. I don’t think he does though. I think he really needs to nurse in order to reestab­lish a con­nec­tion with me. This morn­ing, my par­ents were up with the boys while Jason and I got a bit more sleep (thanks a lot, Mom and Dad, we appre­ci­ate it). I heard Kael out­side the door at one point ask­ing for “mommy milk.” I heard him ask­ing for me a while later just as I was about to get up. When I came out to the liv­ing room, he said, “Kael needed you. My wanted mommy milk to feel bet­ter.” Now, really, how can I argue with that? I don’t, because I know he’s telling me the truth.

Finally, sup­port. I have the best fam­ily. They are all great about the nurs­ing and tan­dem nurs­ing. My mom nursed me for at least a year and a half. She nursed my brother until he was almost three. She’s always been very sup­port­ive of the boys nurs­ing. She encour­aged me to check out the local breast­feed­ing sup­port group which I have really enjoyed, and she was a huge help when both of the boys were new­borns. She sat up with me and helped me with dia­per changes and burp­ing. WONDERFUL! I know that some peo­ple are for­tu­nate enough to have sup­port when their babies are young, but as the baby grows, their sup­port fades away and they hear “when are you going to start that baby on formula/solds/cows milk?” or “when are you going to stop nurs­ing?” I have yet to hear either of those ques­tions. Of course, my boys both eat solids, but I *never* get asked when I’m going to wean! That means a lot to me. Also, over the week­end, my par­ents stayed here as did my brother and sister-in-law. They don’t have kids yet, so I’m not really sure what their thoughts on nurs­ing are, but I would never have had any rea­son to sus­pect they are any­thing but pos­i­tive and accept­ing. K nursed sev­eral times over the week­end, and A nursed MANY times. In fact, he nursed a cou­ple times at the din­ner table on Thurs­day dur­ing our Thanks­giv­ing din­ner, and no one bat­ted an eye.

I found out today that I have been listed on a list of the top 100 pedi­atric health blogs. Wow! That’s very excit­ing! Thanks, Kelly! I’m #78.

Since I have been hav­ing a harder time think­ing of top­ics related to breast­feed­ing, I was won­der­ing if you have any spe­cific top­ics you want me to write about. My posts tend to be broad and shal­low, so I can go into more depth in an area if there are any requests. Let me know.

Since he was born, A has been sleep­ing in our room. He slept in a pack n play for a while. Then, for a while, he slept with us. Then, back into the pack n play. Last week, we decided to move him into a crib in the same room as K. I thought that it would be a rough tran­si­tion for A. He’s always been a baby who needed to be close to Jason and to myself. I fig­ured it would take two good weeks before we could tell how things were going. Well, he sur­prised us. After a cou­ple ini­tial strug­gles, he has done just won­der­fully. He nurses. Then, Jason takes him to bed where he lays down and falls asleep. K has been strug­gling with the tran­si­tion more though. Unfor­tu­nately, I think this came at a bad time for him. He’s also at a stage where he’s kind of ready to start potty learn­ing. He’s not able to get through the day with­out a nap, but if he does take a nap, then he strug­gles to fall asleep. I think that hav­ing both of those things to deal with and this tran­si­tion of A mov­ing into his room has been tough on him. Poor guy. I’ve been try­ing to give him some extra love and mommy time. He has ramped his nurs­ing up, too. Now, I just have to laugh at my wor­ries a few months ago that he wouldn’t still be nurs­ing at 3. I think he nursed 5 or 6 times yes­ter­day, and 3 or 4 today. Some­times, I won­der if A will wean before K.

Yes, I know that sounds silly. I’m sure a lot of peo­ple I know read my blog. When I started this blog, though, most of the peo­ple who read it were online friends or peo­ple who just hap­pened to stum­ble upon it some­how or were mar­ried to me. Tonight, I was talk­ing to my friend, Erin, and she said that she met some­one at a craft show or fair that had heard of her prod­ucts from my blog! She tried to describe her to me, and I’m won­der­ing if it was Crys­tal, but I don’t know for sure. Was it you, Crystal?

Most of you who know me know that I’m always up for a good par­ent­ing, breast­feed­ing, or most any other topic dis­cus­sion. In fact, last night, a friend told me that she thought I would do a good job work­ing for QVC as a host of one of their shows! She said I could just sit and talk about any­thing!!! I had a good laugh over that one. So, my point is that when I started this blog, it was an out­let for some of those thoughts that other peo­ple get sick of hear­ing. Not every­one in my life wants to talk about breast­feed­ing and blood dona­tion or why I choose to nurse a 3 year old and a 1 year old or the lat­est breast­feed­ing book or blog that I came across. There are lots of thoughts in my head, and some­times the audi­ence for these thoughts just isn’t there, so it’s times like those when I let it out on my blog.

Lately I’ve been think­ing that I need to spend more time writ­ing about nurs­ing, tan­dem nurs­ing, extended nurs­ing, and other thoughts on those top­ics. This is a breast­feed­ing blog, right? I just seem to have a writer’s block in that area though. I told Jason tonight, the rea­son that it is harder for me to write about nurs­ing now is that it just is. What do I mean by that? Both K and A are nurs­ing reg­u­larly. They’re both nurs­ing well. They are both able to get what they need, and I am able to feel like my bound­aries and needs are respected. I don’t feel like I have any angst to share with you about this!

I sup­pose that could be a topic in itself, right? Tan­dem nurs­ing for almost 16 months, and nurs­ing for 36 months straight, and happy with my choice and how things are going. (Ter­ri­ble gram­mar and sen­tence struc­ture there) So, it’s likely that I will be spend­ing less time writ­ing about nurs­ing and other nurs­ing issues for the time being. Maybe if Baby #3 rolls around at some point (in the dis­tant future), I will have more to say about it again.
Until then, how about a pic­ture of K tan­dem nurs­ing Baby Ellie and Mr. Monkey

Nurs­ing Baby Ellie and Mr. Monkey

to tide you over?

Wow! I never thought that K would actu­ally be a 3 year old. I also never thought that he would be a breast­feed­ing 3 year old. When he was born, my ini­tial goal was 6 weeks. Then, I thought 3 months would be doable. After that, I decided to fol­low his cues.

K has always been a child who needed a lot of phys­i­cal con­tact. He likes to be held. He likes to hold hands. He likes to climb into my lap and play. For him, I think that nurs­ing has been more about phys­i­cal con­tact and recon­nect­ing than the milk. Of course, he likes the milk. When I recently went on a week­end trip, I left frozen milk pri­mar­ily for A, but I think that K drank as much as A did. Some peo­ple crave Coca-Cola. Some peo­ple like milk or water or beer. K LOVES a glass of “mommy milk.” In fact, the first time I gave him a cup of pumped milk, he stood in the kitchen and chugged it. When he was done, there was milk run­ning down his face. Jason and I were laugh­ing so hard. Now, if I’m going to be gone at bed­time, he’s on the look­out for a glass of milk.

I have got­ten some looks and some unsup­port­ive com­ments about my choice to 1) nurse K for almost 3 years and 2) do that while tan­dem nurs­ing A (15 months). If I’m hon­est, I think that it makes me sad more than any­thing else that peo­ple think that there’s some­thing weird, wrong, or odd about our choices. I don’t think that every­one should or can nurse for 3+ years or tan­dem nurse. I just wish that peo­ple would real­ize that it’s an option and it’s not as crazy as it sounds.

Wel­come to the Sep­tem­ber Breast­feed­ing Car­ni­val! Thanks for vis­it­ing, and be sure to read all the way to the end of my post so you can visit oth­ers who have shared their thoughts on Learn­ing to Breast­feed.

When I was preg­nant with my first child, I knew I wanted to breast­feed. I did some read­ing. I searched the inter­net for what I felt were infor­ma­tive arti­cles. By the time my breast­feed­ing class at the hos­pi­tal rolled around I felt pretty con­fi­dent. My con­fi­dence increased when I went to the class. She didn’t tell me one thing in an almost two hour class that I didn’t already know! I knew I was going to be able to do it. As a sort of insur­ance, I found a breast­feed­ing forum/message board and asked if there was any­thing else I should do to be pre­pared or informed. The answers were pretty run-of-the-mill. “Just keep on going!” “Don’t let any­one talk you into quit­ting.” “You can do it!” I knew that I was set.

When K was born, I had a bit of a sur­prise. Maybe shock is a bet­ter word. He was born nearly 4 weeks early and he wouldn’t latch. He looked at my breast. He half-heartedly opened his mouth. Then, he fell asleep. What?!? This wasn’t the plan. He was sup­posed to know what to do, because I had done my part to get informed about breast­feed­ing. Well, after three days in the hos­pi­tal, we were dis­charged. I had a nip­ple shield and a baby who ate for 45–60 min­utes every 3 hours. Not exactly fit­ting my plan.

For­tu­nately, my mom had breast­fed both myself (for around 18 months) and my brother (for nearly 3 years). She was an amaz­ing sup­port. She kept telling me, “Trust your­self. You know best. You know what is right for you and your baby.” She got up with me for the mid­dle of the night feed­ings and held K after­wards until he had his burp and could fall back asleep. She vis­ited with me when I thought I was too tired to do another feed­ing. She was won­der­ful, and that was a major com­po­nent for my suc­cess. I am sure of it.

When she left and I was home alone with my baby, I began to doubt myself, so I went back to the mes­sage board where I had asked for help so many weeks prior. I began post­ing ques­tion after ques­tion after ques­tion. I got won­der­ful sup­port, and I got great infor­ma­tion. There was one per­son in par­tic­u­lar on that mes­sage board who I still feel a debt of grat­i­tude toward. Her name was Joan, and she was a mod­er­a­tor of the breast­feed­ing forum. Sure, other peo­ple would answer my ques­tion, but I didn’t feel like I had the real answer until I heard from Joan. Over the weeks and months, I gained con­fi­dence, and I also gained a friend­ship. Joan is still one of my close on-line friends. She and I have kept in touch over the past few years, and when a friend of mine had a baby who had nurs­ing trou­bles (over­sup­ply and over­ac­tive let­down, some­thing I knew very lit­tle about) Joan was avail­able over the phone to help her out, too. I also began read­ing www.kellymom.com dur­ing any spare moment I had. I loved that web­site. It was so easy to nav­i­gate and so easy to read and under­stand. It is where I got the bulk of my early breast­feed­ing knowledge.

Almost two years later, when I had my sec­ond son, I was pretty con­fi­dent again. I had been through so much with K that I thought I should have it under con­trol. But, as almost any­one who has breast­fed knows, every baby is dif­fer­ent. With A, I had dif­fer­ent issues, and again I turned to www.kellymom.com and a sup­port­ive on-line com­mu­nity to help me get through the first weeks that were tough.

Now, I’ve been nurs­ing K for almost 35 months, and I’ve been tan­dem nurs­ing K and A for 14 months. I feel like each day I can learn some­thing about breast­feed­ing whether it be from a book, a web­site, a friend, another nurs­ing momma, or one of my kids. I think it’s one of those things where you can keep learn­ing more and more, but I’m not sure that you can ever say that you have “learned to breast­feed.” To me, it’s a jour­ney more than a destination.

Check out these blogs for more thoughts on Learn­ing to Breast­feed (updated through­out the day):

• BreastfeedingMums.com
• Breastfeeding123.com
• Hobomama.blogspot.com
• Breastfeeding.blog.motherwear.com
• KateWicker.com
• Babyfingers.blogspot.com
• StopDropandBlog.com
• NurturingNotes.blogspot.com

I think over the course of the next sev­eral months, I will prob­a­bly be chang­ing my blog top­ics up a lit­tle. When I was breast­feed­ing K fre­quently or when A was born and I was feed­ing both boys fre­quently, I felt like I had a lot more to say about nurs­ing specif­i­cally. Now that they’re get­ting older, it’s just some­thing that’s an every day part of our lives. It just is. I don’t think or worry about it too much. We’ve got­ten over most of the hur­dles and pit­falls. A is sleep­ing bet­ter, and K has kept up his 2 a day nurs­ing rou­tine for the past few weeks.

Some of the top­ics that I have become more inter­ested in lately are healthy eat­ing, green liv­ing, cook­ing, exer­cise, and expand­ing my read­ing reper­toire. Maybe I’ll fin­ish a book (with­out read­ing the end­ing ahead of time) and do a review of it. Who knows?