For the Love of Boob

This "post the colour of your bra" talk bouncing around facebook and links between prolongued breastfeeding and reduced risk of breast cancer, makes me think of my experience breastfeeding Anneka, and makes me wonder what type of a nurser this new baby will be.

I'd say Anneka was a moderate nurser, or a nurser of extremes, depending on how you look at it. Often she didn't want to nurse at all, and other times it was all she wanted; which could average to moderate. In the end, that is approaching her second birthday, she was moderate in the true sense of the word.

She was not a calm babe. When she was very little she would get very upset some evenings, and calming with the boob just didn't work. Swaddling, bouncing and a soother did. Although often a great tool, I couldn't always rely on nursing to put her to sleep. When she was very little she would look around a room, seemingly tracking people, and seemingly preferring this to tucking into mama. As the months wore on, she became more and more distracted; to the point where she would go all day without feeding if we were out and about. My commitment and vision of nursing in public was not as easy to fulfill as I thought. I would take her into public washrooms, but she'd just look around, and try to grab the toilet paper. When visiting in Victoria, I took to dropping in on various friends, just so I could lay in a bedroom with her and try get her to nurse. She was the same with napping when we were out an about. I worried a lot about her getting enough sustenance and getting enough sleep.

On the other hand, she liked to nurse a bunch of times during the night, more and more as she approached her first birthday. Shortly after her first birthday, at the urging of a friend, we decided to try night weaning her (so hopefully both her and I, and Paul too, would sleep better); we thought we would give it a stab. That's how I discovered that Anneka was actually a very good sleeper but had just formed a habit or association with nursing during the lighter stages of her sleep. It was nothing; she could totally handle it. We were lucky, I guess. Were we? For the next year or so, I heard so many moms complain about still nursing their older babies through the night and not getting a good nights sleep, and I couldn't help but wonder if it was necessary. Breast milk is important for growth and development, but so is sleep. This idea was reinforced, when on the morning after first sleeping straight through the night, Anneka gave up crawling completely and only walked, with a big grin on her face.

I wonder how the next baby will be in the night department? Maybe I'll find out why some children night nurse way beyond their first birthdays, or even their second birthdays; probably! Oh well, oh boy!

In Anneka's second year, she went from nursing many, many times during the day (one of those extreme phases) to only nursing morning, noon and evenings. That started with me offering her other options and slowly consolodating those many feeds until by 18 months we were down to the three. I was perfectly happy with this situation. But more and more, Anneka would forget about nursing in the morning, or someone else would be putting her to bed, and the nursing really tapered off. And when she was 21 months I became pregnant. Nursing wasn't so pleasant for me anymore, and she seemed to like it less too. I think she must have been about 22 months, when one evening we were having a not-too-pleasant nursing session, interrupted by some talking, and I said something to the effect that maybe nursing wasn't really working for us anymore and maybe she'd like an apple or a cup of milk. She said she would. And that was it. Unceremonious.

I wasn't mourning nursing, because I was going to have another little precious, helpless thing to nourish with my body, but I was worried about losing the intimacy with Anneka. She wasn't much of a cuddler and it was a time when she'd let me hold her close and cradle her in my arms. To my surprise and total pleasure, the opposite has been true. She became more physically affectionate, giving kisses to me all over my face and burrying her head in my hair. Maybe she needed to keep the intimacy too, and has only grown more and more cuddly. It's so lovely. When she's really ready to get down to business and go to sleep though, she'll always push you away, telling you, point-blank, to "move over" or "go away"! Gotta love her!

So we didn't make it until two, but we came close. I'm satisfied that she's received the lion's share of the good, healthy benefits nursing brings, and, honestly, there is no way I want to go back. I like where we've arrived.

I think so much depends on the child and on the mother and how they are experiencing the world. My mom, who doesn't worry about much and was a 'zen' kind of a mom, in that she just did what seemed easiest, had four different experiences with four different children. I don't know all the details, and I don't even think she really remembers, but I nursed well into my third year (two and something), while my younger sister, to my mom's complete surprise, weaned herself completely shortly after she was a year. She was a very busy little girl and a deep sleeper; maybe that's why?

So I wonder what this next little adventure and this next little person will bring? Of course, I'm different now too. I do know that I am committed to nursing, but I also know, that at a certain point, I'm gonna want and need my nighttime sleep.