This week was World Breastfeeding Week. The theme was “breastfeeding and work” and you can read more about it on this site here. I’m not a working mom (in the traditional sense) so I can’t really contribute to the theme. But I can tell you a story. It’s how I landed up breastfeeding an older child: my three year old.
When I started breastfeeding, my goal was to make it through each day. I just wanted to keep my baby alive. If I had to use breast milk, if I had to pump, if I had to use formula: well, I did what I had to do.
At about three or four months breastfeeding got a bit easier. We got the latch right. I could breastfeed at night. I could ditch the formula. We found our rhythm.
This rhythm included the sleeping process. The dummy was not a part of that. The boob was the sleep association. I’ve tried a lot of things over time, but it always comes back to this: the boob makes him sleep. So there you are.
I’m not a lactivist. I’m just a mom who wants her kid to sleep. And the boob works. It has other benefits as well, and I’ve written about those before here. I’ve also written some poetry about how I’ve felt a prisoner of breastfeeding as well here.
There are a lot of positive and negative things about breastfeeding but this remains: at the end of a long day of tantrums and peeing in pants Nicky and I can connect in this intimate way. In the middle of the night, when he sometimes wakes up, the magic boob gets him back to sleep. And it calms me down too. Yes, there are times when it drags out too long and I get irritated, but on the whole, I’m glad that we have this. Because I know it won’t be long when he will no longer be asking for his “boobie” and my little boy will really become a big boy.
Until then I’ll cherish these moments with my son.
I am a working mama, no longer breastfeeding. I did it for a year, and then I felt I had to stop, for myself I had to stop. For the two of us it was the right time, because the little one transitioned to a bottle of formula without batting an lash.
I cried for weeks after, it was such a loss of the close bond that was just the two of us. Breastfeeding did not start of well, but it did progress into a rewarding experience.
Working and exclusively breastfeeding takes dedication and a supportive working environment. I managed because I had the help of a good work place, but most are not tolerant.
Thanks for sharing, and hats off to you for making this work for a whole year.
It is such a special relationship. Most of us that breastfeeds an older child don’t start out planning it, it just develops. Mine only stopped at five and a half, and she still sometimes tells me at six and half that she sometimes needs it! 🙂
Well done!
Thanks for the encouragement, Karen!