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Monday, January 07, 2008

It's Official. I Am No Longer a Nursing Mother

I posted a week or so ago to let you know Emmitt had started sleeping through the night, thus eliminating his last nursing session without any help from me.

At the time, I wondered if that really meant he was weaned, or simply meant he was sleeping through the night. While it had been 10 days since he'd nursed, I didn't really figure I could say he was weaned until it had been "tested."

By tested, I mean until he woke up at night and I had to get him back to sleep.

The last time Emmitt nursed was December 21st. While I got up with him in the middle of the night on December 22nd, when I offered to nurse, he turned his head away and said no. I rocked him a bit before putting him back to bed and that was the end of it. For the next two weeks, he slept through the night all but once. That night Greg got up with him and had no problem settling him back to bed.

This past Friday night, Emmitt woke up at midnight. Greg was still up, so he went in to settle him down.

Emmitt would have none of it. He began pitching a royal fit and started yelling "mommy!" So, I dragged myself out of bed thinking "rats. we were so close!" and headed downstairs to get him.

I walked into the room and he literally dove for me. I gathered him in my arms and he buried his head in my shoulder. Then he pointed at the door of his room and shouted, so I walked out the door. Then he pointed down the hall. So I walked down the hall. Then he pointed to the kitchen, then to the fridge and finally, to the sippy cup of milk sitting on the shelf.

After I laughed out loud, I picked it up and handed it to him. We walked back to his room, sat down in the rocking chair where we rocked and sang songs for a few minutes. Finally, he handed me the sippy cup. I picked him up, gave him a kiss, settled him into his crib and he rolled over and went back to sleep.

WOOT!

We're officially done. :)

I know, I know, if I was a "good mom" I'd be all sad and sentimental and broken hearted that my baby is growing up...but right now, I'm just relieved at getting to sleep for the first time in 18 months. I'll be sad and reflected in another month or so when those continual late night wakings are but a distant memory. ;)

So, that leaves me with some upcoming posts to make.

1.) My "after" thoughts on the weaning process
2.) What I think about 14 months of breastfeeding verses 14 months of EPing
3.) What were the pros and cons of breastfeeding

Probably a few others as well. If there's anything specific you've wondered about or wanted my take on, let me know in the comments and I'll either address them there or put up a new post.

To my readers who are either in process of weaning or preparing to, I'll say this. Plan LOTS of time and lots of patience and know that with a little gentle encouragement, you CAN wean your child without trauma for either of you. You WILL get to sleep again, I promise. :)

Labels: Life as a Mom, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Myth Busting - Average Age of Weaning 4.5 Years

Since I've already been accused (again) of being mean this week, let's also gear up to get me accused of being anti-breastfeeding. ;) (For you new readers, that's called me having a sense of humor. It in no way means I am mean or anti-breastfeeding. I can't speak to the former, but the latter couldn't be further from the truth.)

Moving on...

My friend Anna and I have both found ourselves in discussions recently where someone pulled out that old "well the average age of weaning world-wide is 4.5 years" stat when the subject of weaning came up.

I've heard this one bandied about myself several times, including once or twice during the recent weaner-gate fiasco. To be honest, this "stat" has always really bothered me. Not because I don't think mothers should nurse for as long as they and their children desire (I do), but because this stat gets used as a "you're a bad mother" stat for moms who choose to wean prior to age two (or at all, really.)

For your average American mother who chooses to breastfeed for whatever reason, but does not choose to arm herself to the teeth with stats and studies, or who does not hang out with mothers who practice extended or child-led weaning, this stat sounds crazy.

Here's why.

It says the AVERAGE age of weaning is 4.5.

Let's get a reminder of what average means. To get the average age of weaning, you would add up the ages of every child who naturally weaned and then divide that number by the number of children tallied. The average is the result of that division. For every child who falls BELOW 4.5, there has to be a child who lands ABOVE 4.5.

Now, take a moment and think of the conversations you've had with women who allow their children to wean on their own. If I think of my own friends and acquaintances (online, few folks I know offline nursed at all, let alone let their kids wean at their own pace) most kids stopped nursing sometime between 10 months and 3 years. I can think of a *few* instances where the child nursed until 4, but only one or two where someone nursed past 4.5.

Now, for every one of those children who self-weaned prior to age 4.5, there has to be a child who went an equal amount PAST 4.5.

In other words, there'd have to be a TON of nursing 6, 7, 8 and even 9 year olds running around in the world. In fact, there'd have to be an equal number of them as there are children who wean prior to age 4.

Anyone out there believe that to be true? Anyone?

Yeah, me neither. Which makes that stat sound like a total made up piece of crap to a mainstream mother who is weaning her child at 10, 12, 18 or even 24 months. It also makes the person spouting it look like they have an agenda. (Which they do, and that's ok, but when that agenda makes you lose credibility, it's not good.)

Now, I'm not a fan of using anecdotal knowledge to try and push back on "FACT." (See it done all the time with birthing and it drives me nuts.) So, I wanted to find out what the source of this stat was thinking *maybe* there are enough countries with longer nursing periods going on to actually make up that difference.

There's not.

Neither Anna nor myself knew where this stat came from and when we questioned the people throwing the stat around, we didn't get an answer from them either.

That number is totally, 100% made up.

In fact, I ran across a link today to Katherine Dettwyler's "A Natural Age of Weaning" article. This is the article that the 4.5 number seems to come from, which is funny because even Katherine Dettwyler says the number is "made up."

One often hears that the worldwide average age of weaning is 4.2 years, but this figure is neither accurate nor meaningful. A survey of 64 "traditional" studies done prior to the 1940s showed a median duration of breastfeeding of about 2.8 years, but with some societies breastfeeding for much shorter, and some for much longer. It is meaningless, statistically, to speak of an average age of weaning worldwide, as so many children never nurse at all, or their mothers give up in the first few days, or at six weeks when they go back to work. It is true that there are still many societies in the world where children are routinely breastfed until the age of four or five years or older, and even in the United States, some children are nursed for this long and longer. In societies where children are allowed to nurse "as long as they want" they usually self-wean, with no arguments or emotional trauma, between 3 and 4 years of age.

Dettwyler goes on to explain that she (and others) have spent a ton of time researching the weaning ages of animals (who don't have cultural matters weighing in on weaning decisions) and speculating on what the biological weaning age of children *might* be. They looked at issues like length of gestation verses length of breastfeeding, time it takes to double or triple weight verses length of breastfeeding, even introduction of molars to the length of breastfeeding.

Using those criteria, they decided that the "natural" age of weaning for humans was probably somewhere between 2.5 and 7 years of age.

While that's very interesting information, it's also a pretty big window.

Best I can figure, someone decided to split the difference, arrive at 4.5 and start touting it as a "fact." People heard it, believed it and passed it on.

Now, leaving apart the question of whether or not looking at how long other species nurse has anything to do with how long humans nurse, the reality is this is a completely made up fact that does nothing to promote the benefits of long-term nursing.

We do not help our cause when we "rely" on made up facts. Personally, I'd love to see this stat get tossed out the window and for more women to focus on the myriad of stats we DO have to promote breastfeeding and extended breastfeeding.

Incidentally, if you didn't follow the above link to read Dettwyler's piece, I'd strongly encourage you to give it a read. It's quite interesting on many levels, but also brings up a very important point. Dettwyler points out how few studies actually distinguish the benefits of nursing beyond the age of two. In other words, in studies of the impact of long-term breastfeeding, everyone who nurses longer than two years gets lumped in together. Prior to the age of two, things tend to get broken down into blocks of 1, 3 or 6 months.

Wouldn't it be great to see some REAL data come out that actually looks at the difference between nursing to three years as opposed to two? Or to three and a half as opposed to three? And so on? To really break things down into smaller chunks? A study that examines the composition of milk beyond that second year to find out how the immunities change and what other properties of the milk might change?

Personally, I think it would be interesting information. In terms of the breastfeeding movement, I think it would give CLD and extended nursers some GREAT, factual information they could use to educate nay-sayers about their choices.

To moms who have thrown out that number as a "fact," I'd encourage you to let it go, or at least to clarify how the number came about. To other moms who have had it used against them, here's your info to refute the claim.

And once again, this post is NOT about discrediting breastfeeding or giving reasons why moms should NOT nurse for as long as they wish. It's about promoting the FACTS and not the fiction.

Labels: Lactivism, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Monday, December 31, 2007

What Did You Do with Your Leftover Breastmilk?

Ok, so I've realized I have about 200 oz of breast milk in the deep freeze downstairs. Most of it has been there for a year or more, so it's certainly bordering on the "been there too long to drink" stage. Besides, with Emmitt just now weaning, I don't think I want to remind him of how yummy that stuff is. :)

WIth it being more than a year old, I'm also not sure I'm comfortable donating it via something like Milk Share either.

But I don't want to throw it away...

I found this site with directions for making mother's milk soap, which sounds very interesting. She says it won't go rancid, so it will last as long as you keep it dry. Could be a nice way to use up what's left, though it sounds like the ingredients would set me back a pretty penny. (I have no idea what things like Lye cost.) I'll admit it sounds like a lot of work though. Especially for someone with toddlers running around. (lye + toddlers = VERY BAD)

So I'm curious what you guys did with your leftovers? I don't want to eat it, so I don't need recipes for yogurt or butter or bread. Anything else creative you thought up?

Labels: Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Could it be This Easy? Weaning Update

I've held off posting this for a few days because I have an irrational fear of jinxing things. ;)

But, for those who have wondered how our continued weaning efforts have gone over the holidays (especially now that you know we've all been sick) here's an update.

I *think* (knock on wood, cross your fingers, say a prayer and all that jazz) we may be done.

Emmitt hasn't nursed in 9 days.

As you know, Greg took over putting him to bed the first week of December. We got zero arguments out of Emmitt about this and viola, he was weaned from his before-bed nursing. About every third night, he drinks a bit of milk in the rocking chair with Greg before going to bed, but most night, they just go in and rock in the chair while Greg sings and then puts Emmitt in his crib. This left him nursing only when he woke up during the night.

For most of December, Emmitt woke up once or twice a night. Generally, he'd nurse the first time he woke up and would simply want comforted (i.e. picked up and gently rocked for a few minutes) the second time.) Starting the week before Christmas, he only woke up once a night to nurse and then went back to sleep.

We went to my parents the weekend before Christmas to visit and while there, Emmitt managed to once again get the beginnings of a cold. The first night we were (Friday the 21st) there, he woke up three times, nursing two of them. The second night (Saturday) he woke up once. I went in and got him, offered to nurse and he turned his head away and said "no." Not one to argue, I simply rocked him for a few minutes and put him back in bed.

He slept until morning.

On Sunday night, he slept from 8pm to 7am.

Monday we drove home, took him to urgent care and got a script for his once again raging sinus infection. (ears were clear, yay!)

Monday night, he slept through the night.

And Tuesday, and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday.

Saturday he woke up twice, but since I was sick, Greg got up with him. He rocked him a few minutes each time and Emmitt went right back to sleep.

Last night he slept from 8pm to 9am.

No crying, no fighting and the only refusing going on was from him that last night I offered to nurse.

So I think we may be done for good. (Yay!)

Honestly, I seem to have gotten off pretty easy. Since night-nursing was all we had left and since he's suddenly sleeping through the night, I didn't really have to "cut" any more sessions. Heck, even the ones I did cut, we never got any argument from him over. I simply stopped offering and he didn't miss them. It took about three months total to wean him this way, but there were no tears or torment involved.

(Which seems ironic in light of the heat I took over my so called "forced" weaning of him.)

That said, I did figure we needed a plan for moving forward. Right now, it's easy not to nurse a kid who isn't waking up. I'm not sure how this will go if he does start waking up again.

What we're going to do is start switching who puts Emmitt to bed. Greg and I will take turns back and forth between putting each of the kids to bed. (Right now, he puts Emmitt to bed and I put Nora to bed.) It's been a full month since he nursed before bed, so I'm confident I can get him to bed at night without him wanting to nurse.

Then I'll have to ask Greg to suck it up for a month and get up with him if he wakes up at night. If that goes well with no complains, then we'll start taking turns getting up with him.

Overall, I'm feeling pretty confident though. I think taking things as slowly as we did has worked really well. We also planned it so we'd be weaning between 13 and 15 months. I'd talked to several LCs and child development experts who said there's are several "stages" where kids are more open to having their daily routines changed up and that these are the idea times to wean. Most agreed that between 13 and 15 months was a pretty easy time to wean, but that if you made it to 16 months, you generally needed to wait until 19-22 months for another "window."

Labels: Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Well Now, This is Interesting... (Weaning Update)

Things have been chugging along pretty smoothly for the last two weeks. Greg is still putting Emmitt to bed each night with zero problem (I'm getting to put Nora to bed for the first time in nearly a year, which is kinda fun) and Emmitt is still waking up once (sometimes twice) a night to nurse.

Overall, it's progress. Easy progress I've been pretty happy about.

Last night, Greg put him to bed around 8:30. I was feeling pretty zonked, so I headed to bed at 10, read for half an hour and then went to sleep. Around 12:30, Emmitt woke up and started fussing. I gave him a few minutes, but he started to escalate.

So I came downstairs, went and got him, checked his diaper and nursed him for about ten minutes. He was still kind of fussy, but was done nursing, so I put him back in bed. I sat in the living room and listened for about 20 minute while he fussed on and off. Then he started full out wailing. I headed back in thinking maybe he wasn't quite done nursing.

When we sat down and I offered, he turned his head away. Then he pointed at the door and signed "milk", saying "numah numah numah." So, we went to the kitchen, got a sippy cup of whole milk and headed back to his room. We sat in his rocking chair and he happily slurped most of it down. I put him back in bed and left. That was at about 1am. He slept until 7:30 this morning.

Oh yeah, you read that right. My little boob addict got mad and pitched a fit last night until I DIDN'T nurse him and instead gave him cow's milk. Then he happily slept for 6.5 hours.

So, tonight when he wakes up, I'm going to offer the sippy cup first and see what happens. Again, I don't think it could possibly be this easy, but I can sure hope. If not, that's ok. I've still got more than two months to go before I need to have him weaned. That's plenty of time to ease our way into it.

Labels: Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Monday, December 10, 2007

Two More Steps Forward (with my fingers crossed)

Well, we've still got plenty of time for set backs, but the last week has gone fairly smoothly in terms of weaning.

In fact, Emmitt has gone to bed without nursing for seven nights in a row now.

It started last Monday. I was leaving for Chicago the next day to speak at a conference and was going to be spending the night while Greg stayed here with the kids. I thought it might be a good idea to try putting Emmitt to bed without nursing him, sort of to prepare him for Tuesday night.

We went in and I changed his diaper and got his pajamas on. Then we sat and rocked and I sang to him for a bit. I put him in his crib and tucked his blanket in around him and put an Emmitt sized teddy bear in there with him.

(We'd learned a few months ago that if Greg went in to take care of him in the middle of the night, the fastest way to get him back to sleep was to curl up with him in the spare bed. Emmitt would still wake up several times, but instead of crying, he'd roll over, grab Greg and go back to sleep. So, we thought we'd try giving him something he could cuddle.)

Sure enough, I only had to get up with Emmitt one time that night and it wasn't until 6am. I heard him at 1am and 3am, but he simply fussed for a minute and went back to sleep. My guess is he fussed, rolled over, grabbed "Grommit" and fell asleep again. (Yay!)

So, off I went to Chicago with prayers that Emmitt would fall asleep easily without me on Tuesday night.

Prayers answered.

I talked to Greg on Wednesday morning and he said Emmitt not only went to bed with NO problem, but he also slept through the night!

I was a little worried that since I'd been gone for a night, if I took Emmitt to bed on Wednesday when I got home, he'd want to nurse. So, I took Elnora to bed and Greg took Emmitt.

We've been doing that ever since.

We've had one night in the last week where he didn't want to go to bed and started fussing after Greg left. My mom was here that night and went in. She noticed his night light was off, so she turned it on, picked him up and rocked him for a few minutes. He quieted down immediately, burrowed into her shoulder and fell asleep.

Yay!

He's sleeping a little better at night too. Twice in the last week I've had to get up with him and nurse him back to sleep two times. Every other night, I've only had to get up and nurse him once during the night. (And two of those days, it was around 6am, meaning he'd made it from 9pm to 6am.)

And so, I call it progress. We've still got a ways to go to get him sleeping through the night and to have him weaned and it has taken two months to cut out the bedtime nursing, but we're getting there.

My advice to other moms who are weaning or planning to wean? Plan on it taking time. Lots and lots of time. As much as I want Emmitt to wean and as much as these last few months have been really rough on me (and by association, our family), I just wasn't ready or willing to cut him off.

I planned five months to get him weaned. We're about two months into that. I hope he'll be weaned by the end of the year, but we'll see how things go. If he hasn't weaned by New Years, I'll start using the night time weaning method recommended by Dr. Jay Gordon to try and speed things along a little bit.

Labels: All About the Kids, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Woot! Two Steps Forward...

Waiting on the two steps back. ;)

We're making progress and so far, it's going pretty smoothly. That's not to say I think it will continue this way. I'm sure for every step forward, we're going to have nights that take giant leaps back. But then, that's why I figured I'd need four or five months to invest into weaning.

First, an update on Emmitt's ears.

Things got ugly over Thanksgiving and we ended up having to have the on-call doc call in a stronger prescription for us. That made for three, yes THREE rounds of antibiotics. Unfortunately, he seemed to end up with an outer ear infection as well, so we had to add drops to the mix. We agreed that I'd take the kids straight into the doc's office on Monday morning to have Emmitt's ear checked out.

As it turns out, the ear that had the ruptured eardrum was doing much better. Unfortunately, the other ear still looked horrible. In fact, the doctor said that eardrum was still at risk of rupturing. That meant we needed to kick it up yet another notch. We ended up doing a direct injection of antibiotics.

(On the plus side, he cried for about 15 seconds and then I had him laughing again. That's much better than twice a day scream sessions as we tried to get a teaspoon of liquid and five ear drops in him.)

We'll go back in on Friday to see if things are clearing up. If not, we'll have to do one more round of injections. If so, then we'll make an appointment with an ear nose and throat specialist. The doctor agreed that an ear infection of this magnitude the first go round was pretty darn rare. He said he's rarely seen it happen and when it does, it's usually because there's an anatomical issue. Rather than have Emmitt suffer through a few more rounds of this, we're going to have him checked out to see if there's a need for tubes. Then we'll start making some decisions.

The good news is that despite all this, his mood has been wonderful the last three days. He's been happy and cheerful and a ball of energy. I guess when you've been "awful sick" being just a "little sick" feels pretty good. ;)

I'd put weaning on hold last week as I saw no need to push things when he was clearly upset and in pain. The last two nights, he'd been pretty happy so I thought we might slowly work our way back into it.

Two nights ago, I got him read for bed and sat and sang him some songs. Then I put him in his crib and left. He was quiet for about fifteen minutes and then started to fuss. He fussed on and off for a few minutes before moving on into full blown crying. I went in, he nursed for about 10 minutes and went straight to sleep.

Amazingly, he slept until 4am when he briefly woke up, nursed and then slept until 8am.

WOOT!

Last night, I tried the same thing. Got him ready for bed, sat and rocked with him and sang a few rounds of songs. Then I put him in bed.

This time, he went to sleep.

I was astounded. In fact, I sat rooted on the couch for two hours convinced that if I moved a muscle, he'd immediately start crying and I'd have to go in and nurse him. (I'm weird like that.)

He slept until 3:30, woke up and nursed for a few minutes and then went back to bed until 7:30 this morning.

Amazing.

Here's hoping it works again tonight. We'll have to wait and see.

Labels: Breastfeeding Advice, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

A Point That Many Seem to be Missing...

I've been doing some thinking this week.

Thinking about the whole weaner-gate incident. Thinking about this blog. Thinking about the movement. I've been reading the lectures, tirades and "educational" posts aimed my way by other self-proclaimed lactivists.

...and I've realized something.

This blog isn't for them.

You see, what I'm hearing is that women are up in arms about my comfort level with the idea of nursing my child long term. They're up in arms about my desire to gently wean using "don't offer, don't refuse." But mostly, they're up in arms at my use of the term "lactivist" when it doesn't match up with their own narrowly defined definition of the word.

And I've realized...I don't care.

I don't mean that to sound as harsh or as callous as it does, because I care about these women. I care about any woman who becomes a mother and strives to do the best they can for their child. I want to see women equipped to breastfeed as long as possible. I want to see an environment where those choices are supported.

But ultimately, I'm not sure that's what MY blog is here for.

I've been sitting here asking myself if I have anything left to give to the breastfeeding community with this blog. When I started The Lactivist, it was the only breastfeeding blog out there. Several more popped up in the next few months, but even a year ago, there were only half a dozen of us. Now? There are quite a few breastfeeding blogs out there. I think that's fantastic! But it left me wondering if my time had come to retire and move on. After all, there were plenty of other people ready to step in and take my place, right?

Perhaps.

Then last week's incident showed me something. It showed me that I DO serve a valuable niche and that I DO still have a lot of work to do. That's not to say that many of the new breastfeeding blogs aren't fantastic. They are. But we all have our own styles and our own pet topics and our own way of looking at things. And I think there's still some value to the way I do things.

You see, breastfeeding has long been divided into two camps.

There are the "I'll give it a try and see what happens" and the "YOU MUST BREASTFEED" camps...and there really wasn't much in between.

Without realizing it, I'd been crossing the divide between those camps.

My goal here was to share an honest and open account of nursing a baby and a child. It was to share the advice I couldn't find back when I was an exclusively pumping mom and to share the journey of a woman who had become an ardent breastfeeding supporter without ever having been a nursing mom. Being able to share my experiences over the last fourteen months as I experienced nursing for the first time has been amazing.

Then It Got Ugly

Right now, I'm under attack. I'm under attack by mothers who are upset that I'm not pushing "the party line" of their "Lactivist party." They tell me I should be their poster-mom and should reach every single nursing ideal there is. They tell me it's my job as "The Lactivist" to sit on their pedestal while they check off every achievement on the nursing mom's list of accomplishments. They tell me I owe it to them because they need the support.

Now I hate to be the one to break it to them, but it's not my job to be your poster girl. It's not my job to tow your party line and it's not my job to make you feel good about yourself.

It's my job to advocate breastfeeding and to help mothers equip themselves with the information they need to make it as far as they can. I do that by sharing my experiences in an honest and open manner. I do it by not setting up false expectations. I do it by admitting I'm NOT the perfect mom. I do it by showing that even "The Lactivist" has days where she wants to scream at the idea of her child latching on for their eleventy billionth nursing session. I do it by being "so ready to be done" and yet continuing to nurse until I can gently wean my son. I do it by saying "Holy cow, it was totally worth it!"

Why? Because that's reality for many nursing moms.

The day I stop being honest on this blog is the day I need to close it down. Because the day I stop being honest here is the day I become irrelevant to each and every one of those nursing moms who struggles to do what they know is best for their child while balancing the needs of the rest of their family.

If You're Committed to Child Led Weaning, You Rock! (Even if you don't know it)

If you are a nursing mom who has nursed past two years of age and plans on child-led weaning, you don't NEED me. You may want to have my example, but you don't NEED it. You're already "there." You have already shown more spunk and determination than the greatest majority of nursing moms will EVER manage. You've certainly shown more spunk and determination than I have. That's something to be immensely proud of. It's NOT something to turn into a nice little chip you can attach to your shoulder.

You don't NEED anyone else's approval. Not your friends', not your family's and certainly not mine. You may think you do, but deep down, if you really think about it...you don't. You're strong and you're amazing. And I commend you.

The Internet is a vast place and there are legions of discussion forums these days that will support you. Believe me, I've spent my fair share of time in discussion forums with mothers who nurse well past the toddler years and on up into the early school years. Those communities are out there. If you aren't finding what you think you need here, then go looking for them. They'll welcome you with open arms. They'll fill the void you wanted me to fill.

So who am I here for?

I'm here for the mom who thinks they may want to breastfeed, but isn't sure.

I'm here for the mom who wanted to breastfeed, but wasn't able to.

I'm here for the mom who got kicked out of a restaurant for daring to think her child could enjoy a meal there too.

I'm here for the mom who has found herself EPing and has no idea how to keep going.

I'm here for the mom who thought it was "weird" to nurse a one year old, until her nursling turned one.

(and yes, I'm also here for the mom who thought it was weird to nurse a three year old, until her nursling turned three.)

I'm here for the mom who finds herself with a freezer full of milk her child will never manage to drink and who wants to know about milk donation.

I'm here for the mom who is at her wits end and needs to know it's ok to be frustrated.

I'm here for the mom who wants to keep going, but needs to take care of her family and wants to learn how to gently wean.

I'm here for the father who knows nothing about breastfeeding, but wants to learn to support his wife.

I'm here for the grandmother or grandfather who remembers when breastfeeding was "for poor people and hippies" but did it anyway.

I'm here for the grandmother or grandfather who formula fed and wants to learn how to support their children in a new choice.

I'm here for ANYONE who wants to learn how to promote breastfeeding by educating and uplifting nursing moms.

I'm here for ANYONE who is tired of seeing other mothers be put down for their choices so someone else can feel better about theirs.

I welcome anyone to this blog who wants to be part of a community that's honest and open. One that shares the joys and the pains. That's what I do here. I may not reach your ideals and I may occasionally tick you off. I'm ok with that. Most of my readers are too. If you aren't, then this blog isn't written for you.

And I'm done apologizing for it.

With all that said, I'm done with this topic folks. I'll still be here talking about breastfeeding, weaning, milk donation, lactivism and any number of other issues. I'm happy to carry on the conversation in the comments sections of these posts, but I'm through making posts defending my right to be who I am or trying to explain my position and my reasons to those who clearly have no interest in hearing them.

So here's a challenge.

Hate my blog? That's ok, stop reading. Feel free to tell others to stop reading.

Love my blog? Keep reading and let other moms in on the secret that there's a place to go to learn about breastfeeding and get honest and open support without judgment.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming. ;)

Labels: All About the Site, Lactivism, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

An Update on the Weaning Efforts

Well, still no luck moving forward with cutting out the before bedtime weaning session. As I mentioned, we came up to my parents' house for the long holiday weekend. We got here on Wednesday afternoon with plans to stay until Monday morning. I figured that gave us five nights for mom to try and put him to bed.

A fine and dandy plan, but Emmitt refused to sleep much in the car which meant no nap and a grumpy evening. I couldn't see the sense in adding to the grumpiness, so I went ahead and put him to bed on Wednesday night. Thursday morning he started acting insanely grumpy. I checked and his infected ear was just full of thick yellow mucus. By 11am, he was screaming bloody murder and inconsolable. He'd climb in my lap and immediately hurl himself to the floor, then he'd climb on Greg and scream to be let down. He did the same to my mom. The crying combined with tugging his ears had me calling the Drs office.

The on call doc called me back and we spent about twenty minutes chatting about symptoms and such. The doc said it sounded like he now had an outer ear infection to go along with the stubborn inner ear one. So, he called in a third round of antibiotics and some ear drops as well.

Needless to say, I didn't even try to have mom put him to bed that night.

On Friday, he was doing a lot better, but still not great. He was pretty calm around bedtime so mom took him up. Unfortunately, he wanted nothing to do with her. She spent about ten minutes trying to settle him, but he just kept fussing. (Not freaking out, just fussy) So, up I went to settle him into bed.

We'll see how things go tonight. He's laughing and playing with Greg right now, but he's been pretty fussy today. We're going to put their pajamas on, give him his meds, watch a Christmas cartoon and then mom will take him to bed. I figure I'll probably end up finishing the job again, but we'll see.

Good thing I have three months to wrap this up.

Curious though...I know many of you have night weaned your kids. Care to share how? If I could get him night weaned and could occassionally get some sleep, I'd be happy to keep the before bed session and work on weaning him from that starting at the end of January.

Labels: All About the Kids, Breastfeeding Advice, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments:

Looking for The Lactivist? She's retired. But you CAN still find Jen blogging. These days, she's runs A Flexible Life. Join her for life, recipes, projects and the occasional rant.

Sunday, November 18, 2007

The Long, Slow Wean

So I've alluded to the fact that I'm weaning in a few posts, but I've been so absent for the last two months, you're all sort of in the dark about the process. Now that I've decided to stick around a bit (and have had a burst of blogging inspiration), I figured it was a good time to bring you up to speed.

Cause I know you all log in every day just wondering about the current state of my breasts. ;)

It's hard to believe, but I haven't written about my personal experience or thoughts on breastfeeding since May. If you've been reading here awhile, you probably remember my post called "The Dark Side of Breastfeeding." It certainly got a response from readers. ;)

There's a reason I haven't written about nursing since then.

It's because things didn't get better for me. Sure, I've survived and six months later, I'm still a nursing mother...but the warm fuzzies that were so strong for those first six or seven months have faded.

I am SO ready to be done nursing. I've BEEN so ready to be done nursing. Unfortunately, Emmitt isn't quite there yet.

When I originally started nursing Emmitt, I decided I was going to aim for 18 months. I just didn't think I could pull off two years (outside my comfort zone) but I felt like I didn't really need to stop at a year either. 18 months has always been sort of my mental point at which babies turn into toddlers and while I fully support toddler nursing, it's just not for me.

Unfortunately, around 10 and a half months, Emmitt developed this nasty habit of not quite biting me, but of latching with his teeth. It was horribly painful and I simply could not break him of it. Of course he also still wasn't sleeping through the night, often waking three or four times. Basically, I hit that wall where I started getting annoyed every time he wanted to nurse. I was absolutely, 100% ready to be done.

Of course there was no way I was going to wean him prior to 12 months because I simply was not going to buy formula. (I'm cheap. lol)

So I pushed on. Thankfully the "bite-latch" only lasted about two weeks.

At eleven months, I decided he was nursing enough overnight to justify cutting back during the day. At this point he was only nursing before his two naps, before bed and overnight. He was drinking some juice and water from a sippy cup, so I started offering him a sippy cup with meals. At eleven months, I started putting him down for his early nap without nursing him. Amazingly, he seemed to have no problem with it.

About three weeks later, he fell asleep in the car on the way home from Mango's Place. Since he always took his afternoon nap as soon as we got home, I carried him in and set him in the crib with my fingers crossed. Sure enough, he went straight to sleep with nary a peep.

The next day, I carried him in at nap time, changed his diaper, sang him a song (Puff the Magic Dragon) and picked him up. He arched his back like he does when he's ready to lay down, so I put him in his crib. He went right to sleep.

WOOT.

It was around that time I got a request to go to Tuscaloosa, Alabama for three days to do some in-house training. Of course no one was available to go with me except for mom. That meant I either had to take mom AND two kids, or leave both kids at home with mom. I couldn't see lugging two kids and mom to Tuscaloosa, so I decided to go without him. Of course mom told me she wouldn't keep Emmitt overnight unless he was weaned. (Can't say I blame her.)

The training was scheduled for the Mon-Wed after Thanksgiving.

That gave me two months to finish weaning him.

I hate deadlines.

Why? Because anytime you set a deadline, something happens to make you miss it.

Since we'd successfully managed three full weeks of nursing only before bed and during the night, I figured his first birthday was a good time to try getting him to bed at night without nursing. Emmitt had other plans.

It was right around that time nature decided he should sprout four molars and three incisors. We spent four full weeks with teeth bursting through left and right. There was simply no way I could cut out bedtime nursing when we were having to dose him up with Tylenol nearly every night for any chance at sleep.

So weaning was delayed. Now I was a month away from my Alabama trip. Unless I flat out denied him any chance of nursing, I couldn't see us making it, so I cancelled the trip.

About three weeks ago, I went to visit my parents for a long weekend. The plan was to have her try and get him to bed at night, so I wasn't trying to settle him down without letting him nurse. Emmitt had other plans.

The first night we were there, he started running a fever. Little did I know, that fever would last a full week and would then turn into a raging double ear infection that defied antibiotics and resulted in a ruptured ear drum a week later.

I couldn't bring myself to try and wean him from before-bed nursing when he was suffering from a raging fever and severe ear aches. On the plus side, he only once got bad enough during the day that I had to nurse him to settle him down. (On the bad side there were nights where we were up and nursing 8 or 9 times.)

So here I sit, with a baby who is soon be 14 months. We're two months past when I hoped to wean, but I've promised myself that no matter how badly I want to be done, I'll wean him gently.

Thankfully, I'm heading home to my parents again this Wednesday for the long Thanksgiving weekend. So long as Emmitt stays happy and healthy, we're back to our plan of having mom settle him into bed each night without me nursing him. I'll still nurse him if he wakes up in the night, but we're going to see if mom can get him to sleep.

Please, please cross your fingers and say a prayer for us. ;)

Of course I've managed to end up with a deadline again. I've got an overnight trip (just me) to Chicago on December 4th for a conference.

It's funny really...back when I posted about weaning from pumping, I mentioned wanting to have it all wrapped up before I headed to a conference in Chicago. Two years later, I find myself looking at my first overnight trip (to the same city for the same conference) without Emmitt and wondering if he'll be weaned before then.

That trip is two weeks away. He takes a sippy cup well enough for him to survive one night away from me, but I'm hoping he doesn't make Greg miserable by being a crazy, fussy baby.

I've got two weeks to find out. I'll certainly be encouraging it (with mom's help) but I'm not going to push it.

All that said, my "drop-dead" quitting date is February 21st. On that day, Greg and I will board a plane to London. I'm doing a conference there and we've decided to stay awhile and spend a bit of time in Europe. We haven't really had a vacation since our honeymoon and since our airfare is covered, we figured this was a good chance to take one. We'll be gone for 11 days. Mom is keeping the kids. Emmitt HAS to be weaned by then.

Surely I can pull this off in three more months, right?

Labels: Breastfeeding Advice, Life as a Mom, Weaning

Author: Jennifer Laycock » Comments: