All I need to keep breastfeeding my toddler.

When Desmond was five months old I managed to slip away one afternoon with out him.  I was a new size again, and I wanted to go shopping. I called my best shopping friend and she took me to the mall, the biggest mall, the one that makes me the most lost ever. It was a cold day, but it felt like spring, and we ran through the parking lot with no jackets on.

The reason why I remember this so vividly is because we were talking about breastfeeding. Desmond was almost 6 months and I was proud that I had made it to this milestone. I told her I definitely planned to keep nursing for at least a year ...Maybe even two. She was shocked, but only a little bit. She asked me sincerely, could I handle that kind of responsibility to my child for two ENTIRE years? At the time it seemed overwhelming to me. Five months had felt like forever, already. Could I really make it two years?

At this point I guess I can't answer that question. I'm only 15 and a half months in. But over these past 15 months things have only became easier relative to our rocky start. When I am honest with myself, I realize I have only grown to love it more. Every hurdle we meet we approach with an open mind and then we stride over with such ease that I think maybe we were meant to keep doing this a little while longer.

This past December, Desmond was 13 months old. We were celebrating Christmas with our extended family and, of course, I was nursing him. I am most comfortable nursing away from my family and, of course, no one said anything to me about it. It was almost laughable how I felt it bubble up inside me, the need to justify it to those around me.

There are so so so many reasons to justify breastfeeding a toddler. More than any one person could spew in a minute or two just to fill awkward silence. BESIDES, I said too loudly, my doctor told me to go all the way to two years old!* --cue nervous laughter and shifty eyes--

The truth is, I don't need to justify it to friends, family, or strangers. I don't need you to like it. I've done the research and I know it is what's best for my son and best for me, and that is all that I need to keep going.

Four hundred and seventy one days of breastfeeding, and no reason to stop now. 

So cheers to all the moms breastfeeding toddlers right now, are you reading this blog? How old is your nursling?

*My doctor did recommend we breastfeed until "at least" 2 years old, for a multitude of reasons, but mainly THIS.

He was refusing to breastfeed. What was I to do?

My baby refused to breastfeed at four months old. Was he trying to wean? 

I love breastfeeding my baby. Now that we have been doing this dance for over ten months, I can look back on our steps and see the areas where we lost our footing. Where we had become off-beat. How I was steadfast and determined, I simply didn't see any other choice and so I dug my heels in, turned up the music, and kept dancing, even if I didn't know what the dance was supposed to look like.

There have been moments where I was exhausted, confused, raggedly looking into the eyes of my friends and desperately pleading for a moment of sanity thinking - "Am I doing this right? Is this really how it is supposed to go?" Not knowing that when it comes to breastfeeding - and babies in general - there really isn't a "supposed to" about it.

When Desmond was four months old he woke up. That is, he realized he could see the world and couldn't tear his eyes away from it for one moment, not one. He only wanted to be held high enough to see over our shoulders, or facing away so that he could look look look at everything.

q u i e t n e s s

This made breastfeeding very hard. Friends would come to visit us and he would squawk, hungry like a tiny bird. I would gently bring him to my breast and he would hungrily root and latch. And then immediately become angry and arch his back away. Partly? This was a learned behaviour from the reflux. But mostly he did not want to look away from the world. He did not understand that snuggling into my breast meant he would no longer be hungry.

This was more than just a baby bobbing his head into the breast. More than just a baby pushing and pinching the breast. Those actions are signs of hunger often misinterpreted.

This was a baby, my baby, full on refusing to take the breast and suck or feed. This was a nursing strike. At a very young age.

I didn't know at the time but we were going through was something many women go through. At my LLL meeting, mothers saw him squawk in hunger, mothers saw him angry and refusing to be turned into the breast, angry at the suggestion that... maybe he'd like to eat? They offered their sympathy, they offered to help any way they could. Their eyes told me - "It's going to get better." As I packed up a finally full, finally sleeping baby to drive home in wintery darkness, Leaders would put a hand on my shoulder and thank me for being determined, for coming to the meetings. "Keep coming," they'd say.

Obviously I was petrified to leave my house to go anywhere else. How could I go to the grocery store? How could I go to the bank or the mall? My baby would become hungry, but what it took to feed him was at least a 15 minute ordeal that involved a lot of crying, a lot of that very screamy baby screaming that we call Code Red around here. And I was unable to juggle the two of us in any discreet kind of way. I couldn't very well plop myself down in the pickle aisle with my breast out and struggle with my screaming baby for 15 minutes. I wish that I could have, but people today wouldn't understand. Because What would people say? They would say breastfeeding is only okay if it is discreet. Right? We tell mothers No!

Not if a she needs to sit down on the ground and pull down her v-neck and leave it that way and THEN somehow finagle the L O U D E S T infant into quietness just so that she can get some fucking groceries, god dammit. No, not the mothers who really need it, not the mothers who are struggling. They can't be discreet so they are NOT OKAY IN PUBLIC.

There were only two things that I knew for sure in those days:

1. A four month old baby is not trying to wean. A four month old baby has no concept of those things. 
2.  A baby can't be distracted if it is already sleeping. 

And so we became very good at putting the baby to sleep without the breast at all. We wore Baby D and walked until he slept. We held him in our arms and danced around the livingroom until he slept. We held him to our chests and bounced gently on the exercise ball, humming and shushing, humming and shushing. Until he slept. And he would cry. But then he would sleep.

He sleeps.

Once his lungs were quiet and his eyes were closed, I could bring him to my chest and he would latch and he would suck and he would eat and eat and eat. And he would sleep. And I would visualize and take deep breaths, anything anything to get that letdown to come as fast as I could. Rushing rivers, gates opening, waterfalls of milks. Breathing deeply, my hand on his tiny head, celebrating; my baby is q u i e t.

We had cracked the secret code. And so all day I would feed him after he fell asleep. If he would fuss during a nap, I would lay beside him and let him eat. I would feed him again as he woke up. He started eating more over the course of the night to make up for the days. I didn't mind. Babies need to eat, and I wanted to feed him. I would breastfeed him anyway that we could make it work.

Every day it became easier until at one point - it stopped. He started making the connection and the dance became so much smoother, we were more than comfortable taking time-outs from the world to nurse. And then it was just gone. I can still remember the first day that he was happy and excited to breastfeed every. time. And I'm so grateful that I powered through that rough patch, that nursing strike, to emerge on the other side.

Now? Six months later I am even happier. This dance couldn't be any easier.

Breastfeeding is a crazy (wonderful) thing.

You know, breastfeeding is a crazy thing.

Forget the fact that it is a hot-button issue these days. Forget that it is often disrespected and women are shamed for nursing publicly. Even forget the fact that people who don't understand it, often, for some INSANE reason, sexualize it.

Just think about how, for thousands and thousands of years, it was the only choice. It literally IS how our species has survived infancy since the beginning of our time. Wow. Not only that, but think about how truly complex and fantastic our human bodies - our mammal bodies - are for being able to not only create and store milk, but to transfer it to our babies in such a loving and comforting way.

Before I go any further, I want to make a disclaimer. I want everyone reading this to know how I feel about breastfeeding and mothers who do otherwise. There are no hard feelings here - and I want to stress that we all love our babies and we all share, cultivate, and bask in this love in meaningful ways no matter how we feed them. It is true that, unfortunately, some mothers have more success than others. But to all of you who have put a baby to breast, who have breastfed at all - think back to the calm quiet moments, even if those moments can be so few in those early weeks. Think to yourself - My body made colostrum, my body made milk and I gave it to my baby. I did that! 

Breastfeeding Then.

Maybe it is just that, in all my life, I had actually never considered my body's potential in this way. In the last decade of my life I have noticed a very profound appreciation for my body's potential in many different ways. I could jump, and climb trees, ride my bike pretty fast. I could swim fairly well. I rode horses and ran races and drank an obscene amount of alcohol in my early twenties. My body was great.

In the last four years of life, my appreciation grew deeper. I started sharing my poetry. And people other than me liked it! I met a handsome mandude who taught me how to view each experience as an opportunity to see art and creativity. I went to burning man and experienced a real community, a life lived without fear of judgement - FOR REAL - for the very first time. I realized that the most single important and incredible thing that we could do as humans was to create. We can create something from nothing at all - a painting, a poem, a novel, a dance, a warm moment, a hug, a crazy wild experience - from nothing but the pit of our minds and maybe a bit of legwork. My body was amazing.

And then I became pregnant and I realized that, though we both had a hand in it, I was completely on my own in growing and creating this tiny little life inside me. I couldn't help but ponder, as it squiggled around in there, how fantastic it was that I had a factory inside me for making more of me. I felt very connected to the women who came before me, who had carried the beginnings of humanity. I could sense the juxtaposition of how far we have come laid against what has not changed, will never change. But mostly I ate. And grew. And ate and grew, and the baby did, too, and my mind expanded along with us. This is crazy, I thought. I made a HUMAN BEING with thoughts and preferences and an idea about the world someday. And I'm going to push it outta me and then what!

Breastfeeding Now.

And then what? I started breastfeeding. And my baby emptied my colostrum. And my baby brought in my milk. And then, through those first days, that haze so thick with love, and soreness, and obsession, and sleep deprivation, and love - it struck me. Breastfeeding is so intricate; a mix of hormones, knowledge, support, instinct, circumstance, confidence, and science. Breastfeeding is at once complex and natural. It is so easy and perfect and yet at times it can be a struggle. And you know? It wasn't all easy for me, and I think it is okay to be honest about that, but I grew to love it. Ultimately, I was sustaining human life. An entire life, outside of mine. I was nourishing his every need with my body. This blew me away. Here he was, my son. And we could lay, stomach to stomach and doze. And he was being fed.

And then I realized. Our bodies are good and amazing. They are fantastic and spectacular! And breastfeeding is a crazy (wonderful) thing.

Happy World Breastfeeding Week.