understanding child-led weaning

recently, i was a guest at someone's home, and i was asked to leave the room if i had to feed my son, even though i was planning to use a blanket to cover. for some reason, it's fine for teenage girls to run around in their bikinis at this home, but a mother nursing her child with a blanket over her shoulder is told to hide out in a different room. this just shows how flip-flopped our view of breasts and breastfeeding is! it is truly sad.

it's an unfortunate fact that we live in an over-sexualized nation. the purpose and relationship of baby and boob should be simple. babies breastfeed. breasts are for feeding babies. however, it seems we've forgotten what a woman's breasts are for. in our society, for some reason this is ok:

maggie gyllenhaal in one of many photos she posed in for a lingerie line.

and this isn't:

via http://celebritybabies.people.com

maggie gyllenhaal received a lot of crap for this photo of her nursing her daughter in public.

might i point out, just about the same amount of boob is showing. 

until just breastfeeding becomes the norm, extended breastfeeding will continue to be misunderstood. i don't blame people for not accepting what they don't understand. 

weaning surveys have been shady and not very accurate, but the most reliable number i could find for the common weaning age is 2.8 years, while in some cultures women breastfeed for much shorter or longer lengths of time. [the number 4.5 has been thrown around to suggest a common age of weaning worldwide ... or something... :) but like i said, not very reliable. it is probably accurate to say most children world-wide are breastfed until they are about four years old.] the World Health Organization recommends that a child be breastfed up to two years or beyond, but in america, most babies are weaned between the ages of six months and one year. children who are given the opportunity to wean naturally normally do so between 3 and 4 years. early weaning became common in the 19th century, when women were worried breastfeeding would make them look old or poor. today, breastfeeding beyond one year of age is considered weird to many people.

it was never strange to me, but that's because i grew up around it. my own mom breastfed my sister until she was two and a half years old, and at the same time, my aunt was breastfeeding my cousin until he was nearly three and a half. it was never odd to me to see a toddler breastfeeding. it was natural.

i remember when i was around middle school-age, seeing on a television show a mother in a remote village in africa breastfeeding a child who looked to be about five years old. at the time, that wasn't even that odd to me, just different. it made sense, actually. breastmilk is the perfect, most amazing food, whether the child receiving it is five months or five years. in the midst of the conditions which she was living, where food and water are scarce, why wouldn't she be breastfeeding her child?

what i find amazing is how science supports that breastfeeding beyond the age of two to be more natural than not. the age in which most large mammals wean their young is comparable to five to seven years in a human child. some scientist say large animals are weaned when they are triple their birth weight - this is about the age of a toddler. not only are the ages comparable, but human children also lose their ability to properly suck between the ages of three and eight! 

extended breastfeeding and child-led weaning is not for everyone, and i absolutely don't think a mom is wrong for not doing so! however, while it may seem odd to us here in the western world, it's important that we understand that it's not unnatural, and may actually be best for some mamas and their children. 

sources:

http://www.llli.org/llleaderweb/LV/LVDec00Jan01p112.html

http://www.kathydettwyler.org/detwean.html

http://parenting.ivillage.com/tp/tpweaning/0,,3x0w,00.html
http://www.who.int/topics/breastfeeding/en/

and being around tons of breastfeeding mamas :)

finding more "un-toys"

again, the whole play-with-the-box-and-not-the-toy game. :)

my messy bookshelf

i am really trying to get my apartment to a place where i like it, by decorating while spending as little money possible, and getting rid of stuff we don't need or use... and organizing everything. last month i decided to tackle my book shelves, and i'm pretty pleased with the result.


i wanted to organize the books by color so it would look nice (i know... i know.) but we have so many books that it ended up being impossible. i mean, we have a lot of books. a ridiculous amount. (do we need old college text books and twenty bibles? probably not. but we have them.) so stuffing them in the shelves while trying to make things look simple and organized proved to be a challenge.

before :(

sad bookshelves feel the pressure of their sloppy appearance.

so i made a creative decision, one i was actually happy with! i decided to make curtains to cover the bottom half of our bookshelves, to hide the shelves where the printer, my sewing machine, and the less attractive books are stuffed.

river helping. he did all the dirty work, like re-threading the machine. you know.

after :D

happy bookshelves reveling in their makeover!

organizing by color proved to be the right decision, and putting the curtains up was a pretty good "fake" baby-proofing move, as river pretty much ignores the shelves now. there's nothing hanging out to catch his eye. :)

baby food fun

i held off giving solids to river as long as i could. breast milk is the perfect, most amazing food in the world, and i didn't see any point in introducing solid foods as long as he didn't need or want them. i even had an AP mom tell me, you can't hold off on solids forever! so trusting her five-kids experience and attachment-parenting guidance, i decided it was time to officially incorporate them into river's diet. he is eight months old and loves the feedings, and i feel very good about holding off as long as i did. 


i had no idea how much or how little food i should buy, so i spent a painful $25 on all organic foods, which bought me:


2 sweet potatoes
2 avocados
3 apples
4 pears
7 bananas
1 lb. green beans
2 lbs. frozen peas
5 lbs. carrots


i was starting to wonder if i would actually really be saving money making my own organic baby food, versus buying canned organic baby food, which can run up to a dollar a jar. but seriously, what was i thinking?!? that's a hell of a lot of food.

chopping the apples. i suggest chopping them smaller, so they get more tender, quicker.

after googling what is healthier, steaming or boiling and checking about three websites to make sure steaming really is, in fact, healthier than boiling, i got to work. i expected an eventful, fun-filled day of feeling like a supermom while preparing beautiful, bright, and colorful fresh fruits and veggies for freezing and steaming, but it was actually pretty boring. i found myself standing there staring at the pot waiting for the water to boil, before i decided my time was probably best spent doing something else.

attempting to steam the apples. 

i was feeling pretty optimistic at this point.

i also had no idea how long it took for steaming to actually make the fruits and veggies soft. so after ten minutes of steaming the apples without feeling much change in their tenderness, i just dumped them in the blender and told myself they didn't need to be steamed anyway. 

apples blended with a little water - easy apple sauce, and not just for baby!

the same happened with the peas, but i did want to cook them a bit so they would be easier to blend. i boiled them in about 2/3 cups of water in a wide pot, and added about half of the water while blending. i guess i don't have much patience. i wasn't even going to try steaming the sweet potatoes and green beans. 

local green beans! i was particularly excited about that.

 don't tell river, but i would not eat plain, blended green beans. guh-ross.

roasting is also a great way to soften some fruits and veggies. i roasted cubed sweet potatoes at 400 degrees F for about 20 minutes. 


after blending three apples, 10 oz. of peas, two sweet potatoes, four whole carrots, and three bananas, i had well over 25 baby food jars full of food, and i still had a lot of food left to prepare. looks like we'll be eating some of river's fruits and vegetables. all in all, it was a success.

peas and bananas ready to be frozen. 

each cube in the tray is about an ounce in volume, so with one tray you get thirty ounces of food. i bought four trays just for freezing baby food, and had too much food, so i had to freeze some that night and the rest the next day. after the food is frozen, pop it out and store it in the plastic baggies. we try not to buy too many disposable items (especially plastic), so instead of using zip-lock bags to store the food once it's frozen, i just put it in washed out baby food jars. if you don't have baby food jars, reusable storage containers should work just fine. i'm not even sure if using the jars will work out; it may end up taking up too much room in the freezer.

baby food peas. yurm.

so, bits of wisdom: 


- i really did save a lot of money; however, next time, i will not buy $25 worth of food. that is ridiculous. i'm serious, five bucks - even spent on organic foods - is enough for one week's worth (maybe more) of baby food for an eight month old.


- steaming takes forever. if you do boil, use as little water as possible and boil just until tender (about 5-10 minutes, depending on what you're preparing), because much of the nutrition in the fruit is lost in the water. use a bit of the water you boil with to add to the food when blending. save some of the water left over to add when blending food you roasted or steamed.


- just go ahead and peal the damn sweet potatoes. i left the peals on because "the peals are the most nutritious part!" however, they also didn't blend well, and can be a choking hazard. i spent ten minutes pealing the little bastards after they had roasted.


- don't waste time mashing and freezing the bananas! why oh why did i do this? it's so much easier to just stick a whole banana in the freezer and mash it with a fork when you take it out, and it will save precious ice-cube-tray space (and time).


- make sure the plastic you are using to freeze and store the food is either #1, #2, #4, or #5. all other plastics are toxic and can leach into the food. a baby's immune system and growing brain is more susceptible to being effected by these toxins.




now go make some baby food!

river's toy shelf

a typical day in the life of river.

public breastfeeding

the first time i had to nurse river in public was miserable. we were at barnes and noble and he was just a week old. he was still so little and we were both having a bit of trouble latching him on right away, not to mention he was (and still is) extremely wiggly, which meant modest breastfeeding was out the question. i felt very awkward, and though i tried for a few minutes to get a good latch in a quiet corner of the bookstore, it just wasn't happening. feeling defeated, i went to the bathroom and fed my nine and a half pound baby standing up in a stall. talk about bad back pain.

despite having a great latch, it took about 3 months for the awful, painful sensitivity to go away, and about the same amount of time for me to feel comfortable breastfeeding in public. now i do it without even thinking about it; sometimes with a cover, sometimes without - depending on how wiggly he is and whether or not he's going to randomly pop off and look around the room to see what's going on.

i call myself a silent lactivist. for the most part, i am comfortable with nursing in public and don't think twice about it, but it really took me stepping out of my comfort zone to actually start doing it. because of this, now every time i nurse in public, i feel like i'm taking a stand for breastfeeding mamas everywhere. i've always daydreamed that maybe i would find myself in a situation where i could really, truly take a stand, when it would be easier not to.

it was 10:00 last night when we met some family for a late dinner after my dad and his girlfriend flew in from maryland. river was exhausted. so much for trying to put him on a schedule, because i was pretty much ruining it. we had been there for about thirty minutes and he was past the point of dealing with anyone else holding him, including john. there were only two things he wanted: me, and the boob.

he was pulling my hair, climbing my stomach, chewing my collar bone, growling, and making a scene. i was trying to hold off, but my heart broke a little because he was so tired and just wanted to nurse, but i wasn't letting him. "he's quite the wiggle worm!" my aunt said. i smiled and told her he was trying to nurse.

comments such as,

"oh! well, look the other way."

and, "check please!"

and, "awkward..."

and, "you don't want to do that here!"

started flying left and right as family members realized the "situation". they laughed and joked around about it and i started feeling my face get warm. yes, for the first time in my short journey of nursing my son, i was officially heated over the response i was getting for my baby wanting to breastfeed in public. as if it was weird. as if there was anything wrong with it. john jokingly said, "you better watch it, she'll have the la leche league after you!"

inside my head i was thinking, i always breastfeed in public - why is it different this time? it's his right, right?! i mean, i can't refuse to give my child what he needs just because it's making a few people uncomfortable - right? i mean, THAT'S WHAT I STAND FOR, RIGHT?!

so i did it. i (sort of) confidently whipped out river's light-weight blanket, pulled it over his head, and let him eat right there in the restaurant (gasp!). my family looked surprised (except john of course), and my aunt shrugged and said, "well, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do!"

and everything went back to normal in a few seconds. the conversation was lead in a different direction, and river was quiet, happy and fed. so, true - it was a very small victory, and may not seem like that big of a deal, but i was secretly proud of myself. i had been given the chance to practice my and my child's right to breastfeed in public in the midst of a slightly awkward situation, in front of people who weren't used to it, and i took it, helping spread the news that breastfeeding isn't so weird after all. it makes me want to say to more difficult public breastfeeding situations - BRING IT ON! i'd like to see you stop this mama from nursing in public!

the new mommy light

is it okay to say my son is driving me crazy? i'm not even going to add, "don't get me wrong, i love him with all my heart and i think he is the most precious, adorable child i have ever seen in my entire life," because that's a given (though, i did just add it didn't i).

river has always been strong, active, and advanced in his gross motor skills. this is a good thing. kind of. he sat up, pulled up, and hands-and-knees crawled all in one week, at five and a half months. so while his little friends are happily right on "schedule" with said activities, i was already (quite literally) chasing river around the house. (really, he couldn't give me just three more months of down time?) this combined with attachment parenting (and the teething. and the perpetual "growth spurts.") has been difficult. it's hard to tell people offering their advice that i am not interested in weaning until i know he is ready and absolutely not interested in letting him cry it out. (i could go on about AP, but that's definitely another post for another time.)

i just talked to my mom and told her river was driving me crazy. she asked what had happened, and i said, oh you know. clinging to me, begging to nurse, won't let me do anything, crying when i don't pick him up, getting into every little thing possible, pulling my hair, slapping my face (gentle pat-pat-patting, without the gentle), eating the houseplant, destroying my folded laundry, splashing in the dog's water bowl, refusing to lay still for a diaper change, grabbing the dog's fur. the usual.

this is during the day. at night, he sleeps great for two to three hours, then from there wakes up every hour to nurse, starting with the hour i finally go to bed. it's like a radar goes off: "oh, mommy's going to sleep now, she's available to nurse me as long and as often as i want 'till morning!"

*slaps face into hands*

let me tell you, i have a completely new appreciation for mothers. this is coming from someone who thought she would be an expert. i'm serious! i have five younger siblings, three of whom i grew up with, being the older, more mature (ahem.. bahaha) sister. sometimes they even called me mama on accident! i've worked at daycares, in sunday school, i've tutored and homeschooled, been a nanny, i've even handled 35 children from the ages of 2 to 11 for two hours - by myself! (my greatest feat) - i thought i had done it all. i thought it would be a breeze.

i will say it hasn't been exactly hard. however, lately it has been draining and i often find myself frustrated. we have our good days and our not-so-good days. there are days when he is content to play on his own, sit in his exersaucer, and go three hours between feedings. there are more days when he is clingy and chasing me around the house whining, "muh mum! muh mum! mum!" there are morning when i wake up and realize with an unexplainable joy (yes) that he only woke up twice to nurse. and there are far more mornings when i wake up and beg john to take him to the living room to play so i can get a few hours of uninterrupted sleep.

so today is just one of those days. i have read to him every cardboard book in the bookshelf, we've danced crazy to wild thing by the troggs, and i even gave in and let him watch 11 minutes of a blue's clues episode (i told you i was desperate!); meanwhile i have laundry strewn everywhere on the living room floor, the kitchen is a complete disaster, i need to vacuum, and i haven't taken the dogs out since this morning.

guess i'm seeing this light just before mother's day, so i can give my mom the proper thank you she has always deserved. i don't know how she did it, along with homeschooling all four of us. she most definitely is a supermom.

happy little things

you know, trying to write a post about the past two months really puts into perspective all i have to thankful for. they haven't been without their own struggles and stressful events, but life has really been fun, so it doesn't matter. i don't think i would be able to eloquently and creatively share the simple things that have made life beautiful and eventful recently, so i will say this: 


hectic airports. family that is too far. little sisters. a roadtrip. a beautiful birth. a favorite concert. creating. sewing. organizing. rearranging furniture. simplifying. art events. late night tea with friends. amazing food. wine. new faces. a sweet wedding. and a camera.


i will be back to regular blogging now, (i promise me).

beautiful.