Category: Toddler Nursing

Preparing For Forever Weaning

hollymilkowski April 30, 2020

I have two children: one is seven, the other just turned four. The oldest nursed until he was six (plus a handful of times in the year afterward, but I still say his official weaning was at a full six years). The younger one, my current and final nursling, has some time left to go — he’s still going strong! But I’m already thinking about what his weaning will look like, and what affect it will have on our lives.

I imagine once he’s done, he’ll be really done. Based entirely on the behavior of my eldest, M, of course. M talks about “nanoo” fondly, albeit matter-of-factly. He thinks it’s both sweet and ridiculous how much his younger brother falls apart at the seams for nanoo, and is put right again with ease when provided mother’s milk. He offers to take photos of us nursing, either cooing “aww” or rolling his eyes at his little brother’s milk-inspired silliness. Read More

Tips For Breastfeeding Under Quarantine

hollymilkowski March 23, 2020

1. Ease your mind with knowledge.

Thus far, COVID-19 has not been detected in breast milk of infected mothers, though data is still limited. Infectious spread is mainly caused by person-to-person contact through respiratory droplets.

The CDC advises that those confirmed or suspected of having a COVID-19 infection and are planning to breastfeed or are currently breastfeeding should CONTINUE to do so. There are very few medical conditions in which breastfeeding is currently considered contraindicated.

Frequent hand-washing, limiting visitor interaction, and adhering to proper pumping hygiene can decrease risks of acquiring or spreading the virus. CDC recommends infected mothers wear a face mask while breastfeeding, if possible.

In an immediate postpartum setting, follow the infection control guidelines found at CDC.gov.

For archives of updated information regarding C-19 and breastfeeding, see KellyMom.

hollymilkowski February 27, 2019

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Do you hate breastfeeding your toddler?

I actually don’t. Hate breastfeeding, that is. Maybe you can tell from the near-thousand breastfeeding photos I’ve shared on Instagram or the tens-of-thousands of words I’ve pressed into my keyboard about it here. But have I been enamored with every second? Certainly not. My love for breastfeeding is, in my own experience, a synchronized dance that swings along with the lyrical back-and-forth love I have for parenthood.

By now, the days of early nursing awkwardness seem so ancient, I might require a paleontologist to dig up those bones. I’m stuck like a thumb in a door jamb in a progressed era of breastfeeding, one that’s rarely talked about. I’m doing the nursing aversion thing… again. Read More

Nurses, Please Stop Telling Me To Cover When Breastfeeding at Your Hospital

hollymilkowski January 18, 2019

Last week, my youngest was under the weather and we had a brief hospital visit at the end of one very long day.

While sick, he was nursing nonstop. This meant he was still nursing when we arrived at the hospital — him in my arms, feverish, comforted by my breast. Read More

Is ‘Weaned’ in the Eye of the Beholder?

hollymilkowski August 8, 2018

My older son weaned a few months ago at 5 and a half years old. At least that’s how I’d describe his complete lack of requests to nurse during this time. He doesn’t seem to agree however!

A conversation we had earlier today, as we watched little brother J comfort nurse: Read More

Encouragement For Full-Term & Tandem Breastfeeders

hollymilkowski April 17, 2018

🌻 These two milk siblings, blood brothers, M and J. Just over 5 years and almost 2 years old, respectively — the former the same age as my nursing journey overall and the latter the same as my experience in tandem nursing. Such tiny numbers really. Hard to imagine we were nothing and growing and birthing and birthed and empty and nourished more than once over in that amount of time.

M and J don’t like to be separated. Though they annoy each other and feel overwhelmed with the art of sharing from time to time, as siblings do, they prefer each other’s close company. J learns a lot from his big brother (like how to get dressed and sing) and M never hesitates to include J in his activities.

Their bond began when J was in my womb, every day growing stronger until one day he’d feel ready for life Earthside. From age 2.5 to 3.5 years, M watched my belly swell bigger and bigger. He knew his little brother was inside ‘swimming in water.’ He knew J could hear him so he spoke to him often. He said “Good morning!,” and “Good night!” every day for months, with a morning kiss and night kiss (and lots of extras in between).

He saw J for the first time around midnight, about an hour after he was born. I was laying in our bed with J on my breast. M gave J a kiss — a real, live, salty, good morning and good night kiss — right on his freshly born little head.

M had the honor of separating his little brother’s cord. We chose a Sacred Severance ceremony involving quiet, meditation, and burning of the cord instead of cutting. M, his dad, and our doula held candles to the cord in gentle recognition of this significant alteration. M was not present for the birth so this was his special contribution to our welcoming of J into the land of lung breathers.

J has known M his whole life. Though M was Earthside 3.5 years longer, it seems he’s known J just as long. Read More

No More Babies: How I Really Feel (Last Child Grief)

hollymilkowski September 25, 2017

Thoughts at 4 Months Postpartum

I only have two children, and two will be my only. We always planned to have two kids for the usual reasons: financial resources, practicality, health reasons, familiarity, and so on.

This pregnancy and postpartum were much different than the first. I suspect it has much to do with knowing they’ll be my last.

I feel the postpartum slipping away. My youngest is now four months old, which means a little more than a trimester ago he was playing, breathing, wriggling, and listening in my womb.

For these past months I’ve watched my body turn into something blooming and abundant to swollen and rumpling to deflated and limp, stressed from constant demands upon it and weak from the the endless drill of late nights and early mornings. I’ve felt unmotivated to move into a new chapter, for I know once that happens, I won’t get to call myself ‘newly postpartum.’ In my case, not ever again.

This is now the body I’m left with. Rather, this is the body I get to keep. I’ve got more skin than I had before, a herniated navel, and my hair seems to be grieving with me as it sheds like a willow in the fall.

I think I’ll say I’m no longer ‘postpartum’ when my linea nigra disappears. The first time it took a year. I think that’s when I’ll stop telling people “I just had a baby…”

Right now my body is a signpost of declarations that say this shop is closed, be back soon. I know better because my intentions are steps ahead; I know the shop is closed indefinitely. Read More

Four Years Later, I Still Get Nervous Breastfeeding in Public

hollymilkowski September 17, 2017

“Bless you, ma’am.”

“What?”

“Bless you,” he repeated, with a nod toward my nursing baby. “Traveling with your family…”

Then a young woman on the train offered me her seat as I nursed baby Julep again. I smiled and declined with a thank you. She mouthed a silent “Okay,” hands clutching to her heart and a whispered “Aww, it’s just so cute!”

Later a United airline employee noticed Julep in the carrier busy with something. She peeked down at his face obscured by a chubby hand.

“I see you’ve got those fingers in your mouth, huh?” she cooed. “Oh!” She laughed as he moved his hand, revealing a tiny mouth latched to me and leaking breast milk. “I see you’ve got something even better.”

Mostly praise and endearing smiles in reflection of Julep nursing in public…

It Just Needs To Be Said About Full-Term Breastfeeding…

hollymilkowski September 10, 2017

I have two children, an almost 5 year old and an almost 17 month old, who both nurse. They both began nursing just moments after each was born and here we are, still nursing along. I often find myself in the position of explaining this decision (or fate, rather).

Why is an explanation needed and sometimes even demanded from those who choose to do (or simply end up doing) tandem- and full-term breastfeeding?

Now breastfeeding may be less frequent, quicker, less nutritionally vital, more physically active than it was in the newborn days when they had tiny gummy mouths and floppy bodies. Otherwise, it really isn’t much different. They’re the same people they were 17 months and 5 years ago. Still asking to nurse. And one day they won’t.

Continuing to nurse as age advances is no clue that nursing will go on forever, like an evergreen tree of connection to mother. One day, the child will feel differently about this connection and realize the shoe no longer fits. What is the rush or worry until then?

From the looks of many comments on August’s World Breastfeeding Month social media/news threads, it seems there are two kinds of people who weigh in whenever full-term and tandem nursing come up: those who truly fully support breastfeeding and those who don’t (though many kick off their commentary with “I support breastfeeding, but…”). Do the rest just keep quiet to maintain neutrality? I don’t know.

I don’t have the time or concern to respond to or even read every comment/message that aims to preserve the controversy, but I feel it’s necessary to address a few inspired by two videos I recently shared.

Mostly because there aren’t too many tandem nursing, full-term weaning videos and I hope to bust (see what I did there?) some of the myths for other mothers. Also because breastfeeding mothers hear/read these same comments all. the. time. I hope my explanations (not to be mistaken for defenses) will satisfy the wannabe mic-droppers and the apparently ever-curious.

(Links to videos at end of post)

Reasons Why My 4-Year-Old Nurses (His Words & Mine)

hollymilkowski March 17, 2017

Reasons why my 4-year-old nurses — according to him:

1). “It’s delicious.”

Obviously, breast milk tastes good. I’ve heard some adults who breastfed until school age say they have no memories of actually breastfeeding, but they’ll never forget the sweet taste.

At more than 3 years old, MaiTai weaned briefly in the last trimester of my last pregnancy. I really thought he was done. Then my milk returned in full force after baby Julep’s birth and so did his remembrance of the sweet, sugary goodness.

Of course he wanted to test it out, see if it had changed.

(Incorrectly) Assumed Reasons Why My 4-Year-Old Nurses

hollymilkowski March 17, 2017

I think by now we can all agree exclusive breastfeeding is the optimal method of infant feeding. Our society is slowly but surely becoming more accepting (even approving) of breastfeeding (the concept of it, if anything).

But, here’s the thing.

I notice many of us still seem a tad obsessed with HOW LONG a woman and child should breastfeed.

Okay, so you get it, you get it. Breastfeeding is healthy, it’s both normal and best, and breastfeeding in public is perfectly appropriate.

But do you pause when the breastfeeding involves a child older than you’d expect? Do you question whether it’s still good or still appropriate? Do you already firmly believe it’s not? Have you ever uttered the phrase “I support breastfeeding, but…” and concluded with an opinion about upper age limits?

Tandem Nursing Video: My 4-Year-Old & 9-Month Old

hollymilkowski February 9, 2017

Here we are simultaneously tandem nursing my 4-year-old and 9-month-old sons. I rarely nurse them together because it can be overwhelming and aggravating for me — I get touched out so easily.

My husband took a video and I wanted to share it because it is so sweet to watch siblings bond as they nurse together. Holding hands, laughing, stroking each other’s faces and hair… ❤

It is a much different experience than you might believe if you weren’t acquainted with child-led weaning, breastfeeding beyond infancy, or tandem nursing.

For The Breastfeeding Mom With Body Mods

hollymilkowski January 30, 2017

Last year at a La Leche League Conference, a woman held a seminar called “Babies, Breasts, and Body Mods: Where Body Art and Breastfeeding Collide.” Robyn Roche-Paull, BSN, RNC, MNN, IBCLC, LLLL, USN veteran (say all that ten times fast!) was herself clearly no stranger to permanent and semi-permanent body decor.

The room was packed with Leaders, lactation specialists, medical workers, and breastfeeding advocates who all wanted to know: What’s a mama need to know about body art and possible impact upon her boobie monsters?

Roche-Paull’s lecture got me thinking… especially since I’ve had my eye on the prize of a new tattoo since before my last pregnancy, and waiting until weaning years from now sounds a tiny, wee bit torturous.

These days, there’s not such a strong stigma or taboo attached to mothers who have body modifications, but many women find themselves wondering what’s the best protocol for fresh body mods during the lactation period. When they consult their care providers, many really haven’t the faintest clue how to answer.

What exactly are body modifications? Popular types include branding (3rd degree burns to create scars), piercing, scarification (cutting), and tattooing. Here we’ll focus on the most prevalent: piercings and tattoos.

Now a little crash course for you curious body art geeks…

The Logistics and Worries of Tandem Nursing

hollymilkowski September 14, 2016

I have a lot of trust these days.

Mothers in our culture are told she should wean her older child when she’s pregnant (“or else you’ll miscarry!”); that the older one will take all the important nutrients away from the new baby if they tandem nurse; that the older kid should be eating “real” food so nursing is no longer a “need” (as if breastfeeding is alone defined by its nutritional profile); that the older child will never wean on his own.

I was forced to confront the truth-to-myth ratio in these things I really had no idea about. I wondered if I’m doing things right, I consulted with my intuition (and my children because they’re wiser than we give them credit for — and, I’ll admit, online forums and a Tarot deck more than once).

I realized tandem nursing just happens however it does, despite any careful planning or controlling I may have preferred. On a deeper, more trusting level, I know this is happening as its meant to.

I know my almost four-year-old MaiTai isn’t going to bogart all the milk that my newly four-month-old Julep needs. I know it’s okay for me to nurse my older kid in public. I know I’m not the first or last mother to tandem nurse children aged several years apart.

But the logistics of it all… the logistics! There’s no map for this.

The Un-Wean

hollymilkowski May 25, 2016

It hasn’t been long since I wrote my previous post about how 3.5 year old MaiTai apparently wouldn’t be tandem nursing. Well, perhaps I spoke too soon.