Tag: older child breastfeeding

Nursing Aversion Makes Breastfeeding Confusing

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

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?

In Pregnancy When My Breasts Dried Their Milk Tears

hollymilkowski February 21, 2016

Alright. It’s time I write about this.

About being tired of breastfeeding.

So tired I was hating it. So tired… and no longer looking forward to it. How could all of me feel like “I love him and I love this” and “I don’t want this to stop yet,” but at the same time all of me worried about feelings of “I hate this.”

I wanted to feel normal again; I wanted to feel my breasts cry of milk instead of pain.