Serving doubles at the breastfeeding bar, straight up with a twist of peaceful parenting.
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
I’ll cut to the chase right now: the answer is both yes and (sometimes) no.
It’s been said that breastfeeding is an art. The art of photography highlights the importance of this honest statement about breastfeeding.
Here we begin to view it as the beautiful, innocent, inherently harmonious and peace-giving activity it is (if we don’t do so already). And we notice it’s more than an activity, really. It’s a relationship.
In this way breastfeeding photos (and other art forms) reflect the many nuances involved in the relationship between a mother and her nursling. One that can’t be negated even when a mermaid costume, computer-generated rainbow, endless fields of lavender, or fog machines help set a more surrealistic scene (I know you’re curious, so just go ahead and Google those already!).
The subject matter is the same regardless of the brand of camera that captured it, or whether natural or artificial lighting was used. What we’re looking at is simply breastfeeding.
Breastfeeding photos are always candid and improvised even if attempts are made to pose. If you watch a breastfeeding photo shoot happen firsthand, you’ll understand the only one directing the scene is the nursling! Read More
In Adam’s supposed attempt to ruin mom shaming, he was in truth aimed at ruining breastfeeding.
Why not Adam Ruins Everything: Formula Marketing, or Adam Ruins Everything: Mommy Wars?
The episode Adam Ruins Everything: Why Formula Isn’t Poison (which originally aired on July 9th but you can watch it here) plays much like a formula advertisement. It reminded me of the infamous Similac one that aimed to dupe us into receiving it as some cute public service announcement when really, illusions dissolved, it was just a smartly manipulative attempt to sell formula.
A few questions raised by this episode: is it really necessary to degrade breastfeeding in order to prove formula isn’t poison? It’s true that formula isn’t poison, but can’t this fact stand on its own merit without comparing against breast milk?
Overall, Adam’s episode focuses less about how formula isn’t poison and more about how breastfeeding really isn’t all that great, apparently. The information here is incomplete at best, biased and inaccurate at worst.
Read More
This weekend I attended The Global Big Latch On as a mother, a resource person, and an advocate.
So what’s the point of women and their nurslings congregating to breastfeed together at 10:30 a.m. for sixty seconds? (Most of the kids were latched long before and after, of course). First, GBLO wanted to set a new world record for the most children simultaneously latched to breastfeed, and for the most moms simultaneously breastfeeding.
This popular World Breastfeeding Week event also spreads awareness of all the different ways mothers breastfeed (nursing newborns, infants and toddlers, older kids, tandem nursing, adoptive nursing, wet nursing, with various apparatus like nipple shields or SNS, restricted diet nursing, supplementing, and exclusively pumping mothers were counted for the latch, too).
It intends to encourage support networks for families within their communities during the breastfeeding years and beyond.
I know he is only three and a half. He’s still such a little kid. Next to me, he doesn’t look so little, being more than half my height and all. It’s like that 2012 TIME magazine cover, you know, when Jamie Lynne Grumet nursed her three-year-old, balanced with his feet flat on a chair, and everyone thought he must’ve been graduating elementary school.
MaiTai is an old soul, this kid. But he’s still just a kid, or transitioning to what most people imagine when they think of a school-age child (he’s not quite there yet), and only four years ago he was a floating fetus.
For whatever reason, child-led weaning is controversial in our society (the superstitions surrounding it are unfounded, of course). Many a mother is pressured with interrogation into why her child is “still” breastfeeding, “when are you going to stop this,” declarations of “at his age he shouldn’t be so dependent” and the classic “I’m all for breastfeeding BUT…”
At a wedding one year ago, MaiTai was 2.5 years old and I hadn’t yet encountered a situation when I needed to make him wait to nurse. Some of the messages/comments on the post I wrote about our experience nursing there said he should’ve been able to wait “at his age.”
Really? Are two-year-olds really all that great at waiting for anything? In any case, sure, he could’ve waited long enough for us to relocate to a dungeon or wherever they deemed more appropriate — but there was no reason for me to say “not here, not now,” therefore it didn’t even cross my mind.
There was no good lesson in making my child wait for something he felt he needed — in a moment when I was perfectly able and willing to give it to him — just to prove to overly-interested others that he can hold his shit together.
In this story of a mother and child forced to quit nursing to appease family, the author writes: “Those who had demanded that she wean her toddler didn’t even know what that breastfeeding relationship was; they didn’t know what they were asking; they were ignorant, and didn’t even know what they didn’t know.”
That said… Now that I’m tandem nursing MaiTai and his baby brother Julep, we do often find ourselves in situations in which MaiTai has to wait to nurse.
(Scroll to the bottom of this post for ideas about how to set boundaries).
There are many things I didn’t get about the history of Black Breastfeeding Week, which runs from August 25th-31st. To my credit, I can barely keep up with the history of breastfeeding in general (I mean, the practice does date all the way back to the beginning of mammal-kind).
Prior to looking into the celebration that is Black Breastfeeding Week, I already knew why White Breastfeeding Week doesn’t exist: because all of National Breastfeeding Month is about support and understanding for every last breastfeeding mother, and whites aren’t a minority group.
Note: Before I continue, please be aware I’m no expert in racial discrimination and though I try my best to overcome my own ignorance at any opportunity, I’m a work in progress here. So I ask for gentleness if I’ve unknowingly represented cultural inaccuracies; my heart is in the right place. ❤ 🙂
Way to try raining on our parade with something other than, you know, breast milk — which would’ve been very welcome this week!
There’s a piece circulating on the internet, made popular recently due to the fact that it’s World Breastfeeding Week and August is National Breastfeeding Month (let’s call these WBW).
Many people (even those who aren’t breastfeeding) have been celebrating in different ways. Some haven’t been celebrating because they had no idea it’s a week and month designated to breastfeeding. Or they do know but don’t really care.
And then, some are actively NOT celebrating because they do know and they do care. So much that they publicized their refusal to celebrate. One author who goes by the name of Dr. Amy Tuteur did just that. (Edit: Originally I linked to her full article, but I’m sure it’s received enough clicks at this point).
Now a few quotes from Dr. Amy’s article and what I think she needs to hear in response:
Photo Credit: Sugar Snap Photography
I am not
to breastfeed.
I am not
to breastfeed.
I am not
to breastfeed.
I am not
on top to breastfeed.
We were all proud. We have been proud, actually. So we showed up ready to nurse.
We did it modestly, though not one of us bothered to “cover up.” We did it with discretion, being that we nursed exclusively among supporters — though we wanted to be seen and heard. So we shared our experiences on every format far and wide with a movement of hashtags and brelfies and nurse-ins to prove that breastfeeding can work (more on that in a bit).
We wanted to count; in fact, we made sure we were being counted.
And we broke the standing world record: 14,889 children (simultaneously!) latched on to nurse for at least one full minute on Friday and Saturday all over the world for the Global Big Latch On. I attended one of the Houston events as a local representative for peaceful parenting/Dr. Momma. There, 73 moms and 82 children were officially latched on!
This event kicked off World Breastfeeding Week, for which the year’s theme is “Breastfeeding and Work: Let’s Make it Work!” The idea is to draw attention to issues faced by working mothers who want to breastfeed.
It also reminds of all the things that hope so badly for breastfeeding to not work.
1.) TRIVIA TIME
Post breastfeeding trivia on your social media. Here are a few fun fact categories to start you off:
2). SAY THANKS TO MOMS
Thank a mother for breastfeeding. Put one of these cards in the hands of a mother you see nursing in public — or if you’re the shy type, leave it on the windshield of her car or tell her “I think you dropped this” before scampering off. So long as she gets the message, mission accomplished!
Check out a selection of cards here (Spanish version also available).
