I'm very aware of my breastfeeding, as I had a clogged duct for 14 hours on Friday, and am still getting over the pain.
Clearly, this isn't all romance and fun. And I'm no lactivist! In fact, when Mal wasn't even a month old, I wrote a whole post about why Formula-Feeding is awesome. Oh, man, I still feel that way. Almost a year in, with no freedom in sight, it still seems pretty incredible.
But that's not my experience this time, and I'm embracing what is, and I've read and seen and heard a lot of just irritatingly ignorant comments about breastfeeding in the past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd do this here post to combat some of that.
Once again, I'm not telling you you need to breastfeed. I don't care, honestly. I'm all for moms doing what works. And by "works," I mean even if your decision is totally in terms of convenience. I get it! My daughter could have nursed if we'd had her tongue-tie clipped, but I was wary of any further medical interventions. I welcomed the bottle. She started thriving. Yay for whatever! Do your thing. I support you! (And maybe am even a little jealous of you that your partner gets to feed the baby every once in a while.)
But.
Here's a picture, first of all.
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| Yes, his latch is awful! He's also a fat 10-month-old, so I ain't even worried. |
My son cried a LOT as a newborn, and very often, even nursing didn't help. But sometimes it did, and it was the only thing that did, so I offered it a lot. I never leave the house thinking, "Where can I whip out my boob today?" and would really rather find other options, so try whenever it is possible.
That being said, I've nursed a lot of places I'd never have imagined before I had this baby. Like three airports (all three he's visited), most downtown restaurants, several churches (during service), so a doctor could check his ear for an infection, during my own eye exam while the optician was measuring me for glasses. It was probably a mistake to take Mal to my checkup, but I needed to get it done, and I thought he'd be okay with my just holding him. Nope. He screamed and was squirming around... until I popped him on, and he was happy long enough for me to get a new contacts and glasses prescription, and to verify that I do not have glaucoma. The staff was so professional and kind. They might have talked about me later, but to my face, they were amazing.
At first, I was very VERY discreet. When I tried nursing with Daphne, I actually covered her and me because I couldn't get in place without looking, so I needed to be in there with her. With Mal, I started by covering him, then just covering with a blanket the portion of my skin that was showing, and now sometimes I'll cover that skin with my hand so it doesn't scream "breasticles!" But, seriously, I'm feeding my kid. I am kind of over it. I don't feel immodest.
I have come to appreciate that breastfeeding does have a certain elegance. For instance, it's so awesome that it puts baby's face close enough to mom's face that he can see her, even from birth. And that even if I have an off day due to stress or business or whatever, so that I end up eating absolute garbage, my breast milk is magically still perfect.
So, here are some things I've read or heard or thought about recently. I'll address them, then I'll address something I think some breastfeeding moms say that is also ridiculous.
1) "That kid was at least a year old!" Um. So? The World Health Organization says, "Exclusive breastfeeding is recommended up to 6 months of age, with continued breastfeeding along with appropriate complementary foods up to two years of age or beyond." I gave my daughter formula until she was 18 months old. Was that inappropriate? No one who ever saw her with formula at a restaurant chided me or clucked their tongue.
2) "Once they're eating solid food, they get all of the nutrition they need from it."
a) No, they don't. I talked to a doctor once and he said it's not a day-to-day balanced diet you're going for with kids; it's a two-week picture. Well, still... sometimes, we'll have a tired or bad or sick week or so, and there's no way this little kid is getting all of his nutrients from food. Besides, grown people eat a much wider variety of foods, but many still take a vitamin supplement to fill in the holes. That's what formula is to older kids.
b) Breastfeeding isn't just about nutrition. There's an emotional aspect. Sometimes, Mal will be fussy and come to me, want to nurse, suckle maybe four times, then head off again, recharged. It's how he's comforted. Yes, I'm trying to find other ways to help him calm himself, but we're not there yet.
3) "She didn't even try to cover up when he'd unlatch to look around!" I get this, on a logical level. Once the boob is not in the baby's mouth, it seems like it could go back into its packaging, right? Except... have you ever given a bottle to a baby who can feed himself? They might drink 1/4 of it, decide to pay attention to something else for forty seconds, and then come back. What if I expected you to lid the bottle and zip it back up in your diaper bag every time it wasn't in active use? You might think that's different, because it's a bottle and not a sexy sexy titty, but...
4) If you have a problem with the alleged immodesty that breastfeeding causes, then you need to take it up with God (or nature, if you don't believe in a creator deity). Seriously, Christian soldiers! Do you believe that the Lord designed everything? If so, you have to acknowledge that he put the milk delivery system together the way that he did, and even said everything he made was "good," with humans being "very good."
As I was pondering the ramifications of this, I had this mental picture of God leaning over to Jesus in heaven, elbowing him in the ribs, and saying, "Heh, wait until you see where Imma put the milk."
Now, if you're thinking this sounds blasphemous, believe me, I do, too! I thought about making a short film, or even just putting together a meme with Beavis and Butthead, but I really don't want to come off as disrespectful. I don't see my God as a hormonal, immature 14-year-old boy trying to get some lolz from his posse in heaven. I don't think his intention was to be shocking or disturbing when he made mammals. So maybe the problem is ours and we need to get over ourselves?
5) "She didn't even try to be discreet." Like I mentioned, that gets increasingly complicated as they get older. Well, actually, it was complicated when he was nursing every 20 minutes. And "discreet" means different things to different people. Now, my son will look around while he's eating. I try to keep his head close to my chest so I'm not going off in anyone's eyeball or anything, but that's about the best I can do. Closing up shop for him to come right back after he's taken inventory of his surroundings would draw MORE attention to myself every time I struggled with getting it back in place.
6) "They can do that at home." Yes, we can. And we do. I take snacks and food and juice or water with me to restaurants. I try very much to discourage nursing at restaurants, mostly because it takes away from my ability to eat the food we're paying to consume. Unlike when he was little, Mal can't just stay in my lap and nurse, letting me cover him with my food droppings. No. This boy now reaches and kicks and is generally a menace to me if I have to hold him during meals. At home, I often just set him in the floor and let him cry while I finish. I won't do that to you at a restaurant. I'll nurse him if that's what he needs to calm down.
7) "He doesn't need that." Maybe not. But you don't need that cake, and no one's telling you that you got all you "needed" from your meal, and you shouldn't have something else that gives you pleasure.
8) "If she's old enough to ask for it, it's time to stop?" Now that your kid has gone through the hard work of learning to articulate her needs, she's rewarded by a big, fat no? Anyway, who gets to make this decision? Why is it anyone's business but the parents' and the kid's? Oh, because...
9) "I know they extend breastfeeding in other cultures, but we don't do it here, so they need to get over it." Parable: As a society, we treat our aged like garbage. Many Asian cultures revere the elderly. Is it wise or sensible to say, "Too bad; we've decided gramps is a drain on our resources, and if you want to live somewhere that's different, then you should move to Asia. Otherwise, get with the USA program!"
Listen, if someone offered you a resource that was free nutritionally-balanced food for your kid, and you didn't ever have to remember to bring it with you, wouldn't you want to have that available for as long as possible?
When Daphne was just a few months older than Mal, we'd gone to a Christmas light event on Thanksgiving night. I thought I had formula powder in her diaper bag, but I didn't. She wanted a bottle and was letting me know in no uncertain terms. Desperate, I purchased a hot chocolate from a vendor, let it cool down, and put it in her bottle. At least it'd be something milky and warm. But I guess it was still too hot for her baby mouth, and she screamed and cried and wouldn't drink it, even half an hour later when it was actually cool. It was so stressful, and that night ended in one of the biggest blow-ups Daphne's dad and I had ever had to that point.
That won't happen with Mal! I always have his go-to. It's always here. It's a huge blessing!
I promise you, when I feed him in public, it's not my first choice. But also, I'm not really thinking about you. Like, I'm not trying to entertain you or be shocking or anything. If I *am* thinking about you, it's because I want him to be quiet and happy in public, and this is the thing I do before I just take him outside and give up on dinner myself. It doesn't happen a lot anymore, but it still happens. I never head out looking forward to nursing Mal in various locations, though. It's a necessity.
That said, I've heard some moms complain if people, or specifically men, "look at" them. Ehh. I get it. It's not "normalized" (thus the need for World Breastfeeding Awareness Week). It's different. Your eye might be drawn. I don't care. But if I catch your eye, you might want to smile or something so I'll know we're being pleasant. And if you have a son who can't seem to stop looking, tell him to come over and say, "Hi!" to me! Then it's like I'm a real person, not just a face attached to a floating boob.
I hope for my son's sake that he grows up seeing a lot of breasts feeding a lot of babies. Then maybe it won't be such a "hehe heh" thing for him.
Now he's awake from his nap and is surprisingly unimpressed with my blogging. So for now... Eat hearty, me babies!
I'm lucky to live in Austin, where I've never had so much as a raised eyebrow. What about you, though? What are some things that you've heard? Leave them in the comments!
Love this! I'm reading as I nurse my 8th baby. :-)
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