Happy World Breastfeeding Week!

This week is World Breastfeeding Week, and I've been seeing SO much great stuff out there in cyberspace. The Leaky B@@b on facebook has been a great resource for touching guest blogs, poems, statistics, and more. I recently read an amazing article a friend posted (shout out to Autumn!) regarding how NORMAL breastfeeding is. Here's the link if you are interested: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=101949363196728&id=134844053221572&ref=mf What I found especially wonderful about this article was how it points out how truly biological breastfeeding is. Its hardwired into us. Boobs were put on us to breastfeed, not to be ogled and sexualized. Humans have evolved into what we are today as a perfect design for survival. We should not fight against our nature. Our babies want to be held so they feel safe, they want to be breastfed so that they can be nourished both physically and emotionally.

We too, as mothers, are emotionally nourished by breastfeeding as well. And lets not forget the physical benefits (lowered incidence of breast cancer being my favorite). As our children get older, we can sometimes feel tied down, or irritated by their seemingly constant nursing. This feeling can be greatly magnified when we're pregnant. I forged through my pregnancy with Will nursing Ryan the whole time. If you've done it too, you know what I mean when I say there were times I wanted to throw Ryan off me and just walk away. Breastfeeding through pregnancy is HARD, to say the least. But, I made it. Will was born, and once my milk came in, and my nipples were red and blistered (Will had a very tiny mouth) and covered with lanolin, Ryan decided it wasn't for him. He would ask all the time by either signing for milk, or more often making a noise that sounds similar to a sputtering engine, or a machine gun, but once he saw what his milkies looked like, he wasn't interested. It even became a joke to him, pretending to put his mouth on my nipple, and then pulling away at the last second and laughing. It broke my heart.

It had been our special relationship for the past 22 months. Ryan almost exclusively breastfed until he was around 14 months, when my milk started waning from the pregnancy. It was something he used for nourishment, for comfort, for sleep. And now it was suddenly a joke to him. And he was teasing me. Asking all the time, but never actually nursing. I cried every day for at least a week about it. I knew he still needed it emotionally, which was why he was asking.

Two weeks after he stopped nursing, Ryan yet again asked to nurse. I sighed, and unhooked my nursing shirt and to my utter amazement, Ryan latched on like it was completely normal. I was thrilled! I cried happy tears. I called my husband. I latched on Will and snapped a picture with my phone. I had been planning on tandem nursing, having my boys hold hands while they nursed - and when Ryan went on his nursing strike, that seemed like just a dream. Now it was happening! I knew it was so precious, as Ryan could again decide to abruptly wean.

Now Ryan nurses just as much as his baby brother. He's cut down on his solid food intake and gained a pound in two months. I have more milk than baby Will can handle sometimes. I know that when Will gets older, and nurses less so will Ryan. And being that Will isn't much of a comfort nurser, my prediction is that Ryan and Will will wean around the same time. But for now, I'm fulfilling Ryan's emotional needs by breastfeeding. I'm letting him know that Will has not taken his place. I can still comfort him when he gets hurts, so often as 2 year olds do, I can still calm him down when its time to sleep. And at the same time, though I can't quite explain it, I'm fulfilling emotional needs of my own. The first few days after Will was born, I didn't see much of Ryan. Even though Will was born at home, he and I spent a lot of time alone, while my husband, mother, and mother-in-law took care of Ryan. They played with him and fed him. My husband put him to bed for the first time, that night Will was born. I remember crying to my husband saying I didn't feel like Ryan's mommy anymore. Over these past 2 months Will has been a part of our family, Ryan has grown so much. He's more confident with strangers and shows more of his personality. I'm so proud of him. But when he comes to me with his funny sputtering engine sound, and then open and closes both hands to sign "milk", I know I'm still his mommy - and always will be.