Moms, please share a breastfeeding memory that you have, sweet or funny, encouraging or reminiscing. I know we have some new and expecting moms reading, what do they have to look forward to?
Search This Classical Life:
categories:
in the middle of:
read in 2016:
Paterson, The Great Gilly Hopkins
Sloan, Ajax Penumbra 1969
Mandel, Station Eleven
Elliot, Shadow of the Almighty
Shakespeare, As You Like It
Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saintsarchives:
I’ll start.
With Kate, my favorite nursing memory is how milk-drunk she used to get as a baby, she’d eat and be so smiley and peaceful and lay right down to sleep… it was as if breastfeeding was a magical power or a drug.
With Lexi, reflux made the baby time harder but she is a really fun toddler to nurse. She’s started to ask me to nurse her babies with her sometimes and she carefully tandems with them and makes sure they get enough and talks to them about it. HILARIOUS. She also will stop nursing to look up at me and say “I love you!” Totally worth it!
My youngest nursed well into toddlerhood. I remember once we were sitting on the couch nursing, and then I realized he was eating a cookie, too. Bite of cookie, sip of noonie! *grin*
Well, one thing I like to share with women that recognize the health benefits of extended nursing but have this image of a toddler yelling, “BOOBIE MAMA!” and helping himself…it so doesn’t have to be that way.:-) I found nursing in public with my son as an older baby/toddler so much more discreet than nursing a distracted 6 month old because as he got older he learned to baby sign for milk. Him signing for milk was sweet and discreet. Even sweeter when he started learning words and adding, “Pease?” to his sign. My biggest “breastfeeding was a lifesaver!” moment was probably when I travelled from Australia to the US by myself with my then 1 year old son. He turned out to be an excellent traveller anyway but boy was I thankful to be nursing. I never had to pace the aisles with him during the night like the parents next to us…he just nursed on and off the whole time.
Anyway, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about nursing into toddlerhood but I just have to say it has been very sweet and easy. My son is over 2 now and still nurses a couple times a day and I have a 9 month old who is for all intents and purposes still exclusively nursing so breastfeeding is a big part of my life right now! It’s a good thing.
Right now my favorite moments are when I’m nursing my baby (4 mo) and my 3 1/2 year old comes in, “you feed da baby, Mommy?” And nods his head enthusiastically and then “good job, Mommy!” As if I am a good girl because I ate my dinner all gone.
Later, “Can I feed da baby?” Me: “No, only Mommies can feed da babies.”
Oh, and I might mention – the least favorite part about nursing right now is the SUMMER HEAT. Ech.
I love watching my 2-year-old daughter “nurse” her dolls and even her stuffed animals! I was able to breastfeed her until she was 21 months old (and I was in my first trimester of my pregnancy with our second daughter), so she really remembers it still, I think. I like how she sees breastfeeding as a good and normal way to give our babies nourishment.
Some of my favorite memories are simply the way that they gaze up at me, the way they (my younger two) have stroked my back with their chubby palms, and the hum-y noises they make that tell me how much they love to nurse. :)
I agree–I love watching my daughters (four and two) nurse their babies. My two-year-old still asks to nurse a few times a week; while my current pregnancy has depleted the milk supply, she still wants to nurse for comfort.
I look forward to nursing another newborn. There’s nothing like a sleepy, milk-drunk baby to make you feel great.
I’m also looking forward to the possibility of tandem nursing. If Elly still wants to nurse when the baby comes, I’m all for the idea. There was a time I said I’d never tandem nurse; years later, the idea has grown on me.
Peter regularly brings his dog and pig-baby to me for me to hug and kiss them. A couple of days ago, he got up in the middle of a nursing session, picked up his dog, and held it to my breast.
Hey, I can comment again! Yippee!
When R was a newborn, A would nurse her babies all over the place. She liked to take “nursing covers” to restaurants and nurse her dolls there, and at any given time she might have a doll stuck up her shirt. Too sweet.
And when he was little, R just was the sweetest thing nursing when we could both lie down … he’d put a hand on one breast while he was breastfeeding at the other one. Now he still does that, but he tends to also use my belly button as a hand-grip, which just isn’t quite as sweet …
Oooh, I loved it when both of my girls would gently stroke me with their free hand while nursing. SO SWEET!
Kyrie is currently self-weaning, but we still enjoy sweet nursing moments together. I love it that she asks nicely to nurse (she made up a word for it — “ma”) and then sighs and says “all done” when she’s finished. She also tucks her babydolls under her shirt and nurses them occasionally. :D
I loved nursing Olivia when she was older, though it didn’t last as long as I wished since I dried up in pregnancy. :( She would rub my tummy with her free hand, and it was so sweet. She would also sort of trance out, staring straight into my armpit while she ate. She almost never looked into me eyes. *laugh*
My favorite part of nursing Elise is when she sticks her little toes in my mouth and laughs while she’s still latched on. That’s the one thing that makes her smile the biggest. It totally melts my heart.
I don’t have one memory that sticks out – just the cumulative sweet little things like chubby hands stroking my back while nursing, or the giggles and grins, the humming/contented noises, and other tender moments like these.
I’ve linked to your site – I hope that’s okay.
Oops! Sorry to leave the same comment twice. Yesterday when I tried to comment it said that it didn’t go through. How embarrassing! I suppose I should have read through the comments first. :) Pardon me. :)
I have to many wonderful memories for a comment. I nursed my oldest for 18 months, I was 21 and wish that I had gone longer. I nursed my wee boy for 16 months and wish that I had gone longer. I miscarried rigt befroe getting pregnant with lil miss and now that she is almost seven months it is obvious that I will nurse her longer than the other two…she is my last.
I could never replace the memories, the closeness, te sweetness, and the healthy benefits tat nursing my children has given my entire family. My husband lovesme more for it, my daughters will take this experience with them into their own motherhood, and my son knows what breasts are for and sees them as a source of comfort and what being a momma is all about.
My daughter was born at 35 weeks and could not latch on to nurse once she arrived home from the hospital. We called a LC and went to see her the next day and were advised that I should continue pumping as I had been while waiting for her help and my husband should keep feeding our daughter the bottles of breastmilk. We did this for about two weeks until my daughter was able to move to the next step, nursing with a nipple shield. We were advised that our daughter would probably “wake up” around her due date and be able to nurse from breast. During this entire time, I would offer the breast before pumping and before using the nipple shield, but my daughter would just become frustrated as she still could not latch.
I used the nipple shield for several weeks and really was not upset if I had to continue using it for awhile; this was better than pumping that was for sure. On what would have been her “due date”, we took my daughter out to the grocer store for the first time. When we returned home, she was hungry, so I sat down on the couch with her and waited for my husband to bring me to nipple shield. While I was waiting, I had the flap of my nursing bra undone, but for some reason did not offer the breast this time. As we were sitting there, my daughter just decided to latch on and nurse!! Just like that all of our most dramatic issues were over! She has nursed like a champ ever since and now I am not even sure what happened to the nipple shield.
This small moment was a big deal to me. My pregnancy had been perfectly healthy and there was no warning that my baby would be born ahead of schedule. We had been planning a homebirth, so a hospital birth complete with the special care nursery team was devastating to me ad really shook my confidence as a mother. As the days went by and nursing was going bad, I cannot tell you how guilty and horrible I felt about my first month as a mother. :( Nursing was truly the thing that made me know that things were going to be okay and regardless of what went “wrong” with the birth, I really had done the best I could and had continued doing so by giving my little one the best food on earth.
My delivery nurses were two of my good friends, and we had discussed previously about placing our son on me as soon as possible after he was born, gooey and all. However, an emergency c-section changed that and the nurses whisked him away after a brief glimpse because he was having trouble breathing. I didn’t see him during the first hour because I was being sewn up, but as soon as I went into the recovery room my husband brought him to me. Our son latched on immediately and knew what he wanted and how to do it better than I did! I was really worried and felt like I didn’t know what I was doing and kept asking nurses and the LC if I was doing it right, but I was very fortunate that my son latched on properly right from the beginning. That first moment might just be my favorite so far– we’re at 5 months and still going strong!