Meee-ilk! Peas!

Yes, my daughter is going on 18 months and we are still nursing. That's her asking for the milk- "Mee-ilk peas" as she signs for "please." It's so cute, even if I wanted to turn her down, I couldn't. Long term nursing, and breastfeeding in general, is a somewhat controversial topic. I've been nursing for 3 out of the last 3 1/2 years, nursing my first daughter until 19 months and this daughter until... I don't know when. It's not as bad as it seems and not as weird either. Here's a little perspective.

I love the above pic. I have been thinking about a post for a long time called "nursing sutra." I think I just made up my own term! Basically it's when your beautiful little baby grows up but is still nursing and tries to do all kinds of crazy acrobatics while attached to the milk source, i.e. the nipple. In this pic, Leila is literally folded in half, feet on my tummy, drinking milk. She starts out in some sort of cradle hold and ends up like this or something worse about 30 seconds later. Awesome, especially if you are me. Abuse! It all started around 10 months with both my daughters. I have had headstands, one leg up in the air, upside down and even a couple flips off of the nursing chair (as seen in pic). But it's all worth it and for a total of about 5 minutes a day now, I think I can handle it.

Here is another one:

She is totally standing up on my stomach and bent over to drink milk. Can I catch a break?

So here are some great things about long term nursing........

• Continued bonding time even as child grows
• No pressure about weaning for mom or child
• The amount of time nursing gets drastically shorter as the child begins eating more and more table foods
• Great part of the bedtime routine

My favorite of these is relief of pressure about weaning. I feel like that is something that nursing moms fear many times- I know I had a moment where I felt really confused about how it would all shake out. With my first daughter, Sofia, I became pregnant when she was 15 months old. I didn't notice a drastic decline in her interest just because I was pregnant, we were already headed in that direction before that. We nursed less and less. If she asked for it, I said ok. If she did not ask for it, I didn't offer either. It was very peaceful for both of us and I was happy with how it gradually ended. I don't know how things will go with Leila, as she is a bit more of a momma's girl than Sofia ever was. She definitely loves her mee-ilk and still asks for it 2-3 times a day. As she may be my last child, I don't mind. The bonding I have experienced with both my girls through breastfeeding is priceless and I would do it over in a second.

If you are with child or hope to be, please consider breastfeeding your child.

If you are already breastfeeding- awesome! Don't freak out about long-term nursing just do what feels right and don't worry about what others may think. Wean only when ready.

Glad I could share a little piece of my "nursing sutra" with you. Please tell me that I am not the only one with a child who does this?

I heart breastfeeding!

That is what I am talking about, kid!

Leila is 11 1/2 months now and we are still nursing. And I love it. It is in my top 5 when it comes to all things pregnancy/baby related, right up there with feeling the baby kick in the womb. Leila isn't nursing a ton, we are down to 5 times or so during the day for a couple of minutes each time and maybe once at night. My favorite time is right before bed. It seems like life never slows anymore and nursing is the perfect thing for Leila and I to go and do to settle down before bed. We nurse laying down and I rub her little leg or back and kiss her head. My body still calms as I nurse which is awesome for me- the best medicine after a sometimes stressful day. Being able to nurse a child is just beautiful and so special. It's cool to look as my girls before they had had other foods and think, my body made the milk that nourished this body. It is awesome.

Speaking of breastfeeding, I recently read an article in the New York Times that I thought to be very profound and had nothing but good stuff to say about breastfeeding. The article is called The Breast Milk Cure by Nicholas Kristof. In the article Kristof suggests that breast milk, a free substance that already exists and doesn't need refrigeration, could be the answer to worldwide hunger-related deaths in children. The article states that in Niger only 9% of babies get only breastmilk for the first 6 months as suggested by the World Heath Organization. In America it's 13%. Kristof states that misconceptions that some mothers have such as thinking that babies need water outside of their breast milk (and then giving their child water that is potentially unsafe) is part of the reason that babies all over the world are dying unnecessarily. A statistic that absolutely stunned me was that, according to a British medical journal called The Lancet, 1.4 million child deaths could be averted each year if babies were properly breastfed. That is one death every 22 seconds. Wow!

For complete text see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/opinion/23kristof.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=breastfeeding&st=cse

Baby, you got it right- breastfeeding does ROCK!