Why do I Breastfeed in Public?

      This picture fits this post perfectly!

Because my baby needs to eat of course! While it has become that basic of an answer for me I realize that it is not that basic of an answer for a large majority of society. So in honor of world Breastfeeding week and because I have been asked a few questions about it lately I decided to share my feelings on it.
I have been asked by a few friends, how I became the way I am, why do I openly nurse my baby in public, how do I deal with the stares or the dissenting opinions, and especially when some mom gets shunned nursing in public (and it gets broadcast all over the news) my friends seem to flock to me on my thoughts. And I have to say that I love that because it gives me another opportunity to educate.
When I hear negative comments about breastfeeding in public, most of what I hear is a lack of education, and a few self centered people that are unable to turn their heads but mostly it is a lack of education on the true system that is the breastfeeding relationship. So today I hope to enlighten, since it is not possible to contradict every statement that people make to discourage breastfeeding I will share my reasons for doing so.

1) Breast is Best- If we truly feel that Breast is best, than we have to stop creating barriers for mothers to achieve this goal. We tout water as being the best possible source of hydration for our bodies, so imagine if someone said you must drink it, but please drink it around the corner and under a blanket. I highly doubt that  so many people would be drinking it. The same goes for breastfeeding, moms are isolated enough, especially stay at home moms, so if you isolate them again when they go in public, breastfeeding doesn't look so appealing if you are continually shunned. The more it becomes common place I can assure you our breastfeeding rates are going to rise.

2) I support Breastfeeding in public as long as its in a bottle or if you cover up- I hear this alot, first of all my son won't take a bottle and refuses to be covered so what do you expect him to do? When I hear the first part about a bottle I quickly realize this person is not educated about the supply and demand make up of breastfeeding. When a baby asks for milk and the mom offers a bottle instead that suppresses the hormones in the moms body, telling her body, it's not necessary to make milk. The more you give a baby a bottle instead of the breast, the more you threaten the moms milk supply. I won't even attempt to explain the inconvenience of trying to find time to pump, and then having to carry around expressed breast milk, when you have it right on tap! In regards to covering up I lead you to point #3

3) Breastfeeding is like Riding a bicycle- If you had never seen anyone ride a bicycle, it would be hard to know what to do, when you get on. The same goes for Breastfeeding, it is an art, and girls and boys (the future supportive husbands) need to see how it's done. So many Women complain about not being able to Breastfeed because they have never seen it done!

I could go on and on but for me, these are my three main motivations. Breast is best with no barriers, Don't mess with Supply & Demand and Breastfeeding is an Art that must be seen.

Breastfeeding my boys in public, has been a process for me. I have had to deal with society's thoughts on it and put that together with my thoughts on Breastfeeding and decide for myself what was right. At the end of the day, my baby is what matters and if he is hungry I will feed him, no matter what.

When we let others Perceived Opinion affect our Parenting

Ok I admit it, I have parented my child based on what I thought others wanted me to do, not based on what I wanted to do or what I thought my child needed. And if you know me you know that I'm a pretty determined person who does what I want usually regardless of others opinions, but I too fall victim to the stares and my perceived opinions of what others think of my parenting. And if I fall victim to this type of parenting what about those that haven't quite resolved what type of parent they are and are continually changing their parenting based on who is watching them.

For those that are a parent you know what I mean?! You are at the park and your child hits another child, or throws a stick at them (I know it's not just my child that does this, but in that moment you feel like the only parent this has ever happened too!). Now if im in a group of mothers that advocate letting kids work it out or just letting things go,  I'm more likely to be calm (really upset that my child isn't being gentle!) but address the situation with my child and work to correct the behavior. But I have also been with parents who are less gentle and who advocate a firmer discipline than I am comfortable with, but my child has hit their child so I feel this need to discipline in a way that they would deem fit, because after all my child hurt theirs and I am embarrased that we are even having to deal with it (Oh I know I'm not the first mom to be embarrased and just wished it could have been someone elses kid that day!).

I have pondered this subject alot and to be honest, It just makes me mad at myself when I allow others to affect my parenting in a way I don't want it to. Whether that be the mom that I perceive wants me to be lackadaisical or the parent who wants me to be a harsh disciplinarian.

 Now you will notice a pattern in this article, I am in no way blaming the other moms, because they have not stated to me how they expect me to discipline, I am just making up my own scenario and we all know that that is no way to parent, and even if we know what they expect, it is NOT about them. It is about OUR Children. It is our job to raise them, teach them, guide them. So as a parent who wants to do the best for my children, I  have decided that we as parents need to stop worrying about what others think of our parenting and how we handle our children, and start worrying about what our children think of our parenting. Because we are not accountable to those that judge our parenting we are accountable to our sweet children and our Heavenly Father who has entrusted us with these Children, to love and respect them.
So lets start making parenting about our children.

When Those you love and Admire give you Advice that Goes Against your Intuition



I Love Playing with this little Boy!

How many of us have heard, “Well my Mom told me, so it must be true”. As a mom I would like to say that yes everything I do for my kids is perfect and right! (ok stop reading now if you think I’m right!). These past couple weeks I have had some interesting experiences that have gotten me thinking. In life we receive a lot of advice right?! We often know who to listen to and who not to listen to! But what happens when a person you completely respect and admire and has good advice, goes against your intuition or what you think is right in a particular situation?

E is three so he is Preschool age. I have been doing Joy School (if you don’t know what it is check it out!) this spring but his Joy School friends will be going to a more traditional Preschool this fall. Neal and I have debated back and forth about what to do with E. And usually after Neal and I debate back and forth, we look for outside advice (because it takes a Village), usually my MIL. No Neal doesn’t ask her, I do. I love my MIL (in fact she will probably read this post). I have nothing but love and respect for her and I often go to her for advice before Neal does. It does help that she is a director of a preschool and has a degree in Early Childhood development, which I guess as a mom I could find intimidating but I don’t. I love having her as a resource and I reach out to her as much as I can. So this past week I took the boys to California and asked her opinion about Preschool, i.e. No Preschool, Joy School by ourselves, traditional Preschool. We talked and she really likes the idea of traditional preschool, it would really help E with socialization. But while we were talking I felt my intuition and I knew that unless we could find a new Joy School group, E wouldn’t be going to traditional preschool.  After lots of talking to Neal and then her, I got my answer even though it was different from her advice. I don’t think he’s ready. We need at least one more year if not two to still be together, play together, have unrestricted, unstructured time to just be and just play. He may not be the perfect sit in your seat boy in Kindergarten (if we don't choose to homeschool) who is already reading when he arrives, but he will figure it out quickly enough. But let me tell you while we were talking I was so conflicted. I love my MIL, I completely value her advice and she knows and loves my son, so I should take her advice right? No, not always. It is advice, not a firm decision. That is the blessing and the curse of being our children's parents, the decision rests with us, we can ask for advice but we must ultimately make the choice. We are our children’s advocates, we are the ones with them every day, learning and growing with them, we have been given the intuition for them and even when it is hard we must stand up for them and do what is best for them.

My sister had a baby last week in the hospital and after the baby was born, my sister’s boyfriend went with the baby to be washed. While the nurses were washing her, my sisters boyfriend said they were pretty rough and he wanted them to stop but he figured they knew what they were doing, so he just let them. Yes it is true that babies are resilient, but does that mean we need to treat them with less care? I told my sisters boyfriend that he is his daughters advocate, that she cannot talk yet in life or voice her opinion so even if the nurses who know everything are not doing something you like, speak up, speak up for your daughter and be her advocate.

I don’t know everything as a Mom unlike what I said in the beginning, and I may make several mistakes (ok more than several!) But I truly want what is best for my kids. And sometimes that means taking someone’s great advice and other times that means listening to my strong intuition.

When we don't feel any Intuition

E Showing his new brother some Love

 

Being a mom can be so complicated. Should I do this or that? There is so much riding on our decisions! And it seems that everyone is watching us and our kids and if we make one wrong move, we are toast! Ok maybe not that severe but man it can feel like that somedays. That is why I am so gratefull for my intuition, my natural instincts to guide me in my child raising. But what happens when we just don't feel anything, no intuition, just clueless? Yes this has happened to me on more than one equation. Many times it has to do with my toddler's sleep. There are a million reasons your child may not be sleeping well and sometimes I don't even know which direction to venture to even start figuring it out. So what do I do in these situations? I take a deep breath and call upon my village and tell myself that it is ok to not have every answer!

I really think it does take a village to raise kids. At the end of the day it is up to us to make the final decision and to implement what we have learned, but before we can do that we need to learn. We need to call upon those that have done it before, our mothers, our mother in laws, our grandmothers, aunts, sisters and fellow moms. I also read books by the experts who know and love children. But sometimes after trying all of the advice from others and we still don't have an answer I resort to love, just loving my children through difficult phases. We are learning and growing through this world together. Sometimes we don't know what the problem is and neither does anybody else, but there is one thing I have learned as a mother is that this too will pass and our kids sometimes just need some love to get through this difficult phase. We will feel better as mothers when we share our love and our children feel better when they feel loved. Sometimes we don't have all of the answers and that is ok, but we always have love and I am confident that my children will not fault me for not being perfect but will be grateful that they felt loved!

Westin's Birth- It was hard work!

As I hold my two week old baby, I am not sure where to begin, but I know that I need to, before all the memories fade ( as I know some already have).  Actually after this birth I am convinced that women should write several birth stories. They should write one the day of ( as if we have time for that) and then one at a week and then 2 weeks and then maybe at 6 months because I feel like each day that passes I process it differently and I am able to have a new perspective. Overall isn't that what birth is all about helping to change and transition us into mothers, each day we continue to have a new perspective and insight into motherhood.

                Westin's birth story starts on April 24th, I was 37w1d and it also happened to be his dad's birthday and the day his dad said he would be born! I woke up at 3am to contractions but was eventually able to go back to sleep, when I woke up in the morning they were still there but hadn't changed. I went about my morning and noticed that they didn't increase but didn't change. I decided to call my midwife to give her a heads up and she decided to come over and listen to the baby. All was well and she felt like this was it. I decided to rest all afternoon and gear up for a baby that night, but the contractions never geared up and the following morning I woke up with no baby.

                For the next 3 weeks the contractions would come and go. They would start in the evening around 5 or 6 and last till I fell asleep. They would still be there when I woke up and would last until mid morning and then I would get the afternoon off before they started again. We had a couple nights that they revved up and had us thinking once again this was it but I always seemed to fall  asleep and wake up to no baby. I tried walking, we had sex, I visited my chiropractor. I explored the idea of homeopathy but ultimately I knew that this baby was going to come when he wanted to. The hardest part was the mental exhaustion, I worried I wouldn't recognize true labor and that my midwife wouldn't make it in time. I had lots of self doubt that my body would never kick into real labor. There were lots of days that I really was frustrated with my body and just really exhausted, I was tired of questioning each contraction and whether or not this was it.

                 My due date  (May 14th) and luckily I had been pretty tight lipped about the date, mostly just telling people the baby would arrive sometime in May, because seriously how many babies arrive on their dates? I really think we should just provide a range. On his due date I felt extremely exhausted. I laid on the couch all day and just let my son Emmett watch movies, finally I called my husband Neal and asked him to come home early because I just had no energy to do anything. I kept thinking this must be it, my body is resting before it starts labor tonight but no such luck, I woke the following morning once again with no baby! It is Tuesday May 15th exactly 3 weeks from when my Prodromal Labor started. I had a midwife appointment that day and I finally felt a clarity of mind. I remember telling my midwife that I trusted my body and I knew that it would kick into gear at some point and that I had survived this Prodromal labor for 3 weeks, what was another 2? I knew this baby was going to arrive by 42 weeks so I could survive another 2 weeks. I definitely still worried if my Midwife Rebecca would show up in time and I had slight fears about the baby not showing by 42 weeks but overall I had resolved myself that my body would figure it out.

                That afternoon I found some energy and decided to take my son to the beach. We also took one of his friends, who lives about 3 blocks from the beach, so I put both kids into the wagon and walked them to the beach. I must have been quite the site, pulling a 2 yo and a 4 yo in a wagon and being 9 months pregnant! One guy did stop me and say "wow you have your hands full"! But overall the walk and getting out felt great compared to my lack of energy the day before! I started having contractions again at the beach but what was new? I was used to this and just ignored them. We had a great time at the beach and then headed home for a bath and dinner. The contractions stayed but honestly felt no different from any other night so I ignored them. My husband had been wanting to go to the movies and honestly I think just needed a night off, the Prodromal labor had been a lot on him too, but he had been keeping everything together for me, which I really appreciated! After about a week of saying he was going to go to the movies by himself, his friend finally texted him and asked if he wanted to go. So after he put our son to bed he headed off to a 9:40 movie.

                I decided to go in and go straight to bed, knowing he wouldn't be happy if he came home to me not asleep, he was always worried I wasn't getting enough sleep. I laid down and noticed the contractions and wondered if tonight might be the night, but then again I had asked myself that for the last 3 weeks. By about 10:30 I noticed they were stronger. One thing I learned from this prodromal labor is that the frequency didn't matter. When they got so strong that I couldn't lay down then that's when it was the real deal. During the past 3 weeks I was always able to lay down through them, some I had to breath through or move my legs but I could lay down. At 10:30 I really didn't want to lay down, so I walked around for a couple and then forced my self to lay down, but half way through the 1st one I had to get up, this was the real deal! But I still was hesitant to call anyone. I think by  11 I decided to call my midwife, I could still talk through them but I couldn't lay down. She started to pack up and said she would call before she left to make sure they were still coming strong. I then frantically started searching online to see how long the movie was that my husband was at, I really didn't want him to have to leave in the middle, I could stick it out till the movie was over, but come to find out it is a 2 hour and 40 minute movie! He wouldn't be done till at least 12:20 and then another 15 minutes to get home. All the exact timing is pretty hazy but I remember willing myself in 15 minute increments to wait on calling him. I finally called my midwife back at 11:30, I couldn't wait for her to call me back. I told her if this isn't labor I was checking myself into the local hospital in the morning to get induced!! She knew this was it and was on her way. I got my birth ball and lit a candle and dimmed the lighs and turned on my favorite birth song and just soaked in the quiet moments by myself, knowing how special this quiet time was and secretly grateful that my husband was at the movies and at the same time so desperate for him to come home.

                In between contractions I typed him a very unalarming text message that he didn't need to leave the movie early but that things were progressing and he needed to leave as soon as it was over. I kept willing myself to wait until 12:20 when I thought the movie was ending but finally at 12:15 I couldn't wait anymore and decided to send the text. He wrote right back and said they were on their way, I had timed it just right and the movie had ended right as I sent the text. He then wrote and asked if I called Rebecca(our midwife)? I wrote back and told him that she was on her way. He told me later that he knew then that this was game on!

                Neal got home around 12:45 and we kicked into high gear getting the house set up. Rebecca showed up around 1 am. My in-laws showed up around 1:30 to pick up Emmett. I knew he would wake up if we kept him home and I knew that he wouldn't be happy to see mommy in pain so we sent him off with my father-in-law. My MIL Kaye stayed to watch the birth and my SIL Shelly showed up around 2am to film the birth. I have always regretted not having the entire labor and birth recorded from Emmett's birth. With everything in place I was able to really focus on the labor. With Emmett's birth I had been really focused and really private, I didn't want anyone's help. This time around I really wanted to include Neal more and really rely on him and his strength. The labor could not have gone better in this regard, I loved really relying on my Husband and his strength and his support, he rubbed my back when I needed him too, he got me water when I needed it and held me when I just needed a reassuring hug that I could really do this.
               

                The labor was really uneventful. I labored on the edge of my bed and then got in the tub. Oh the water felt so good! I didn't want to leave. At about 4am I felt something warm and told my midwife that I thought my water had broken, there was a little bit of vernix in the water so we thought it had broken. At about 4:30am my body started to naturally push and I really tried to open my vocal cords so that my bottom would open, it felt good to do that. After a while I checked myself to see if I could feel the baby but he still seemed pretty high up. My midwife then suggested I get out and try to go to the bathroom. I really needed to pee but didn't want to get out, but agreed anyway. When I got out my legs were so weak that there was no way I could make it to the bathroom. I started crawling around and then just peed right on the floor onto a pad, yup I did! I was then able to crawl into my room and leaned up against the bed in a squatting position but the pushing became unbearable, yes extremely painful that I started resisting it, I knew I was close because I kept saying " I can't do this Anymore" but I still didn't feel like my baby was low enough yet. I felt the urge to push but I didn't feel a baby. After a while with no progress my midwife coaxed me to the toilet so that we could try and get the baby to descend. I managed a few contractions on the toilet and then wanted off. She then suggested the bed, so that she could also check me and verify I was 10 cm and that a cervical lip wasn't holding things up. Like I said earlier laboring on the bed is beyond unmanageable my whole body wants to shoot out of bed, but I managed to lay there and let her check me. I was complete, with no lip but the baby was still high ( my first son was too at this stage, I guess my babies just stay high until I shove them out.) I rolled over onto my side and then I seemed to get a break, everything stopped and I rested. My midwife kept encouraging me to roll over and off the bed so I could try squatting again but I just ignored he,r there was a break and I was taking it, I just laid there completely still and then a contraction hit and I agreed to roll over and off the bed.

                This time while squatting I finally felt a baby coming down and the amazing pain that comes with it. Yes I said pain. For me the pushing stage is the most painful and intense thing I have ever experienced. I hate pushing, it doesn't feel good at all, it feels like my bottom is going to rip in two and I fight that urge which I know makes it worse. After my first son was born I was told pushing got easier, yea that wasn't my experience, it was harder the second time around. After pushing for a few minutes in the squatted position there was a big pop from my water breaking (guess it didn't break earlier) and then I finally felt the best and the worst feeling the head coming out and then the ring of fire, in which I screamed " oh there is the ring of fire!!" which my husband thinks is hilarious and is so grateful I have it on film! ( I didn't have the ring of fire with my first son, his head came out in one pop!) then the body started to come but I really had to push to get his shoulders out as well, after his shoulders came the rest of him just fell out, literally (Later I asked the midwife who caught him, her comment "it was a floor assist" he came out so fast that she caught his head but his little body flopped onto the floor, Don't worry I was only an inch from the ground). This is the part where I say I reached down and pulled him up but I seriously just climbed Mt. Everest and I needed a moment to compose myself before I looked out over the mountain. After a second I reached down and grabbed him, my sweet boy, the cord was around his neck so my midwife had to unwrap it before I could pull him all the way up.

                While I was kneeling on my bedroom floor holding him, I could hear a lot going on behind me with the midwives and Neal and after about a minute my midwife told me to push again and with one little push, out came my placenta, which was extremely fast, it turns out right before he was born I had a placental abruption which can be a very serious complication, but thankfully in our case, there were no adverse affects. Once the placenta was out they got me on the bed so they could focus on the bleeding, luckily after one shot of pitocin the bleeding slowed. I started to check out my son and his head and face were completely purple but the rest of his body had pinked up. Turns out he was stuck in the birth canal and his whole face was bruised. Poor little guy. About two hours after we got cleaned up we weighed him, this little boy wasn't so little. He was 9 lbs. 2 oz and 21 inches long. Sweet little Westin Lee was born at home at 5:53am on May 16th, 2012.

                In the hours and days following his birth I truly didn't want to have anymore kids, I didn't want to ever push a baby out again. So often in the natural birth community I feel like we talk about birth as intense or other terms but refuse to use the word painful and I know that for many women birth isn't painful. I actually really enjoy the labor part, it is intense but managed but pushing, both times I really seem to loose it at the end. Kicking and screaming and begging everyone to let me quit, really hoping someone will offer to take me to the hospital for a c-section, forget the epidural I am past that stage, but at the very end I do it, with my husband and my midwife cheering me on, but I do it. For me the importance of natural birth or the sacredness doesn't happen right in the moment of giving birh I am too focused on completing the task at hand (or hoping someone will let me tap out from the task at hand). It is those quiet moments when I am nursing my baby weeks after the birth and I realize that I have done it, I have climbed the highest mountain and it was painful but I did it, no one did it for me and I am so grateful that I did it because now I know that I can accomplish anything, there is nothing that motherhood can throw at me that I can't handle, giving birth to my children shows me that I am strong and nothing is more amazing then this female body that god has given me.

When your Needs and your Kids Needs Don’t Mesh

Glad I'm not the only one Tandem Nursing!

 

I’m a mom, who I would say for the most part puts my kids first, (I also fully understand that there needs to be balance in my life as well), but my kids are little and they need me and that is just fine with me. I don’t go out much without them, and my house isn’t as clean as I would like it to be and I don’t have the money or the time to do all the Pinterest activities that I would like, because my kids need me, and right now I wouldn’t have it any other way.

But E and I finally hit a crossroads, he still wanted to Nurse and I was done. Let me give you some background, E is about to turn 3 next week, and W is 8 months, so I nursed E for over 2 years and have been Tandem nursing E & W for 8 months. First let me say that if you asked me five years ago if I would nurse my child till he was 3 or if I would tandem nurse I would tell you “no way” but my parenting has evolved over the years and the more I have learned about the benefits of extending breastfeeding and ultimately about the benefits of listening to your child and their needs, it has landed me where I am today. Nursing E has been a great relationship, and while Tandem nursing has been tiring and really demanding, I think that it has been the best thing for E. I am grateful for the time that we had, but for me the time was coming to a close but E was showing NO SIGNS of letting up, he was happy to do “Nursies” whenever I let him (which by this point was morning, nap and night time) and while I was confident, I wouldn’t be nursing him till College I knew he was content to let it go a lot longer than I was. But like I said, my kids come first and I really struggled with stopping because I knew for him it would be hard and was he ready for that type of hard in his life. Neal & I discussed it over and over again for months on end, trying to decide when to stop and how to stop. E and I had had a great nursing relationship and if by chance he remembers it I wanted it to be a great memory, not a negative one.  There was so much thought into the decision. I was starting to become resentful when E asked to nurse, I wanted my body back, but for him it was a place of comfort and as a mother I wanted to comfort him, it was so difficult to resolve those two conflicting emotions. But after months and months of discussion I finally hit a place, where not nursing E sounded way more appealing than nursing him, I didn’t just sporadically feel this way, I overwhelming felt the desire to stop than keep going.

So after the Christmas vacation we came home and we let E know of our plan. We were going to have a “bye bye Nursies” party. We went to Target and he got to pick out frosting and sprinkles and a special toy and a sippy cup to put Milk in when he needed a cuddle instead of nursies. The morning before we went to Target, I nursed E one last time, not sure if it would be the last. I had planned to nurse him once after Target before the party started but he declared at Target that he was done. I was relieved and sad all at the same time! We came home baked a cake, let him decorate, opened his toy and sang a Bye Bye to nursies. E loved it, but we knew it wouldn’t be this easy. Going to bed he asked to nurse, we offered Milk in the sippy cup instead, the next morning he woke up and asked. We offered the sippy again. Over the next three weeks, E continued to ask for nursies on and off, with only a few melt downs, but I never caved because I knew we were in for the long haul and my Mothers intuition told me that he was handling it ok, none of the meltdowns were unbearable. But surprisingly instead of life getting easier, E got alot harder, since he wasn’t getting his comfort from nursing he now needs me to hold him a lot more, which isn’t always easy when you have a 10 month old that needs to be held.  He also had a harder time when I would leave home without him (which isn’t often).

If I had to do it over again, would I have weaned him, yes! Was it hard to put my needs before his, yes! But I knew that I had also given him a lot and for the greater good of our family, I had to do this. I understand that many reading my story may not agree that I stopped him instead of allowing him to stop on his own, while others will say, wow you did it for three years that was plenty. I vascilate between the two, but that is motherhood, finding the common balance for your whole family and using your intuition to find that balance.