Nursing a toddler: the good, the bad, and the ugly

Orion will be 21 months old next week and he still nurses like an infant, but only in all the annoying ways. We nurse when he wakes up, then before breakfast, and after breakfast, before lunch, during his nap, after nap, pre-dinner and then to fall asleep at night.   He won’t nurse long enough for me to enjoy an entire episode of Ellen or any of the other million shows taking up space on my DVR.   Then there are the really quick nursing sessions that are pointless.  It’s like he does to just prove that he can or he needs to touch home base but it only counts if it is boob to mouth.

The worst part is that he has refused to nurse on my right side for months leaving good old lefty with all the action.  This means lefty is a heavyweight while no milk righty is back down to her pre-fighting weight.  You would think he would be done with my right nipple but oh no it is now a toy. Righty is now a plaything for him to poke, pinch, and twist while he nurses on the good boob. This really drives me insane. I have to remind myself to keep righty covered which can be hard to remember when a crying baby wakes you in the middle of the night and you find sleeping in clothes strange.  

Nursing a toddler is not comfortable.  He loves to slap my face or drum on my boob while my nipple is in his mouth.  Somehow he can still manage to put if his in my face.  At his 18 month checkup he was 32.5 inches long and 25 lbs. and 13ozs. Go grab something with those measurements and try holding it to your nipple for 20 minutes, bonus points if it is squirmy.  Orion doesn't seem to notice that he has gotten any bigger so he tries to nurse in the same positions he did when he was an infant not realizing that me and my nipple cannot contort into those position any longer.

And the teeth, so many teeth! He loves to drag his teeth along my nipple before he lets go. He does on occasion bite and we did go through a very bitey phase but for the most part he just has a lazy dismount.

So why do I still do it? For one, I do not know how not to nurse. I do not know how to refuse my baby (I know he isn’t a baby anymore but he will always be my baby) something he wants and that I can provide that gives him such wonderful nourishment and comfort.  If he doesn't get it he will pull at my shirt and has stretched out a few of my necklines.  And because this is what we have always done and I still hold on to the delusion that one day he won’t want it anymore.

If he wakes in the night I can (usually) nurse him back to sleep in no time with less physical effort than standing, holding him, and rocking him to sleep for a half hour.   If he is sick, nursing will provide him comfort and good antibodies. If he falls I can whip out a boob and wipe those tears away!  It is awesome to see his happy sleep face nestled against my breast.  But these are on our good days which are becoming less and less.

I want him to want me for me and not what my breasts can provide. My arms can comfort him just as well as my breasts. I can wipe those tears away with kisses and keep my shirt on.  I want to be a weaner.  If he was nursing on both sides or only nursing 3 times a day or if I could leave the house wearing a real bra, a dress, or shirts that do not have easy access to my nipples, maybe I would continue nursing. But our current situation is just too much for me to handle.  Sometimes I find nursing stressful because I am sore and neither of us can get comfortable.  At night when I try to nurse him back to sleep, it can take way longer than I would like and it can make me feel a bit angry.  Since I have the boobs and Orion associates them with sleep, it is me that he wants when it is time to sleep or when he wakes up in the night.  It would be great if Dad could put him to sleep/get him to nap/get him back to sleep. 

    

I also do not want to force or rush our nursing relationship to an end. So I try to keep us busy and out of the house as much as we can during a Mid-Atlantic winter. Last week when we went to the indoor playground he did not want to nurse at any time but he did go over to the highchairs to tell me that he was ready for a snack.   I try to distract him, if he wants to nurse I will offer him a sippy cup, a snack, story time, or some other activity.  This can make him mad and end in tears with a boob in the mouth.  When I try to delay nursing it will usually frustrate him as well.  Baby just doesn't seem to have much concept of time.  I guess I need to get him a baby wristwatch.

I have always nursed on demand and starting around 11 months went the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” route.  I don’t even understand how “don’t offer, don’t refuse” is even a method for weaning.  It has not changed anything. Orion has always nursed so much that it can be hard to keep track.  The first 6 weeks he was home I timed and noted every nursing session and which side he nursed.  I guess it is time to start making these notes and then systemically start refusing a few nursing sessions. 

  

This past Friday I had a doctor’s appointment and it felt so good to leave the house wearing a real bra, earrings, and a necklace. I was even joking with the phlebotomist that I was just happy to be out of the house.  My body has not been my own for about 30 months, that is 2 ½ years. I would like to have my body back because I am oh so selfish. I need a month or two to have my body be mine if I am ever going to get pregnant again. I know some people say that getting pregnant helped them wean but I worry that it wouldn't work for us, being pregnant and nursing would exhaust me, and that Orion would resent the new baby for taking what was his.

I am still hoping that one day soon he just will not want to nurse. Maybe I can give him chocolate milk like in Desperate Housewives and he will only want that instead of nursing. Legend has it that when I was nursing I was all business, often to the disappointment of my engorged mother.  I did not hang out on the boob, I was 3 chugs then off. (I also loved being my crib so I was just the coolest baby ever) Around 9 months I rejected the boob like it was something disgusting and that was the end of that.  Funny that my guy is such a booby monster, I guess this is just the first of many ways that my baby will be drastically different from me.

I have been waiting to change up our routine, when we nurse and how we sleep.  I have used excuses like he is sick or he is teething.   I keep saying that next week we will really work on this nap nursing situation but next week never comes. I worry that I have ruined Orion and spoiled him with my boobs.  Then I see him playing with other kids and he is happy and kind. He shares well and isn't possessive of me or his toys. He is a toddler so there are times when he does not want to share whatever he is playing with at the moment but this is a kid who will have 2 cars in his hand and will give me one so I can play with him.   He does not cling to my legs when we are in a group setting and will often go off on his own to play happy as a clam. 

There is a part of me that wants to go on vacation alone for 2 weeks in the hopes that I will come back to a happy weaned baby who sleeps independently and through the night.  Or maybe I could put him in daycare for a month and they would work their magic and solve my problems.  What I really want is more me time, an hour to myself in the middle of the day while he naps seems like such a luxury.  I also want my time with my son to be because he wants me and not my milk. 

I know I will have to work hard to change this relationship and it will not be easy.  Change has started, I now nurse him to bed at night in his room instead of our bed.  If he wakes at night I nurse him in his room and not in our bed. But I still nurse him for naps in our room so maybe today I will change this and nurse him to sleep in his room and hopefully he will stay asleep when I remove him from the breast and put him in his crib. (He has only ever napped in his crib a handful of times) I also need to put an end to napping in the car. These two changes will start today and hopefully bring us a few gentle steps closer to the end of nursing. (Update: today he feel asleep unexpectedly on the boob an hour before his usual naptime)  

10 reasons why I no longer use a nursing cover

I have a beautiful nursing cover that was a shower gift from my amazing Aunt Mary.  I used this cover frequently when Orion was little.  Early in our breast feeding relationship, I was very nervous about nursing in public.  This cover provided me with some modesty and privacy.  Now, I no longer use this lovely cover and here’s why:

1.      Orion no longer likes it when I use the cover.

2.      It can get hot under that cover.

3.      Orion likes to use it as a flag.

4.      If hairy men with man boobs can walk around topless why can’t I whip out a nipple to feed my baby?

5.      I think it draws more attention, why is that lady wearing a tent and why is it wiggling, instead of just a mom holding her baby.

6.      I don’t want to always have to carry around one more thing.

7.      If we are out, at say the indoor playground, and my baby falls, hurts himself, cries, and wants to nurse I don’t want to have to make him wait while I go get my nursing cover or have to carry it on my person at all times.

8.      They are just boobs!

9.      A flash of nipple for 10 seconds before my baby latches on and obscures everything and the 10 seconds it takes me to cover up after won’t traumatize anyone.

10.   Because I do not have to.

Know your rights and don't let anyone stop you from feeding your baby in whatever why YOU are comfortable with and if they don't like it they can look away, close their eyes, or move along! The following information came from here 

"Forty-five states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands have laws that specifically allow women to breastfeed in any public or private location. (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.)

Twenty-eight states, the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands exempt breastfeeding from public indecency laws. (Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming.)

Twenty-four states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace. (Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Mexico, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wyoming.)

Twelve states and Puerto Rico exempt breastfeeding mothers from jury duty. (California, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Oregon and Virginia.)

Five states and Puerto Rico have implemented or encouraged the development of a breastfeeding awareness education campaign. (California, Illinois, Minnesota, Missouri and Vermont.)

Several states have unique laws related to breastfeeding. For instance,

Virginia allows women to breastfeed on any land or property owned by the state. Puerto Rico requires shopping malls, airports, public service government centers and other select locations to have accessible areas designed for breastfeeding and diaper changing that are not bathrooms.

At least two states have laws related to child care facilities and breastfeeding. Louisiana prohibits any child care facility from discriminating against breastfed babies. Mississippi requires licensed child care facilities to provide breastfeeding mothers with a sanitary place that is not a toilet stall to breastfeed their children or express milk, to provide a refrigerator to store expressed milk, to train staff in the safe and proper storage and handling of human milk, and to display breastfeeding promotion information to the clients of the facility.

California requires the Department of Public Health to develop a training course of hospital policies and recommendations that promote exclusive breastfeeding and specify staff for whom this model training is appropriate. The recommendation is targeted at hospitals with patients who ranked in the lowest 25 percent of the state for exclusive breastfeeding rates.

Maryland exempts the sale of tangible personal property that is manufactured for the purpose of initiating, supporting or sustaining breastfeeding from the sales and use tax.

California, New York and Texas have laws related to the procurement, processing, distribution or use of human milk.

New York created a Breastfeeding Mothers Bill of Rights, which is required to be posted in maternal health care facilities. New York also created a law that allows a child under one year of age to accompany the mother to a correctional facility if the mother is breastfeeding at the time she is committed.”

Someone replaced my baby with a land shark

I think most breastfeeding moms get a little worried once their baby starts cutting teeth.  Those little baby teeth are so sharp!  We have all heard that a baby won’t bite if they are latched correctly on the nipple.  The truth is that a baby will bite if they want to bite.  He would bite and laugh at my pain with a devilish smile.  Orion has bitten my nipples here and there and we just went through a very bitey stage which I thought would never end.  He liked to conclude our nursing sessions by dragging his teeth along my nipple.

Getting your nipples chewed on hurts!  I have a pretty high tolerance for pain but the biting would often come as asuch a surprise.  La, La, La, La, happy, happy nursing, oxytocin for me, la, la, happy, CHOMP, OUCH!  He would bite and I would scream and fight my knee jerk reaction to hit back. (There is never any reason to hit a child or anyone for that matter!)   I found that I would brace myself during every nursing session and hope to catch him so I could pull him off before the chomp.  It became so frequent that I would scream and put him down at which point he would start to cry.  If my husband was home, I would tell him that I needed some time and go into the office and close the door.

I have heard that you should NOT react when your baby bites you which is easier said than done.  I know my baby loves cause and effect like I press this button and the TV goes on.  I bite mommy and she makes a sound, awesome!  Maybe it was a new game he wanted to play with me.  I tired to stifle my scream but sometimes I would just have to let it out.  i would not exaggerated my pain but at times my frustration may have made it a wee bit louder.

I have also heard that you should make a noise, then put them down and tell them no biting mommy.

“A mother's natural response to pain may discourage further biting. Many babies startle at their mother's loud exclamation and immediately release the nipple. Some may even cry. This negative reinforcement seems to make many babies stop completely. In MOTHERING YOUR NURSING TODDLER, Norma Jane Bumgarner observes,

Perhaps the reason that the vast majority of children learn not to bite so quickly is that we invariably react immediately and firmly to biting at the breast. There is probably no instance in which we apply behavior modification so immediately, decisively, and consistently. Besides, our children love us and respond to the urgency and sincerity with which we insist that they must not bite.

Such prompt and direct responses occasionally backfire with sensitive babies, who may react by refusing the breast altogether. This sudden disinterest in nursing or outright rejection of the breast is called a nursing strike. A nursing strike can be distinguished from actual weaning by its sudden onset and the fact that the baby seems miserable. It may take lots of coaxing to persuade a baby who has been "on strike" that it's okay to resume nursing. Therefore, it is wise not to exaggerate your response to biting beyond what is natural for you.”

I know he won’t nurse forever and I hope he is fully weaned by the time he is 2 years old.  I would like to get pregnet again after his 2nd birthday but I would also like to spend some time neither breastfeeding or pregnant.  My body has not been my own since August 2010 and i would like a break before I do it all again.  Now that Orion is 15 months old but still nursing like a 4 month old and the “don’t offer, don’t refuse” method of weaning has gotten me nowhere, I realize that I do need to actively start to wean him.  I am not a water fountain or squeaky toy. I am available for comfort which doesn’t need to involve my breasts.  I want him to separate food from comfort. 

When I nurse Orion, I promise to focus my attention on him.  Maybe he was biting to get my attention because I was reading on my phone.  We no longer nurse for hours, maybe a half hour at most.  I can take the time we spend nursing to look at his happy face, enjoy our time together, and watch my milk pool in his mouth (I am surprised I still have milk! I thought maybe he was biting because I had dried up but nope.) 

I will also try to keep him as busy as possible during the day.  We will have playdates, run errands, go on adventures.  If he is happy and active he will not think about nursing because he is bored.

I will also keep his belly filled with food!  In the morning I usually get him up and bring him into bed to nurse in the hopes of getting more sleep which never happens.  I need to get him up, changed, and then feed him something very yummy for breakfast like yogurt or zucchini bread.  I can’t just put him in the highchair and give him cheerios because he never fills up on them.  I need to offer him food every couple of hours.  He never took to the bottle and has not been too happy with a sippy cup of milk but I will keep offering it and using his leftover milk in my coffee or cereal.  I will also offer him a sippy cup of water which he really does enjoy.

Orion and I made it through our recent shark phase but I am not sure how or why.  Maybe it was seeing his mother cry from frustration.  Maybe he got the message that it hurts and he shouldn't make mommy scream.  Maybe that game got old.  Whatever it was, I am glad it is over.  I hope being more present during our nursing sessions and offering him more to eat and more activity during the day will prevent the shark from resurfacing.

Will i see you at the Great Nurse-In at the National Mall on Saturday?

Getting a leg up

Orion likes to get a leg up when he nurses. He only does this when he nurses on my left side, his favorite side. When he was little it was just a tiny foot on my shoulder and it was so cute. Nowadays, it is a big strong foot pressing on my neck, chin, cheek, mouth, or face. What a silly little man! Anyone else have a baby that did this? How do you make it stop?