Lactation Narration

This post was written for inclusion in the Carnival of Breastfeeding: Your Family History.
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My mom doesn’t know if she was breastfed as a baby.  My grandmother died several years ago, and by the time I was breastfeeding my children, and my mom thought to ask about it, it was too late.  My mom was the youngest, so she didn’t see how her mother fed any of her siblings.  And my mom’s sisters are several years older and don’t remember anything about how their mom fed her babies.  If they were breastfed, it wasn’t something that was talked about.

My sisters were both adopted, and were formula-fed, so I never saw my mom breastfeed.  But I always knew that I was breastfed as a baby.  I remember my mother’s stories about how she went back to school with an hour train commute each way, and by the time she was on the train coming home her breasts were rock hard and hurting.  As soon as she walked in the door, she would say “Give me the baby!” and my dad would happily hand over the screaming baby.  I asked my mom, why didn’t she just pump while she was at school?  Even if just to relieve her engorgement?  She said she tried, but that it just didn’t work.  The pump she had was the kind where you squeeze a bulb.  She said nothing came out.  Eventually, the pain of engorgement got to be too much for her, and she decided to wean me when I was 7 months old and the new semester started.

My mom weaned me cold-turkey.  She says I was stubborn and wouldn’t take a bottle – I would just wait until she got home.  She said the only way to get me to take a bottle was to just refuse me the breast altogether, so that’s what she did.  I think it took over 24 hours before I would take the bottle!

My mom breastfed me in the ‘70s, when as she puts it, “only the hippies were breastfeeding.”  And 7 months was a really long time, even for the hippies.  My mom didn’t know a lot of people who had breastfed.  Breastfeeding rates were at an all-time low in the early ‘70s – only 24% of mothers in the United States initiated breastfeeding in 1971, and only 5% breastfed for at least 6 months.  By 1978, when I was born, my mother was part of 46% of mothers who initiated breastfeeding, and 19% who breastfed for at least 6 months.  So, while she felt alone in breastfeeding, she was actually a part of a growing trend.

I knew that I would breastfeed my babies, but I didn’t know for how long.  I had the idea, likely reinforced by knowing my mother’s story, that it was nearly impossible to go back to work and continue breastfeeding.

Primarily because I wanted to be able to breastfeed, I originally tried to get a year off of work for maternity leave.  My boss begged me not to leave for a whole year, and promised to do whatever he needed to do to support my breastfeeding.  I took 3 months off completely, and then another 3 months at half-time before I went back full-time.  I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to nurse once I went back full-time, so I made sure to wait until after 6 months.  I guess I thought that 6 months is about how long most people breastfeed anyway, so if I had to quit then, it would be okay.  It would be just what my mom had done with me.

But by the time Munchkin was 6 months old, I had a new goal, and I was determined to breastfeed for the first year and beyond!  I had a quality double electric breast pump and my boss was very supportive in finding me a place to pump even though there was no lactation room available.  Like I had as a baby, Munchkin also refused the bottle while I was at work, but I didn’t wean her – I pumped at work for my comfort and supply, and I let her reverse cycle at night to get enough milk.  Thanks to advice from a supportive community, both in person at La Leche League and on the internet, I was able to combine working and breastfeeding.

My mother and I faced many similar challenges with combining work/school with breastfeeding, but I had several resources that she lacked.  With a supportive boss, a supportive community, and a good breast pump, I was able to successfully combine working and breastfeeding with both of my children.

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Be sure to stop by the other Carnival of Breastfeeding posts:

Christine @ Christine’s Contemplations: Carnival of Breastfeeding- My Family History of Nursing
Judy @ Mommy News Blog: My Family History of Breastfeeding
Jona @ Breastfeeding Twins: Beer & Bottles (and other motherly advice)
Jake Aryeh Marcus: Breastfeeding? Not in My Family
Elita @ Blacktating: Three Generations of Breastfeeding
Mama Mo @ Attached at the Nip: How Women in My Family Feed Babies
Alicia @ Lactation Narration: Only the Hippies Were Breastfeeding
Dr. Sarah: Breastfeeding, Circa 1950s
Motherwear Breastfeeding Blog: An Unbroken Chain

Here are the answers to some of the most frequent questions I’ve been asked about tandem nursing.  If you have any other questions about tandem nursing, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to answer! I’d love to hear about others’ experiences with tandem nursing too!

Is it possible to keep nursing while I’m pregnant? And is it safe?
Nursing through pregnancy is definitely possible – I did it anyway! In most cases, it is safe. Nursing can cause mild contractions, but no more than sex would cause. So, the general rule of thumb is that if you are safe to have sex, then you are safe to keep breastfeeding. If you are put on pelvic bed-rest, you might consider that good cause for weaning. You can continue to nurse all the way through your pregnancy if both you and your baby want to, but something like 70% of babes will wean during pregnancy, either by mother’s or baby’s choice. If your older baby is still nursing when your new baby is born, that is called tandem nursing.

How do I decide if I even want to tandem nurse?
Read Adventures In Tandem Nursing, It has a lot of information on nursing during pregnancy and making the decision about tandem nursing, as well as tips on actually tandeming.

When I was pregnant, I hoped that Munchkin would wean on her own just so that I wouldn’t have to deal with the decision of whether to wean her or tandem nurse. But in the end, I decided that I wanted it to be her choice when to finally wean, not mine. During my pregnancy, I imposed limits on how often and how long she nursed at a time, but I did not cut her off. She went down to nursing only about once per week for the last 6 months of my pregnancy. I kept thinking she was about to wean, but she just didn’t. If I had wanted to, I think I could have weaned her then, but I because I wanted it to be child-led, I decided to leave that final call up to her. She didn’t wean, so we ended up tandem nursing.

What changes can I expect when nursing during pregnancy? Does my milk change when I’m pregnant? What about colostrum?
You will probably experience nipple pain while nursing during pregnancy. Many women choose to wean or at least decrease nursing because of this. I chose to night-wean largely because of it.

During early pregnancy, your milk may start to taste different to your baby because the proportion of salt to sugar changes. The saltier taste may make baby feel thirstier, and thus make her want to nurse even more! This can create a problem for mom if she is already experiencing nipple pain associated with pregnancy. Munchkin was old enough to be comfortable drinking water when I got pregnant, and she would chug water after nursing during my first trimester! Other babies may wean abruptly because they don’t like the changed taste of the milk.

Your supply will probably decrease at some time during your pregnancy. Your baby may want to nurse more in response to the low supply, or she may lose interest instead. At some point in your pregnancy, your milk will turn to colostrum. If your baby is still getting most of her nutrition from nursing, you may have to supplement at this point. Your baby might also decide she doesn’t like the taste of the colostrum and wean at this time. If your baby drinks a lot of the colostrum, her poops may become softer again, like a younger baby. The colostrum will remain until after the birth (so don’t worry, the new baby will still get her fair share of colostrum!), and then your milk will come in as normal after a few days.

Many babies wean during pregnancy due to the loss of milk and/or the changes of taste. Because I knew that I wanted to nurse Munchkin for at least two years, I waited until she was two to try to get pregnant. I would have been okay with it at that point if she had decided to wean during my pregnancy, but I wasn’t willing to risk it sooner.

How can I prepare my toddler for tandem nursing?
Munchkin was never one to nurse her “babies” herself much, but she always liked for me to nurse them. When I was pregnant, one way that I helped her acclimate to the idea of tandem nursing and “sharing the na-nas” was to tandem nurse Munchkin and a doll. Sometimes I would end up tandem nursing two dolls and Munchkin just watched!

We also talked about how Munchkin could drink Mommy’s Milk or cow’s milk or chocolate milk or juice or water and eat lots of foods, but the new baby would ONLY have Mommy’s Milk, so it was important for the new baby to get hers first. I think Munchkin understood that by the time Sweets was born, but we still kept talking about it after the birth too.

Will my toddler wean if I have to be away from her for the birth?
I didn’t worry about Munchkin weaning during the time when I would be in the hospital birthing Sweets. Munchkin was going days and days without nursing at that point – often 7-14 days – so I didn’t think that 2-3 nights would make a difference in that regard. It didn’t phase her at all.

What can I expect after the new baby comes?
I’ve heard of toddlers who nurse all the way through pregnancy and then decide that nursing is for babies once they see the new baby and just wean suddenly. I’ve heard of others who are so happy that their new sibling brought back the milk and nurse almost as much as the new baby does!

Munchkin went from nursing once a week during my pregnancy to about once or twice a day after Sweets came home. Then, one day when Sweets was about a week old, Munchkin came right off and said she didn’t like Mommy’s Milk anymore, and she didn’t nurse for several days. I thought she had suddenly decided to really wean. I kept offering, partly because I was engorged and would have liked her to nurse just then, but she refused. Then a few days later, she really wanted to nurse again, so went back to it. It was all very unpredictable.

How do you make sure the baby gets enough?
I let Munchkin nurse on the side that Sweets is done with. So, I would nurse Sweets on the left as long as she wanted, then when she switched to the right side, I’d let Munchkin nurse on the left. This way I felt that Sweets was getting everything she wanted.

Do you nurse them both at the exact same time? Doesn’t the toddler push the baby away?
Sometimes I nurse them together – one on each side – and sometimes I make Munchkin wait. We say “sometimes we share and sometimes we take turns”. When I nurse them together, Munchkin is very affectionate toward Sweets, and strokes her head and holds her hand, which is very sweet. They have a very close relationship already, and I think nursing together contributes to that. Now that Munchkin is older, she seems to have forgotten how to get milk when she nurses. If she nurses together with Sweets though, she can get milk because Sweets brings the let-down. She says that Sweets brings her the milk and is very appreciative.

How do you nurse two together, logistically speaking?
There are lots of options, but I tend to like a position where I am leaning back with each child lying long-ways down my body supported on the outside by my arms. Basically, just find any position that’s comfortable and go for it!

Does the toddler get jealous?
I don’t think that tandem nursing has caused friction or jealousy at all. Actually, the opposite. I think it was something that they could share in common. They would hold hands or Munchkin would stroke Sweets’ head. As long as Munchkin could get hers too, she didn’t feel like Sweets was taking anything from her. I think that if Sweets got to nurse and Munchkin couldn’t, that THAT would be more likely to cause friction.

Isn’t it exhausing to nurse two?
Munchkin kept up nursing about once a week throughout my pregnancy and once Sweets was born she went back up to about once a day, and later twice a day before dropping sessions again. Honestly, tandem nursing hasn’t been very difficult for us because she doesn’t nurse all that much. It’s not like having twins where they are both nursing all the time. Once the newness of the baby was past, I limited Munchkin to nursing only first thing in the morning or last thing before bed, and the rest of the time the milk was for Sweets. I usually let Munchkin nurse for the time it takes me to read her a book (and then choose the book I want accordingly!). Setting limits like this helps me not feel burnt out.

What do others think when they see you tandem nursing?
Since Munchkin only nurse at certain times, it cuts way down on the times when anyone else would ever see me tandem nursing them, unless they are at our house at bedtime. There have been a few occasions when people have seen it, and if they are surprised, I just say “hey, two boobs, two babies!”

A version of this post also appeared as a guest post on Natural Parents Network (where I am a moderator on the forums) and Code Name: Mama

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Signing with Children for Fun and Communication

Sweets is now 16 months old, and she doesn’t talk. She is currently being evaluated by specialists and is enrolled in developmental therapy, but she doesn’t talk yet. At all. Not even “mama”.

She is learning to sign though!

We already know lots of American Sign Language (ASL) vocabulary in our family – we signed for fun and early communication with Munchkin since she was a baby, and her speech developed typically. We have the entire collection of Signing Time episodes, and Munchkin knew about 50 signs by the time she was Sweets’ age (Munchkin even auditioned for Baby Signing Time!). So when the therapist said we should sign with Sweets, we knew that would be easy – we were already doing it!

For my typically developing child, signing supplemented her communication as a baby and became a fun activity for us to learn together as she got older. For my developmentally delayed child, signing is her only method of communication at this point. Sweets can do about 8-10 signs now, but mostly uses two of them at this point – MILK (as in “mama’s milk”) and MORE.

It has been wonderful to see her learn that she can communicate through signing. Now that she can sign MILK (“breastmilk,” that is), she does it all the time! I think it’s more because it’s fun to ask rather than because she really wants to nurse all the time. I imagine her inner monologue:

“Hey – I can do this thing with my hand . . . and mama stops what she’s doing and pays attention to me . . . and then I get to nurse! How cool is that?! Let’s see if it works again. Yep! Again? Yes! This is awesome power!”

Because I respond to her signing, it encourages her to ask again. And this is teaching her the function of language even though she can’t speak yet. I think it has been especially meaningful for her to learn to sign MILK because nursing is very important to her.

Signing for Communication

The primary benefit that most people desire when they sign with their hearing baby is added communication with a baby who is pre-verbal. When a pre-verbal baby or toddler can communicate her needs, she has less frustration and less need for crying and tantrums. But besides communicating basic needs, signing can also give you a window into the thoughts of your small child.

I remember a time when I was carrying 13 month old Munchkin to the car, and she suddenly started signing BIRD excitedly. I looked around, and indeed there was a bird in the tree nearby! I had known that she could sign BIRD when looking at a picture of a bird in a book, but this was the first time that she really initiated a sign to indicate an interest in the world around her rather than to express a need. It really made me aware at that moment that she was an actual little person inside this little baby body, with her own thoughts that I wasn’t necessarily aware of, and her thoughts were about more than just her basic needs. I loved that I had that window into her thoughts at that young age.

Other Practical Benefits of Signing

Besides the obvious benefit of communication with your pre-verbal child, sign language also has benefits for your child even after she is verbal. Your child can communicate with you discreetly and quietly when you are in public. Some people have “code words” for their toddlers to use when asking to nurse in public because they don’t want to advertise their nursing to everyone. Signing accomplishes the same goal of discretion when your toddler asks to nurse in front of others.

Another benefit is that your little one can ask to nurse without interrupting your adult conversations. This benefit isn’t limited to just nursing of course. When I was a little girl my mother taught me to sign TOILET when I needed to use the bathroom in public places, which worked well if she was in the middle of conversation with other adults or if I was just feeling too shy to mention it out loud. Another benefit is that signing can be used across a distance when speaking would be impractical or ineffective. I recently used signing in this way from across the room in a restaurant – “YOU WANT WATER, MILK – WHICH?” – and Munchkin was able to tell me what kind of drink she wanted me to order for her.

How Early Can I Start Signing with My Baby?

When your baby is able to make controlled hand movements, your baby can start signing. Can your baby clap, wave, or point? That’s no different from signing! For many babies, this happens around 8-12 months old. You can sign with baby from the start if you want, or you can wait to start signing until your baby can wave. By the way, when I taught my girls to wave, I taught them to do a “princess wave” with an open hand that rotates at the wrist. Many people use a wave with a baby that involves folding the fingers down over the palm, but I find this to be hard to distinguish from the MILK sign, so I chose not to use that type of wave to avoid confusion.

Baby Signs vs ASL

If your goal with signing is just to serve as a bridge of communication before your child is able to communicate verbally, then you may consider “baby signs” instead of ASL. The advantages of baby signs are that they are supposed to be easier for babies to do, and you can make up your own signs instead of having to learn vocabulary first.

I am not worried that ASL signs might be “too hard” for my baby any more than I worry that English words are too hard for her. Babies learn to sign by first doing a “baby talk” version of signs the same way that they do with verbal language, and with practice they learn to sign properly. I prefer to use ASL signs because ASL is a real language, just like English.

By teaching ASL and continuing to use signs after my children learn to talk, I am giving them the building blocks for learning a second language. Because we use real ASL signs and not made-up signs, anyone else who knows ASL signs can understand and communicate with my child too. This has been helpful at daycare, where our teacher also uses ASL signs in the classroom at our request. And one day in the future, my daughter might meet a child whose primary language is ASL, and they will be able to communicate together! That could never happen with baby signs.

What Sign Should I Use for Breastfeeding?

Sweets starts the sign MILK with an open hand

Sweets completes the sign MILK with a closed fist

Many people just use the sign MILK to mean breastfeeding, and then later they use it to mean cow’s milk. There is not much confusion between the two, because the timing often doesn’t overlap in our culture – breastfeeding ends and then cow’s milk begins, and there is no need for the child to have to differentiate between the two with different signs, because she is not experiencing both at the same time.

But for those of us who nurse into toddlerhood, there can be confusion if you want your child to be able to differentiate between nursing and cow’s milk when signing. In our house, we just use the sign MILK to mean any milk at first, but as she gets older, we add MOMMY-MILK or COW-MILK to differentiate. There are other ways to sign for nursing when you want to differentiate from milk in a cup too.  Below are some more examples of other ways you and your child can sign milk (breastmilk or cow’s milk).

1. Use one of the ASL signs for BREASTFEED
2. Use just the sign BREAST for nursing, and the sign MILK for cow’s milk
3. Make a sign like FEED but start the motion just below your breast and extend it down toward the baby for nursing
4. Use the bent O hand shape (like EAT) and tap above each breast for nursing
5. Use the sign MILK for nursing, and the signs CUP-MILK for cow’s milk
6. Use the sign MILK once for any kind of milk, but sign twice (MILK-MILK) for nursing
7. Sign MILK near the breast for nursing, and sign MILK out in front of you for milk in a cup
8. Make up your own sign for breastfeeding!

We have been talking about getting the girls Tegu blocks this year.  My husband thinks they look really cool.  So today, he linked me to Tegu Live, which was pretty fun to watch.  What happens is that you use Twitter to request what you want the Tegu Genius to build, and then he builds it!  I saw him build the Taj Mahal, a giraffe with a bow tie, an ice cream sundae, a cat playing the piano, a windmill, the Empire State Building with King Kong, a fairy with wings and a wand, a hadron collider, a monster truck, Santa and his sleigh, and a chicken.  It’s really cool!

So, my request was

LactNarration
@tegu Can you make a mother with a breastfeeding baby?

Yah, I guess I’m the type that the first thing I ever think of is breastfeeding!  I can’t help it!  They skipped me at first

LactNarration
@tegu The windmill was very cool, but why did you skip me Tegu? So sad.

but then I got

Tegu
@LactNarration Hey we’re building you a baby bottle with love. We support you putting in it with whatever you’d like

Here’s the video of my “request”, the Baby Bottle:

I was kind of annoyed that they wouldn’t make a breastfeeding mama.  I thought the magnets would be a perfect way to keep the baby latched to the mama.  I don’t know if they didn’t want to make it because it was hard to make or because of some more political reason.  But they made a lot of hard things.  And if you know me, you know what I think about bottles as a symbol for babies, so I was really not thrilled with the decision to make a baby bottle when I asked for breastfeeding.

LactNarration
@tegu Thanks but it’s not really what I wanted. Sorta the opposite actually How about a mama holding or rocking a baby? No bottles pls.

Tegu
@LactNarration Our Tegu Genius is building you a baby right now!

The Tegu Genius made two Tegu Babies, one crawler and one toddler, and then he proceeded to rock and “nurse” them at the end!  So fun!  So, not exactly what I asked for, but pretty cute! Tegu, Baby!

“When I’m a Mommy, I’m going to feed my babies with a bottle.”

So said my four year old.  My four year old who still nurses and who doesn’t want to wean yet.  My four year old who never took a bottle as a baby.  My four year old who has never seen me give a bottle to her little sister.  My four year old who does not own play bottles for her dolls.  My four year old who begs to come with me to La Leche League meetings.

We were reading a book together.  Just a little board book that was laying around somewhere:  “Hippo Learns To Help”  In this book, Hippo is learning how to help take care of his new baby sibling.  This is something that Munchkin knows something about.  We have several books on this topic, and she likes helping out with Sweets.  So, Hippo is helping his Mommy make a bottle for the baby in this book.

Munchkin asked me “Why is that Mommy going to feed her baby a bottle?”  Now, Munchkin knows what a bottle is and what they are for.  She and Sweets go to daycare, and Munchkin knows that when Sweets took a bottle there it was filled with milk that I pumped while at work.  She saw other babies fed with bottles at daycare too.  But in our life, she also knows that bottles are for when Mommy isn’t around.  And when Mommy IS around, baby nurses.

This is consistent with another book we have about big siblings helping out with a baby sibling:  “What Baby Needs” from the Sears library.  In this book, Mommy nurses the baby, “Or, when Baby is older, Baby may be fed Mommy’s milk from a bottle if Mommy has to be away.”  The pictures show Mommy nursing the baby, and Daddy feeding the bottle.  This is consistent imagery for Munchkin, for what she sees in our family.

So for Munchkin, the question wasn’t “Why is that baby feeding from a bottle” as much as “Why is that Mommy feeding her baby from a bottle.”

I told her that not all Mommies nurse their babies.  Some Mommies feed their babies from bottles sometimes and nurse sometimes.  And some Mommies only feed their babies from bottles.  I pointed out that her baby cousin doesn’t nurse, she only eats from a bottle.  Of course, she wanted to know “Why?” so I just said that some Mommies have trouble nursing and some Mommies don’t want to nurse, so they feed with bottles instead.  She said “But you don’t” and I agreed.  I told her that I like to nurse and that I don’t want to use bottles.

And that’s when she said, “When I’m a Mommy, I’m going to feed my babies with a bottle.”

“And are you going to nurse too?”

“No, just use a bottle.”

Now, I don’t really think that what she said in that moment indicates what she’s going to do when she grows up, but I still don’t really know what to make of that.  I don’t know what else I could have done to make nursing more normalized for her than what I have.  I have tried to be very intentional about it.  Did I go so far as to make bottle-feeding seem exotic and exciting instead?

I lay here snuggled close to you in your bed. Your little hand still cradles my nipple, but your lips no longer do. Your eyes are drooping, but you are not yet asleep. I caress your hair at your temple, and hum softly. I finish a verse and pause, and you sleepily say “Try again, Mommy,” so I begin the song again. I can remember a moment such as this, when I must have been just about your age: cradled sleepily in my own mother’s arms while she sang to me in the dark, waking just enough to ask her to sing it again. And as I wonder what of this you may recall when you are older, I notice that you are sound asleep, and I stop my humming. And I hope that I, at least, will remember this moment always.

I wrote that two years ago about Munchkin.  I was weeping as I wrote it because I felt so sure that she was so close to weaning.  I wondered if she was old enough that she would remember later how much she loved nursing.  During my pregnancy with Sweets, Munchkin had gone from nursing 5 times per day to less than once per week.  She even went two weeks between nursing sometimes.  I was sure that our nursing days were numbered.  And the thought of it made me cry.  My goal had been to nurse her for two years, and we had surpassed that by another half a year, but I still wasn’t ready for her to be done.  Nursing had been such a big part of our relationship for so long (well, her entire life), certainly much more than a mode of nutrition.  Even though she only nursed sporadically, I still very much identified myself as a “nursing mother” and her as a “nursing toddler.”

But it didn’t end.  Munchkin continued to nurse sporadically for the rest of my pregnancy, and then tandem nursed after Sweets was born.  There were a few other times when I was just so sure that she was about to wean, like the time she outright told me that she didn’t want to nurse because it made her feel sick, and then she still didn’t wean.  I remember a La Leche Leage meeting when I was on maternity leave with Sweets – the topic was weaning and I was in tears thinking that Munchkin would likely wean soon.  As time goes on though, I’m not so weepy about it anymore. When I think about her weaning now, I feel more proud than sad.  I think I must be ready.  Now I’m just waiting for her to be ready too.

I find myself thinking again that Munchkin is going to wean very soon.  She is now 4.5 years old and has started complaining that she “can’t get to the milk” when she nurses, which upsets her because she does not want to wean.  I’m not sure why it happened, but it seems that she’s not able to get a let-down by herself anymore.  If she nurses together with Sweets, she can get milk, but not usually on her own now.  This has been going on for about two weeks, and she has drastically cut down on how often she nurses, from twice most days lately, to only 3 times all week.  So, again, I wonder if she is going to be weaned soon.  But this time I know better than to hold my breath.  I’ll believe it when I see it.