Why I'm Still Breastfeeding My Two Year Old

I'm just going to preface this with my truly honest opinion:
I love breastfeeding. It fascinates me and fulfils me. I didn't know I would feel this way about it until I started - I guess that oxytocin gets addictive! Just like it's really important to some mothers to find a good school or to feed an organic diet (neither of those are me by the way), breastfeeding is important to me. It's the choice I made and would make every time. But please believe me - I don't care how you choose to feed your baby. If you didn't want to breastfeed, or couldn't. I believe everybody should have access to good information and feeding support but ultimately we are all trying to do the best for our babes in a society that does not support breastfeeding. However you feed your little one, I know you love them just as much as I love Judah and that's wonderful. You have my full admiration and support.

Now Judah has turned two, our feeding relationship has changed slightly. I am now breastfeeding a child that can walk, talk, a fully-fledged toddler and all that that entails. I recently engaged upon a misguided nightweaning project that ended with us both in tears. I've always tried to be child-led in my relationship with my son, because he knows what he needs better than I do a lot of the time. I've been getting it wrong for the past few weeks and I still feel guilty.

A combination of factors led to this - I've been really tired lately and strung out and mistakenly believed and was assured nightweaning would get us all more sleep. Judah doesn't feed during the day, only for his nap and for bed. He goes to sleep and settles so well for my husband without milk on the few nights I am not there to put him to sleep. It seemed logical that he would now be able to abstain from milk in the night entirely and get by with just a few cuddles. We bedshare so it wasn't like I was leaving him on his own to cry - he would have my full presence.

The first night he went back to sleep in the night with not much fuss. I was pleasantly surprised. For the rest of the week it was tears and screaming every hour. He was previously a fairly good sleeper, waking maybe twice and settling back down with a feed. My boy had changed personality in the day as well - less confident, more clingy, pretending to be sleepy so I would put him for a 'nap' and he could sneak in an extra feed. Crying and whining for milk as I left for work. He was telling me he wasn't ready and I was not listening, so sure I was right.

 I didn't take his feelings into account. It still surprises me to admit this. He's such a confident little boy, with never a backward glance for his mother. I thought he would be fine. I knew he would feel wronged and outraged, just like he does when he's denied chocolate and crisps. I am so used to not 'giving in' to his random demands on a daily basis this idea somehow transmitted itself to breastfeeding too. How wrong I was. My poor little soul cried out for milk in the night and I was only hushing and soothing him. In the daytime he clung to me like a little limpet asking for 'mummy's milk', something he's not done for months.

As busy and as strung out as I have been, I have also been more absent than I have ever been before in his life. I have not been the best mother than I could be lately. I have taken advantage of his confidence and trust at a time when I need to be building it up. What if the night feedings were what helped him feel secure and connected to his mother again? After a hellish week I'm glad to say I packed it in and we spent last night curled up together in a mutually restful sleep. He's not ready and neither am I.

When people hear that I'm still feeding Judah sometimes they react strangely. They remember feeding their demanding newborn and assume he's the same. Breastfeeding actually gets so much easier as your baby gets older the months just add up! They think that I need a break, or that I'm babying him. That I need my body back. That I'm a weak mother. That once he can ask for it he's too old. That's not how breastfeeding works. The strangest thing about feeding a toddler is people who were your staunchest breastfeeding allies start backtracking and that hurts.

What I find incredible is that the same people who compliment me on my son's confidence, assertiveness and happy nature condemn my parenting choices in the same breath. Has it occurred to them that these choices might actually contribute to the child that they delight in? I believe they absolutely do.

Why do I still breastfeed?

Feeding Judah to sleep is my 'me' time. As soon as he starts to drift off I can sneak out my phone and start to catch up on a few articles and message some friends while he suckles himself to sleep. It's useful too. When he got his finger caught in my bike crank and we finally managed to get it out, he was in pain and I put him to the breast immediately. It was instinctive - that comfort and analgesic for his woes. It's good  for tantrums. Nothing calms an out of control toddler quite like milk.

Feeding Judah at night ensures I get rest. I am lazy and would prefer to stay in bed (especially at 6am). Although it's not as easy to drift back off with a toddler as with a newborn - newborns don't tend to kick you in the face, ask for their favourite story or demand a specific breast. However, sleeping together curled up means I don't have to get up and tend to a child and I suspect even though I'm tired, I may not be as tired as other mothers of nightwaking toddlers are due to this magic fix.

Judah was a fat baby! He packed on the pounds. He's a skinny toddler. He's dropped 25 centiles. I am not a worrying mother, I never have been. What does concern me is the thought of taking away this extra nourishment. We have an active lifestyle and I am not willing to compromise my son's health at this point in time for no valid reason.

It's worth bearing in mind that the world average age for weaning is 4, coincidentally the time that children start to lose their milk teeth. The more I learn about our bodies and nature the less I believe in coincidence. We are a perfect design. Breastfeeding is good for me as well. It keeps me eating cake and significantly reduces the risk of breast cancer. It's a part of how I mother. Some nights I want to lose my temper and stop altogether, but then I see that sweet innocent face asking for his favourite thing in the world and my thoughts immediately seem petty and trivial. 

The people who are perhaps critical of our choice to keep going are the same people who would think nothing of him drinking cow's milk. They are the people who guzzle on their pints of steaming hot milk from Starbucks. I used to make those drinks and the smell of sour milk would linger on my clothing. Milk has always turned my stomach slightly and my work with little babies has given me plenty of evidence that our systems don't easily tolerate dairy (even breastfed babies who can't tolerate it in mum's diet). Breastmilk is the perfect food for human young.

Judah struggled to feed at first. He was very jaundiced and sleepy and I didn't know enough to get him to latch without drifting off. I thought he was feeding - he wasn't. I had to hand express colostrum and feed it to him in a cup as he had lost a lot of weight. The amazement I felt as we cracked it and began our beautiful feeding relationship is still here. We came so close to losing it. We've fed in castles, on beaches, in strange places. On the sofa watching cartoons, at a relative's house for an impromptu nap. Through injuries and boredom.

Breastfeeding forces us to slow down, to stop and savour the moment. No feed is the same. I still marvel at the difference between that tiny head that was dwarfed by my breast when he was a newborn and the fully grown toddler lying next to me. He traces my tattoos with his hands and stops to tell me what he sees. He inspects my face and counts out how many eyes and mouths that I have. It's our way of reconnecting after a tough day, after maybe too long apart. 

He is growing up so quickly and I know one day soon I will be looking up into his eyes instead of holding him in my arms. He is so articulate and funny, already losing so much of what made him a baby. When we decide to finish feeding I know I will be heartbroken. These memories I will cherish all my life - when he loved me with the innocence of a child, when he needed me for the sweetest reason of all. He has so much time to be grown up and only so little time to be a child. These two years have already gone so fast, I never dreamed I would be feeding a big toddler but it has come around so quickly. I know the rest of his life will too.

If he doesn't remember feeding, I want him to remember how it made him feel. Safe, loved, fulfilled and accepted. Unconditionally loved, by a mother who makes mistakes but tries her best.   

On The Shelf

When I was pregnant with Judah, I really resented the idea that women became 'boring' once they were mothers. That you had to live a life of complete sacrifice to your child, giving up your self-esteem and your dreams. All you would be able to talk about was nappies and weaning. The adverts and magazine articles about getting your body BACK, as if the way it was now was somehow unacceptable and women are desperate to return to their pre-lifegiving state. The way the word MILF was bandied around as something exceptional - the idea that no man could find a postbaby body sexual.

A mother who would cut off all her hair to stop the baby pulling, put her party clothes away, get down to the serious work of childrearing. All those hopes and dreams put up on some distant shelf along with self-image. That a mother's job was now to sit quietly in the corner and no longer show an interest in their lives or development. The only reprieve a 'night out' or escape from your children to re-enact past glories. I won't deny that most days I went around with a whiff of baby vomit. Motherhood is not glamorous. It is hard, unrelenting work but do you know what? It is freeing too.

I soon found that I didn't want my pre-baby body. Those pale white breasts that to me had no purpose, just hung there like random bits of flesh. The fact that my body before had looked static, almost too maidenly, uncomfortable. It had never felt like a true home, more like a costume that I was trying on. I'd wear too much makeup and sweat it off my face, always scared of being caught without it. I obsessed over every bite I put in my mouth, mentally calorie counting and sometimes going through weeks of personal deprivation to achieve some dreamy ideal I thought I had to be. I consumed women's magazines with the free beauty samples with a fervour, hoping to buy into whatever this 'woman' thing was and become it.

I was sometimes too skinny, sometimes too overweight. I spent a fortune on bottles of liquid goo to try and make me feel beautiful. I smoked and drank and tried to create a buzz in my body to quell the anxieties in my mind. I went to work like it was a stage and I was the main character who had to be flawless. I'd buy clothes to try and change myself, but everything just looked too wrong and too hateful. I'd judge myself based on how many men found me attractive. I'd be terrified of being caught first thing in the morning.

I understand why motherhood can be a difficult transition - going from a body that is purely decorative to a body that works is hard. Abandoning the tight controls we have exerted over our bodies. Although I was used to long shifts working on my feet it was nothing compared to the functions my body was now performing to sustain this little being. Surviving on little sleep, converting energy to breastmilk, constant vigilance for his every need. I still found the time to do my makeup and put a pretty dress on, but it felt different now. Clothes clung and fell away in different places than they did before. I evaluated outfits on their ability to produce a breast as quickly as possible. No longer the little girl able to wear a sweet tea dress, it was time to give it up.

With this disconcerting change in my body came a new fervour for self-growth. I have written before about my birth being a spiritual experience, an emotional purging. The high I had from my son's birth and all that I had achieved sustained me for many months postpartum. It seemed incredible to me that it had even happened at all. By not worrying about Judah's sleeping and feeding patterns, I allowed myself to drift through early motherhood relatively unscathed. I was lucky in that sense. There were days when I cried, a lot. There were days when I would catch sight of myself in the mirror and recoil. But, slowly, I began to feel beautiful again.

What amazed me the most was how my face had changed. I had spent years wanting to look more mature. After the birth of my son my face's aspect had changed. Less round, maybe. More knowing. I loved this new face and the things that it had seen. I am getting smile lines around my eyes and all I can say it - thank goodness. I am on my way to true womanhood. Although our society makes a fetish out of young girls, to me there was no appeal to being like that. The worry, the self-doubt. The enormous pressures to be like a perfect doll. I have adjusted my eyes to what my inner heart knows to be true - there is beauty in experience and knowledge. In the lines by somebody's eyes, the odd freckles or scars on their skin. As I grow older I only feel more beautiful, more myself. 

In my new confidence my Self began to emerge. The woman I always wanted to be. Free from the bondage of body, expanding my narrow thinking, I used the energy from my birth to explore what it was I truly loved. It turns out that this is birth itself, and womanhood. Freed from calorie counting with my breastfeeding appetite, finally loving my body for the magic it was performing before my very eyes. Finding a new sensuality, a new way to express my innermost self. Instinctive, attachment parenting that finally let me listen to my instincts that had been clamouring for me to hear them all my life. I found I didn't want to escape my child to pretend he didn't exist because he was the reason for all that I had become. That overwhelming sense of... trust. Trust in myself now. I had given birth! Nothing could ever possibly stop me now. 

Free to create.

Motherhood has given me the freedom and the perspective to just... be.

What am I?

I am a mother, creating a home with my bare hands. Weaving the web of family for those surrounding me and sustaining their life and emotions. Making a safe haven for all. Without me, none of this exists.

I am a woman, no longer maidenly and perfect. A woman of substance and integrity. A woman of conviction and confidence. The ability to speak my mind and approach my relationships as a true partner and not just an unfulfilled need.

I am wild, most days covered in mud or hair full of rain or the sea breeze. Turning my bare face to the wind and jumping over puddles with a child. Free of the trappings that used to hold me. 

I am a writer, words as delicious to me as chocolate. Picking, choosing, threading into works of my soul. This outlet that is so incredibly healing and relieving. Being able to read a sentence and knowing exactly how it should be. Giving voice to that which was previously unheard, or had no name.

I am a dancer, hips moving to an eternal rhythm. Feeling the heartbeat of life deep within my body. Delicately balancing every role I am required to play. Working with the subconscious and using it to spread joy.

I am a birth worker, creating a safe space for women to express their thoughts and fears. Teaching confidence and removing self-doubt and encouraging women to have trust in their powerful bodies. Giving them the tools they need for the battle ahead.

I am a sister, to the incredible women I have met along the way, who have touched my life with their glowing presence and helped me on this path.

I am a witch, in tune with the seasons and the moon. Creating my own reality and being in tune with the natural cycles of the earth. 

I am not on the shelf and I will not go away and become a silent member of the community now that I have a child. I refuse to give my life up just because I have created one. Women need to be supported to follow their own calling and adjust to their new identity as mothers and this new phase in their lives because it's not easy. The two separate factions warring in our brains, the beautiful woman versus the desexualised mother.

Instead of viewing motherhood as keeping you from doing what you want to do, finding and realising the ways that it is empowering you to become better. The daily giving, the relentlessness, not unlike most spiritual paths. The character-building as you learn to put aside and prioritise and change all your assumptions.

We as women and mothers are so powerful - we are growing and loving a group of people who may one day be able to effect change. I know how I want my children to remember me, and it's not as a woman who lost herself when she gave birth to them. I want them to remember me for what I loved and how I never gave up, even on myself. The fact that I didn't have to escape them to pursue my dreams, just carried them along with me.

Who are you? Who has your child enabled you to be?

My Postpartum Story

It's really important to acknowledge postpartum. When we conceive, we are obsessed with our due dates, with our fears or excitement for labour, baby names, what pram we're going to buy, the tiny little clothes that dry on the line.

Being pregnant is a bit like being a celebrity. People smile at you in the street in acknowledgement, they stand up for you to sit down, they want to touch your growing belly. As women our bodies are so much public property and pregnancy just enhances this. Everybody wants to confer their good wishes and their advice. I felt like the centre of attention wherever I went and part of me really enjoyed it. 

Postpartum gets shoved to the side. I put no thought or consideration into how I would feel after my baby was born rather than begrudgingly buying a solitary pack of maternity pads (ha ha) that I was embarrassed to take to the till. I pictured myself, radiant with hair flowing, pushing my beautiful retro pram around with my gorgeous son sleeping soundly inside. Dressed head to toe in knitwear and with smiles and gurgles for whoever peered in to look at him. I saw my husband and I walking in the park with coffee cups, still enjoying those heartfelt conversations. I knew what it would be like. I knew nothing.

When I came back from the hospital, I slept on an old beach towel because I was still bleeding and I didn't want to ruin the mattress. I didn't realise it would be so much. It wasn't like a period, it was a full force tide. I slept wedged with a nappy-like pad and it felt strange to be able to sleep on my stomach again. My poor stomach. I had been very smug to have not had any stretch marks in pregnancy - what I didn't realise was that they were all underneath my  bump. With my bump now deflated I could see them, purple and angry, evidence of who had lived there. It was a bit of a shock. Yet, I was exhilarated. I had gotten my natural birth! I had done it! Nobody had believed I could and yet I had. The excitement still felt fresh in my mind.

Judah slept really well the first night in his moses basket and it was like being in a dream. I congratulated myself on my easy baby, not realising he was jaundiced and therefore sleepy and this time I spent sleeping should really have been spent trying to rouse him to feed. We spent the next couple of days marvelling over his quiet beauty while he slowly lost weight. I would put him to the breast and he would fall asleep without even suckling. When the wonderfully kind and maternal midwife came to see us she was very concerned and I began to hand express colostrum for him to have a taste so he would be encouraged to feed. She told me that I had 'decent nipples' and would feed fine. This was a good introduction to the guilt of motherhood.

When I woke up on day 3, it was from a nightmare that I was being crushed by a demon. In actuality my milk had come in and was so heavy on my chest it had created this vision. Oh, but what a relief to move from the barely there calorific colostrum to actual flowing milk. I had so much for this hungry little boy and fed him at least every hour. The midwife looked at my notes and said 'You didn't lose much blood, did you?' which I took as a compliment. They wanted to check my stitches. I said no. Friends and relatives would shuffle one by one into our room (a combination of bed and living space) where we spent our day and shyly ask me questions about him as he fed voraciously. I felt compassion for them - their unease about this new version of me, the helpless being I was maintaining, my very visible breasts constantly feeding. It was uncomfortable for everybody but I took pride in being cool and calm and welcoming. I had birthed this baby, after that gigantic task social unease would soon cease to bother me ever again.

My husband fed me a diet of croissants and yoghurt in bed and spaghetti bolognese. Oh the luxury to not prepare food! I spent those early days bleeding and feeding and stuffing my face accordingly. I leafed through the Dr. Sears Baby Book, learned about attachment theory, happily breastfed my now rapidly gaining weight little baby. My nan would drop by every couple of days and bring a fresh supply of cakes. My mum would come by after work, texting: what do you need? Maternity pads, I'd reply, thinking of my single pack bought foolishly. My family were so kind and helpful. Their love and approval radiated on me for this act I had done, bringing my son into the world. The first baby for 17 years and named for my grandfather. I had finally done something right.

I was scared to do a poo, but I managed it. All the while using my labour breathing techniques and praying nothing would go wrong. I sat in tea tree baths and marvelled at the deflated bag that was my tummy, knowing that soon Judah would be crying for his milk again. I was a one-woman sustainability machine and resigned myself to this. Free time would be a distant memory and yet I didn't want any - just his sweet, wriggly body and milky breath. I would resent anybody cuddling him too long. He was my prize and my treasure.

Midwives kept visiting. They pricked his heel and made him cry. I felt strange and exposed in my pyjamas and hoped they weren't judging our  living style. On the fifth day I put proper clothes on and sat at my dressing table to apply eyeliner for the first time. I got up and began to clean the kitchen that had been bugging me for days. That was the end of my postpartum rest. If I could go back, I'd say to myself (and I do to my mums in class) - linger in your pyjamas a bit longer. Let people bring you food and stay in bed. As soon as you return to that sense of normality you will be expected to 'get on with it'. These days are early yet.

I began to fret about the cleanliness of the flat when health visitors came. I hoped they didn't think I was dirty and untidy and not fit to be a mother. I would get up early, baby and husband still sleeping soundly, and clean the flat in preparation for a short 20 minute visit. Why didn't I rest? Soak up my beautiful baby and cuddle up under the covers together. Some days we did spend just napping and feeding and watching boxsets. As long as I had food and my phone to hand I would be fine there for hours. Why did I care so much what people thought? I don't know. I so wanted to be a good mother, and at the time I thought cleaning was a big part of that.

For my husband and I it was strange - the basis of our relationship had always been passion, and transitioning into these new roles of mum and dad who passed out in front of the television and were obsessed with our tiny baby was strange. I found myself reverting to my mother's behaviours for comfort and reassurance. It was innate in me to channel my memory of my mother. I found it hard to be second best to my baby when while pregnant I had been the most special in the room. It was a difficult shift. I replied to hundreds of texts about my birth and the baby. The story began to drift away from me the more I shared it. I didn't feel much like a birthing warrior now.

Judah did not last long in his moses basket. We ended up using it for muslin storage. Although my husband had said when I was pregnant we wouldn't share a bed with the baby, that soon went out of the window. Judah's jaundice was gone and he was hungry all the time! He fed all night as I slipped in and out of consciousness, loving the smell of my baby curled up next to me, sleeping marvellously deeply and yet alertly, in tune with his breathing and sleeping patterns. I kept the towel on the bed for the inevitable vomit but really it was quite lovely. We loved watching him wriggling and gurgling in the morning. As far as I was concerned I was the one up feeding him and this was the way that suited me best. Really we both loved having him in with us! The health visitor said 'We don't recommend bedsharing'. I kept my mouth shut.

Taking Judah out of the house after my husband went back to work was a full-scale expedition. About 20 nappies, two changes of clothes, muslins, wipes, all sorts. I would heave the pram out of my tiny flat and down the uneven streets, praying that he wouldn't get hungry, hoping he wouldn't wake up. I felt so alone. My breasts would leak and my pad chafed against me as I walked along the narrow streets. People stopped to marvel at him, looking right past me. He looked so small and fragile tucked up in the coach pram. Sometimes I would push it and carry him because he was crying. Sometimes I would frantically rock it to quieten him because that was what I had always seen. This wasn't working.

I was still wearing my oversized dresses I wore through pregnancy, my breasts were so huge I looked comical. I went for a podiatry appointment, saw myself in the mirror and cried. I looked awful. Ill-fitting dress, massive chest, lank hair and a pale face. I looked like a shadow of the beautiful pregnant doll I had been. It seemed like all that energy and beauty had been transferred to Judah upon his birth and it seemed so desperately unfair. This did not feel like a celebration of womanhood, it felt grotesque. I was a swollen, sagging mess. I tried to take him to town to get me some new clothes but I couldn't get through the shop with the pushchair. I cried again. 

I took Judah to meet my sister in a coffee shop. He began screaming, crying for his milk. I looked at her and she looked at me. I wasn't ready to feed him in public, wasn't ready to fumble with my bra clips and my huge breasts while I was convinced everybody was watching. I made my excuses and walked him all the way home, screaming. I sat down to feed him. I cried. I vowed - never again. No more pram in the shops, no more pushing my son as he screamed for physical contact, no more being scared to feed him. More guilt, heapings of it. Welcome to motherhood.

Then began the true transition to motherhood - the beginning of my confidence as a mother. I learned to wrap him to my body and we traversed the city together. My breasts softened with use and I breastfed unashamedly, in castles, on beaches, in cafes. He shared our bed and grew strong from milk. I found clothes that fit and stopped crying. The glow began to return to my cheeks. Soon Judah began to feed some of my strength back to me and I became much more capable than I had ever imagined. The oxytocin constantly running through my body and my deft hands as they burped, wrapped, changed nappies. The feeding helped my body to go back down to a more recognisable size and family enjoyed watching me eat my fill to see it pack right onto him. My body looked strange but no longer unrecognisable - it looked more softened and womanly. I began to pierce and tattoo myself again. The curve of my waist changed and so did my face. I was a new woman. A more strong, less perfect one. I intuitively mothered Judah the only way that seemed natural to me - warmly and unconditionally. I reaped the benefits from my happy boy daily and felt truly at peace.

I was fortunate that did not experience postpartum depression with Judah. If you are feeling depressed after the birth of your baby please don't suffer alone. You can speak to me anytime or contact PANDAS on 08432898401