Nursing Your Kids

I read an interesting opinion piece at Concurring Opinions about Sophie Currier’s win. The author presented several facts that I didn’t see in any of the news articles I read when the case was at its peak, specifically the accommodations the National Board of Medical Examiners offered Currier after refusing her request for additional break time.

* permission to express milk in a private room at the testing center during the allotted break time;

* permission to bring food and drink into the testing room;

* permission to pump milk while in her separate testing room;

* the option to leave the test center to breastfeed during the allotted time.

The writer’s opinion is that the first two requests are worthwhile because they addressed Currier’s needs. Currier needed additional time because she would not be able to pump, eat and use the bathroom in the time allotted. By allowing her to eat and drink in the testing room, her nutritional needs would be taken care of. By giving Currier a private room to pump in, she’d be able to pump in the testing center without concern for her privacy. The writer also feels that the second two accommodations were worthless. Pumping in a testing room with three glass walls isn’t an option for obvious reasons. Leaving the testing center to breastfeed would further cut into her break time.

The article asks why the first two options weren’t enough. With food and drink available and 45 minutes of break time to use the rest room and pump, why did Currier need additional time. Currier’s opinion was that she’d need more time to set up the pump before use and break it down, clean it and store the milk after the pumping session. The writer wonders why she couldn’t have just brought the pump preassembled with additional preassembled parts if she needed to pump again. Storing milk just involves putting it in a cooler or in the ice pack next to the pump. How much additional time would she need?

I just read the article before beginning this post so I haven’t had much time to mull it over, but my first instincts are to agree with the writer. I’ve never had to pump on a work schedule, so I’m personally unfamiliar with the logistics of it. However, I taught with a first-time mother who had to pump twice a day when she returned from maternity leave. In order to pump she had to find another teacher to cover her class during prep time for 20 minutes a day. Her second pumping session took place during her own prep time. There wasn’t a private room available for her so she was forced to pump in the only staff bathroom. At the time I was irritated that she was hogging the bathroom, but now with close to two years of breastfeeding behind me I just feel sad that she had to express milk in a bathroom. Getting back to the point- she was able to pump for 20 minutes, twice a day. I wasn’t there to watch her assemble and disassemble her pump or see how she cleaned it, but she made it work. I imagine most working mothers without private offices are able to make it work for them as well. Why did Currier need additional time?

The writer ends the piece with this:

What concerns me is that this case sends the message that accommodating breastfeeding mothers is difficult. It’s not. All women need is privacy to pump and the break time that many employees are already afforded during the course of an average day. But employers will understandably protest policies requiring accommodation if they believe that breastfeeding employees require one additional hour on top of what they usually receive…

…As academics have painstakingly documented, there is much that policymakers could do to help women balance families and careers. My fear is that Currier will end up as a poster child for those who oppose these efforts.

I can see the logic in that argument. It makes a great deal of sense. But my instincts still tell me that employers should accommodate breastfeeding employees, and if it takes an additional hour out of their workday they should find a way to accommodate them so that it doesn’t. Plenty of women with private offices are able to work while they pump. If employees offer a separate, private lactation room women could more easily balance their families and their careers.

Back to the breastfeeding is weird thing, last night I was putting Sam to bed and he was having trouble falling asleep. For the first time in about a week he asked to nurse. I wasn’t feeling great and wasn’t in the mood so I asked if he was sure and he flopped on his belly and let me rub his back for a while, but after a minute or two he asked again. He didn’t want to sit on my lap though, and at this point nursing lying down (with his vice-like grip) is way too painful. I tried to get him on my lap and he cried and stiffened. He realized I wasn’t budging and begrudgingly climbed up on my lap and started to nurse.

But he wasn’t happy. He pulled down my shirt, climbed down, pulled up my shirt on the other side and said, “that one, that one.” So I let him nurse on that side for a while. But he still wasn’t happy. He pulled my shirt down, tugged on the the other side and said, “that one, mama. That one.” So I let him nurse on that side again. Of course that side wasn’t good enough, and after a few seconds it was the same routine. I told him that this side was the last side and he was all done after that. He nursed on the second side again, lost interest pretty quickly and asked for a drink. I gave him his water and he passed out sideways with his water bottle clutched in his pudgy little hands and his head on my leg.

If having your kid pull up your shirt and express a random preference of “that one,” when talking about your breasts isn’t weird I don’t know what is.

I collected my first human stool sample last night in a little sterile jar.

Now it appears I’ve caught whatever bug he has. A steady diet of bananas, rice, applesauce and toast (though the definition of toast has expanded to include dry waffles and bagels as well as crackers) seems to have fixed the little one. Lets hope it fixes me too.

I started to write back to Stacie in the comments, but decided to make this a post in its own right. Responding to my Weaner-gate post from the other day, Stacie wrote:

I’m saddened that someone as involved in breastfeeding as the lactivist is is weirded out by toddler nursing. Certainly I think she should wean when she wants to but her attitude says a lot about how uncomfortable our culture is with the biological norm of toddler nursing and is unfortunate.

The Lactivist is already nursing a toddler, so that particular piece of the Weaner-gate scandal doesn’t bother me. It seems like a moot point. The idea of it weirds her out, yet she still nurses her son. I completely understand. I’m weirded out by the idea of nursing a two-year-old, yet I have a feeling that in just a few months that’s exactly where I’ll be.

I never dreamed I’d nurse this long. When Sam was one-month-old I wrote, “So yeah, it’s all about the boobies these days. I’m thrilled that they’ve come through for Sam and me- he’s probably at least 9 pounds by now since he was 8.5 last week- but man, it’s exhausting. Every few days he’ll go through a little growth spurt where he eats every hour. EVERY HOUR! Give a girl a break. I don’t know how people do this until their kids are two and three years old. In my opinion, if the kid’s old enough to use utensils, he’s old enough to be weaned.”

Utensils? In my head I based weaning on the use of utensils? How little I knew. The child’s been using utensils for more than half of his life now. What used to weird me out has become my every day. I still nurse my 20-month-old son and I’m not afraid to admit it, but I don’t nurse him in public. He doesn’t need to or want to and I don’t particularly want him to. He’s old enough to eat a cracker if he’s hungry. So while nursing a toddler may be normal for me, people only know I’m still nursing him because I write about it or tell them about it. It’s not something anyone sees anymore, not even my husband since these days Sam never asks to nurse in front of him.

Our culture is uncomfortable with toddlers nursing because it’s the exception, not the norm. I very rarely see anyone nursing a toddler and when I see it it’s weird. It’s not wrong, I nurse a toddler fairly regularly. It’s just different. It’s also weird when I see someone topless on the beach. Not because it’s wrong or unsavory, but because it’s out of the ordinary.

I think the Lactivist’s statements show that she’s reevaluating her feelings every step of the way. I think it’s fair to be weirded out by something that’s a cultural rarity and I think it’s fair that she’s ambivalent about her current situation.

Now that I’m a third of the way through my pregnancy (and nursing while pregnant is weird and painful enough) it looks like I may be faced with tandem nursing- another idea that weirds me out. To have a newborn attached to my breast for weeks at a time with a toddler, a walking, talking, jumping, singing, alphabet-reciting toddler, trying to get in on the action terrifies me. I never would have dreamed that I’d even have to consider the possibility. It’s weird. But perhaps in six months if it’s my reality it will cease to be weird. Honestly, I hope that Sam will wean on his own and I won’t have to deal with it, but if he doesn’t, my future seems weird to me.

I don’t think that the use of the word weird is necessarily negative. I am ambivalent about my current situation and ambivalent about what the future holds. I think that ambivalence is something that many women are still afraid to address. Honestly, I think breastfeeding is weird. It’s strange to have something (and a newborn is hardly even a someone yet which is why I use the word something) attached to your breast so many hours a day for so many weeks. I’m sure that all over the world nursing women look down at their newborn infants and think, “this is pretty weird.” Once you get used to it and it becomes less of a struggle it seems like the most beautiful, natural, thing in the world, but each new development in a nursing relationship, each foray into the unknown (like the first time Sam nursed standing in front of me!) feels strange. I don’t think it’s bad to be weirded out.

A good friend wants Bob’s help building a wall in his house on Sunday. The problem is that Saturday is Bob’s big fishing trip which means that I’ll have seven days straight of full time parenting without a break. The following weekend Bob can’t help him out because he’s going on a trip to the mountains. And the following weekend is, well, two weekends away and I don’t think our friend wants to wait that long.

So I feel like a jerk because I don’t want him to help. But I don’t want him to help because an hour in the afternoon when Bob gets home, after he’s had time to decompress and before I have to make dinner and feed Sam, isn’t much of a break. I’m totally exhausted all of the time, Sam’s still got some stomach thing going on which is making him fussier and more demanding than usual and interrupting his sleep and mine, and I’m pregnant. I sort of remember the second trimester being easier than the first last time, but the second trimester with a toddler isn’t any easier. I still have morning sickness, I can’t get comfortable, and I wake up coughing four or five times a night because my pregnancy safe asthma medication is totally ineffective compared to the stuff that possibly causes birth defects.

Naps still aren’t regular and involve me driving for an hour, stopping the car every so often to retrieve sippy cups and help put “sock on, sock on.” The idea of seven days straight without a good chunk of time to myself makes me want to cry.

If this next baby’s not a sleeper I’m selling them both on the black market.

Bryan’s baby is due any time now. Be sure to check in.

It seems a number of women think that in order to call yourself a lactivist you must practice child-led weaning. Child-led weaning, which differs from baby-led weaning, is when a child continues to nurse for as long the child shows interest. Though some will wean earlier or later, most children wean themselves between their second and fourth year.

The Lactivist recently found herself in trouble when she mentioned that she wanted to wean her 14-month-old son and that the idea of nursing a toddler “weirds her out.” A number of women were outraged that a woman who dares to call herself The Lactivist would use the words “weird” and “breastfeeding” in the same sentence. Many of these women expressed that they were disappointed that someone who calls herself The Lactivist, not a lactivist, would wean a child that wasn’t ready.

I think the whole argument, Weaner-gate, as The Lactivist calls it, is ridiculous. Why can’t a woman who calls herself a lactivist wean her child when she wants to? The AAP recommends exclusively nursing for six months, continued breastfeeding for the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child. The Lactivist’s son is 14-months-old. How is that not setting a good example? Why can’t she support child-led weaning without actually practicing it? I’m a pro-choice advocate yet I’ve never had an abortion. Does that make my support for a woman’s right to choose any less real? My husband is a breastfeeding advocate yet he’s unable to actually breastfeed. Does that make his support any less real?

Breastfeeding is an amazing, important thing, and I think all women who give birth should try it. I don’t just think they should try it, I think they have a responsibility to try it, it’s just that important. But I don’t think any woman should be forced to continue a breastfeeding relationship for any longer than she wants to.

Last night wasn’t nearly as bad as I anticipated. He didn’t go to sleep until after 10, but he slept until 6 before waking up screaming. Whatever stomach issue he had seems to be mostly resolved. But I’m still tired so I’m stealing another meme from Ladybug’s Picnic.

I give you money and send you into the grocery store to pick up 5 items. You can only pick one thing from the following departments.. what is it?

1. Produce: from the supermarket? I haven’t gotten produce from the supermarket in a long time. Ummm. Apples are still in season.
2. Bakery: A loaf of Le Bus multi-grain bread
3. Meat: not from the supermarket.
4. Frozen: I’m in the mood for Ben and Jerry’s mint chocolate cookie ice cream
5. Dairy: Cabot seriously sharp cheddar

Let’s say we’re heading out for a weekend getaway. You’re only allowed to bring 3 articles of clothing with you. So, what’s in your bag?

I’m assuming that this is in addition to what I’m wearing, so for fall I’d bring

1. long-sleeved t-shirt
2. black cashmere turtleneck sweater
3. clean underwear

If I was to listen in on your conversations throughout the day, what 5 phrases or words would I be most likely to hear?

1. Not safe
2. Who loves Sammy?
3. Give mama a kiss
4. What time is it? Diaper Time
5. Stupid cat

So, what 3 things do you find yourself doing every single day, and if you didn’t get to do, you probably wouldn’t be in the best mood?

1. cuddle with Sam
2. read something- blogs, books, magazines, whatever
3. put toys away at night. I don’t like it, but if they don’t get put away I get irritated when I see them the next morning

We’re talking a 3 hour block with nobody around. What 5 activities might we find you doing?

1. Writing/reading blogs
2. watching TV online (we got rid of cable)
3. Cooking something
4. Grooming
5. Water aerobics. I’m all about it these days.

We are going to the zoo. But, it looks like it could start storming, so it’ll have to be a quick visit. What 3 exhibits do we have to get to?

1. Primate house
2. Rare animals
3. Giant River Otters- my favorites

You just scored tickets to the taping of any show that comes on t.v. of your choice. You can pick between 4, so what are you deciding between?

1. The Daily Show
2. The Colbert Report
3. America’s Test Kitchen
4. Iron Chef

You’re hungry for ice cream. I’ll give you a triple dipper ice cream cone. What 3 flavors can I pile on for ya?

1. butter pecan
2. coconut almond fudge
3. Mexican chocolate

Somebody stole your purse/wallet…in order to get it back, you have to name 5 things you know are inside to claim it. So, what’s in there?

I’ve still got a diaper bag

1. Diapees/Wipees animal print case with size 5 diapers
2. huge package of baby wipes
3. key chain with a ridiculous number of store cards on it
4. Camelbak water bottle
5. overstuffed wallet

You are at a job fair, and asked what areas you are interested in pursuing a career in. Let’s pretend you have every talent and ability to be whatever you wanted, so what 4 careers would be fun for you?

1. Food designer
2. yoga instructor
3. writer
4. something to do with film- I was a theater major in college and miss the fun

If you could go back and talk to the old you, when you were in high school, and inform yourself of 4 things, what would you say?

1. Dating a guy 10 years your senior is a terrible idea
2. Dreadlocks look ridiculous on teenage white girls
3. Smoking makes you smell bad
4. Your father would be thrilled if you lived with him. Don’t let your mother tell you otherwise.

Play along and leave me a comment if you do.

Sam’s got some sort of stomach thing going on and he’s got a nasty, painful diaper rash to go with it. I have a feeling I’m in for a rough night. Wish me luck.

Tonight, in a much better mood than last night, I am thankful that the kitchen is mostly clean, that everyone ate the pie (which was the bane of my existence this morning), because the food was all ready at the same time (even the turkey that didn’t get into the oven until 12.30 because of the stupid pie), and that there were plenty of leftovers including enough scraps for a turkey pot pie (again with the pie- maybe I’ll buy a frozen crust for this one).

I’m thankful that Sam who was sketched out at first by all the relatives he hasn’t seen in I don’t even know how long warmed up as the night wore on and talked and talked and played. I’m thankful that I had popsicles on hand to soothe his fat lip after he ran face first into a chair. I’m thankful that no one fought (except for my mom and I, but that doesn’t count) and that everyone had a nice, relaxing, stress-free Thanksgiving

I’m especially thankful for the chocolate covered pretzels (mostly dark, my favorite) my mother-in-law who unfortunately had to work sent in her place and I’m thankful I didn’t open them until almost everyone was too full to eat more.

I’m thankful for my husband who helped me slice apples this morning and took Sam all day so I could cook, and for my sister-in-law’s fiancé’s parents who sent me five bags of maternity clothes (is that the lamest pregnancy announcement ever?), and for my sweet little boy who is still a shitty sleeper but he’s my shitty sleeper and I love him all the same.

Thanks for reading and I hope you have plenty to be thankful for too.

After spending most of the day in the kitchen and a good hour and a half vacuuming the house and dusting I’m not in the best of moods. My mom came to help but sadly, she’s always been more of a hindrance than a help so having her here always makes me more frustrated than I would have been without her. At least she tries. And and least I accomplished all that I wanted to accomplish today.

I’m tired and grumpy so I’m going to go to sleep. Tomorrow I’ll be sure to have an extensive list of things I’m thankful for, but right now I’m just thankful for my king-sized bed.

Because I’m a slacker (and I’m tired and I have a headache) I’m posting tomorrow’s entry for Kids Dish here tonight.

Last night I picked up the turkey, did the grocery shopping and spent a good three and half hours in the kitchen accomplishing… Well, I don’t even know what I accomplished. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot.

I cleaned out the refrigerator and discarded all of the expired condiments. We somehow had a fridge full of salad dressings I’d never buy since I make all of my own. I guess my mother-in-law must have brought them here for some meal or another and forgotten them. I also discarded an ancient jar of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is one of those things I won’t touch unless I’ve made it myself (well, I’ll eat some restaurant aioli, but only sometimes.)

So the refrigerator is cleaned out, the shelves are clean (except for the two drawers that I just didn’t have the energy to deal with) and some of the prep work is done. I still need to figure out how to make the green beans and I haven’t decided if I want to make multigrain dinner rolls or buttermilk biscuits. I bought the stuff for both. I was pleased to see that the turkey (unlike the chickens I’ve bought from the farm) was pretty well cleaned. The giblets and neck were actually detached and stuffed inside the cavity and I didn’t have to scrape out any nasty, gooey innards. Nothing like fresh from the farm animal goo.

The menu:
roasted butternut squash and garlic bisque
turkey
extra stuffing (aunt bev)
mashed potatoes (aunt bev)
cranberry sauce (aunt bev)
roasted potatoes (I have close to five pounds. Will people eat two kinds of white potatoes?)
candied sweet potatoes
green beans
balsamic glazed carrots
rolls or biscuits
cheesecake (mom)
apple pie
chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies

Completed prep:
Butternut squash and veggies roasted and pureed
Stock made for soup and stuffing
Onions and celery chopped for stuffing and gravy
Turkey ready to be brined
Giblets removed and liver discarded
Green beans trimmed
Sweet potatoes scrubbed
Refrigerator cleaned
Cookies baked

Today
1. Prepare brine
2. start bread dough? Biscuit dough?
3. make pie dough
4. make sweet potatoes
5. blanch green beans
6. cut herbs from the garden: thyme, chives, rosemary
7. clean up
8. bake bread
9. make herb butter for turkey

Thursday:
1. rinse and dry turkey
2. make stuffing
3. stuff turkey, and start roasting
4. start gravy
5. assemble pie
6. make carrots
7. reheat sweet potatoes and bread
8. finish green beans

I know I’m missing plenty from the lists. I have to set the table at some point and get all of my serving dishes labeled and ready to go. I don’t know if I’ll do that today or tomorrow though.

The comments section of the article about breastfeeding a four-year-old I linked to last week was a little bit out of control. I came across a website where someone responded to many of the comments. Here are some of my favorites:

So is she going to feed her child at school? Will she be packing a bottle of expressed milk in her secondary school lunchbags? How does she get anything done with a child permanently up her jumper? Certainly there’s no way she can have sex if she is still breastfeeding! Snigger!

Translation: I have no idea why she’s doing it, and I don’t know anything about the benefits of longer term breastfeeding, so I’m going to assume that she is doing it for unfathomable selfish reasons. I probably also believe in early weaning so that the mother / father can regain control of the breasts instead of having to make them available to her infant child, in which case the contradictory nature of my arguments has not occurred to me and probably never will. I probably also think that breastfeeding is disgusting and/or unpleasant full stop, even though I probably will not admit it.

And my personal favorite:

We’re not in the Stone Age / Third World!

Another day without a nap. I’m terrified that this nap strike means he’s done with naps altogether. He’s way too young to stop napping, but I tried to get him down for close to two hours today and failed miserably. He’s never been a good napper. He always just took one when every other baby I know took two. I don’t know if I can handle a life without naps. I’m exhausted.

The good news is that he was asleep by eight with very little struggle.

Random question- if you use/ have used cloth diapers, what laundry detergent do you recommend?

Sam didn’t nap so he fell asleep ten minutes from home on the way back from my in-laws’ house. He woke up when Bob brought him in the house and had trouble falling asleep. I read him two stories and he wanted to nurse so I let him (ignoring the blister I got from him nursing a bit too adamantly the other day). But he was wide awake and wouldn’t let me hold him quietly so I left the crying child with my husband and went out with some friends. It’s nice to have that option once in a while.

My father-in-law had a minor heart attack today and we all went to the hospital to be with him and my mother-in-law. My brother-in-law’s wife and daughter arrived a few hours after the rest of us. My niece, who Sam calls Aya because he can’t pronounce her name correctly, is ten months old, almost exactly 40 weeks younger than Sam.

Aya is still nursing in the morning and at night, though my sister-in-law tells me the nighttime feeding may be on the way out. The rest of the day she eats formula, pureed baby food and some table foods. Well maybe some is an understatement- I asked and they told me she mostly eats table foods at home these days, but the only real foods I’ve ever seen her eat are the tasteless baby rice or vegetable puffs all babies seem to love and crackers. When I’ve been at their house or seen them out she just eats the stuff from the plastic containers. Since Sam only ever ate table foods (with the occasional bowl of cereal for iron or jars of baby food to appease my mother-in-law who always seemed offended that he wasn’t eating more food from jars), that system is kind of foreign to me.

Anyway, what I’m getting to is that by the time they got to the hospital, after five, Aya was hungry and miserable. She was screaming at the top of her lungs and seemed outraged that her parents were trying to feed her pureed peas of all things. (My brother-in-law asked, “couldn’t you have brought her apples or bananas or something she likes?) It seems this screaming until she eats is a phase she’s going through, and after she’s eaten she’s pleasant until bedtime, but since her routine was off she didn’t want to eat anything, which was just making her angrier and louder. They offered her dry cereal and some crackers and she’d eat a bite or two then throw the rest on the floor and cry some more.

It occurred to me, after she’d been screaming and refusing food for half an hour, that if it had been 10-month-old Sam losing his shit in public I would have pretty much shoved my boob in his mouth and he’d have calmed down instantly. At the time he was nursing at least eight or nine times a day. Now that he’s older he’d be irate if I dared offer him my breast during a tantrum. I miss the ease of it all sometimes. It was so nice when something so simple could calm him.

Eventually they bought Aya a bag of animal crackers from the vending machine and she calmed down and had a good time playing with Sam in Grandpop’s hospital room and the corridors.