Breast is Best
A controversial topic I know. There are few mothers I’m in contact with that breastfed their babies beyond 3 months, in fact out of all the women I know including me, I know of only 3. Every woman I know though has tried to breastfeed, some have only done it for a day others have slogged on through supply issues for weeks before finally letting it go.
So as my son comes into his 8’th month and is still breastfed I find myself alone in this situation with no one to talk to and no advice to be had. Like what do you do when as he starts to eat more solid foods you feel like you are losing your bond with your son. Or how ridiculously bad nursing bras really are. At this point I’d give my right arm for my boobs to look halfway decent. How do you handle the I have teeth and maybe today I won’t eat I’ll just try to bite your nipple off syndrome. It sucks that I have no one to ask these questions to or at the very least no one to commiserate with. There are days when I want to just have a freaking drink without measuring out the hours between my last feeding and the next feeding and determining whether or not I can have a single light beer. I can’t even tell you how many weeks it took me to figure out that if he’s too big to lay on the boppy and he just hangs off your lap laying down, you have to sit him up to eat like he’s a real boy.
When I had my son my position on breastfeeding with non committal. I figured I’d give it a try but didn’t want to make any type of statement that he would be exclusively breastfed for 18 months come hell or high water. After a few weeks when we had both gotten the hang of it and I didn’t feel like trying to inject a numbing agent into my nipple to stop the pain I put a 3 month time stamp on breastfeeding. I’ll be done by the time I go back to work.
Then weeks before I was to return to work I got the stomach flu, I threw up for 3 days, could barely eat anything much less take in any fluids. My supply tanked and my son was hungry, evidence by the formula bottle he almost choked himself on gobbling it down one night. I was devastated I didn’t want to stop breastfeeding, and I didn’t want to be forced to. Armed with Gatorade a gallon of water and enough calories to put a wrestler in the next weight class I slowly got my supply back up. When I did go back to work, I felt better and really approached the whole thing as, if I can’t keep my supply up with pumping or I can’t pump enough at work because I have a very much on the go type of job, then that will be ok. 5 months later I am still pumping at work, my supply is not what it was, but I have stopped pumping when not at work and my son only nurses between 4 and 5 times per day. He nurses and gets previously frozen breast milk with some formula occasionally.
Admittedly once he is a year old I am going to stop breastfeeding. He already looks so much like a little boy to me these days that there are times when its weird to me to have him latch on. He sits up when he eating now because he’s too large to lay across my lap or on the boppy and he has started to recognize where my boobs are and makes an effort to get to them. Ultimately when it comes down to it though I do believe that breast is best.
There are components in breast milk that aren’t in formula. Studies between formula fed babies and breastfed babies suggest there are numerous differences in their nutrition and overall health. This is not to say that I judge or think that my friends children who’s children were fed formula are doomed to any type of health issues I don’t. What it does mean is that for my situation and my son, I think the fact that he is still breast fed is better for him. I’m proud that I have breast fed this long and because I have few friends who have breast fed for any extended length of time, I never feel like I can bring up what I think is an accomplishment. So I keep my mouth shut on the topic but inwardly I’m proud of it and hope that as the years go on, there will be other women in my life who do continue breastfeeding for a longer period of time. So when one of them says to me, it freaks my out that he’s starting to pull down my shirt because he knows where my boobs are I can say, I totally understand it freaked me out to.
Below are just a couple of articles that I read before writing this. I like to research topics and the components of breast milk is especially interesting to me. I think if I were a more scientifically minded person I would do actual research but I’m way to busy for that. So instead I’ll stick to reading interesting articles and use those to help prove my point. http://www.americanpregnancy.org/firstyearoflife/whatsinbreastmilk.html
http://www.drgreene.com/article/essential-components-breast-milk
