Breastfeeding 101

Recently, one of my friends suggested I write about breast-feeding, because I am, apparently, so experienced from nursing my twins. She has a lot of friends with children and most of them have nursed their babies. She is very interested in the culture and practicalities of nursing, and is very supportive of my tendency to whip a boob or two at any given time. (Which I do even without a baby nearby. KIDDING!)

I can’t address the subject of nursing from any other viewpoint but my own, so please forgive any sweeping statements that seem high and mighty, and with which you, from your own circumstances, disagree. Also, at this time of my life I do have a rather rosy view of the nursing experience. When I was in week 6 and had infected nipples and the pain of nursing through the infection was enough to make me cry, I had a slightly different view. However much it hurt, I was not really tempted to give up because I believe so strongly in the benefits – to their health and to mine, both mental and physical. Disclaimer out of the way, here are some of the questions I hear on a regular basis. Some are sensible and thought provoking and some are just plain old provoking.

Does it hurt? No. (They aren’t chewing, they are sucking. They bit a little when the teeth first came in, but no longer.)
Do you nurse both at the same time? Yes. (Saves time, and besides, they get jealous.)
Do they eat anything else? Yes. (A lot of other things, like steak, smoked salmon, pasta, crackers, fruit, toast, vegetables, sushi, pound cake, muffins, Swedish meatballs and cheese. So far.)
Do they also drink from bottles? Yes. (They like cow milk just fine.)
Have your boobs become larger? Yes. (By about a cup size.)
Doesn’t nursing make your boobs droop? Yes. (Do I care? Not really, because age and gravity will do exactly they same thing to all women, even without nursing, so don’t try to “save” them. So I have softer boobs than I did two years ago, big deal. I am putting them to excellent use.)
How long are you going to keep breast-feeding?

That is the biggest question, for me as well. I am not sure when we will stop nursing. If it were up to my twins, they would say, “Never!” My babies are nursing junkies. When they know they are about to be nursed, they get all excited and happy; it’s delightful to see. When asked how long, I usually say, “When they have had enough.” I mean it in two ways, one – when they have satisfied whatever urge prompted them to nurse at that moment and two – when the three of us have decided that we have had enough.

There are so many reasons a baby nurses; he is thirsty, he is hungry, he is tired, he wants comfort, he is in an unfamiliar place and needs a familiar taste/smell/feel/sensation to reassure him all is well in the world. Sometimes the babies have a real need to fall asleep and are unable to. At those time nursing is so valuable, a nursing baby is usually a sleepy baby. My babies like to nurse right after a meal, at least they used to; in the past few weeks they have given that up. It’s part of weaning, I know, and I belong to the ‘don’t offer, but don’t refuse’ school of weaning. If they pull at me and ask to nurse, I won’t push them away, but I no longer offer to breast-feed them after every meal.

Yes, they do ask to nurse. Sometimes they swarm me to nurse, squeaking and gibbering, “Nana! Mama! Nana! Nana!” until I sit down and nurse them, or until I pick somebody up and snuggle him close. "Na na" seems to be their word for nursing. Sometimes it can be a bit much; experienced nursing twin mothers refer to those times as a “feeding frenzy”. That’s when both babies pull on your clothes and shriek and carry on and do their best to yank off your bra to get what they want. One time that happened to me, at a playgroup.

My babies and I attend an International playgroup that meets once a week, near my house. The venue has this huge room, about 50 feet by 250 feet, with three smaller rooms attached. The first time my boys saw this place they spent about two seconds doing the “Oh, my! Where are we? We are so shy” thing, before they took off running down the length of the room, and kept that up for about half an hour. I was as delighted as they – both babies crashed in the car on the way home and slept for about an hour. I justify my going to an “International” group by my being American only by inclination, I was born in Canada and became a citizen in 1996, and by the fact that my boys, being American, are indeed from another nation from the viewpoint of the German, South African, Japanese, Korean and Israeli members of the group. I don’t think there are other nursing mothers there – most of the babies are older than mine, except one, and I believe he has stopped nursing already.

Anyway, it was story time, and we all sat down on these bits of carpeting to hear a story. As soon as I sat, one baby rushed over, plonked himself in my lap and beat on my chest until I arranged my clothes and him to feed. The sight of his brother getting nursed/ getting attention/ being held sent the other baby into a paroxysm of envy. He ran over, squeezed into my lap and snaked his hands under my clothes, yelling “Nananana! Mamamamama!” until I arranged him so I could nurse them both comfortable. However, rather than settling down for a little feed and to listen to the story, they caught sight of each other, and decided the other baby was enjoying a more delicious breast. “I want that one!” I could almost hear what they were thinking. They scrambled around on my lap until they had switched sides and only then would they relax and feed a little. The breasts were flashed abit in the melee, but nobody seemed to stare. I certainly was not embarrassed – hey, they are babies and literally don’t know any better. However, I did hear later, from a friend who was an eyewitness, that one person thought it was a bit much. Not in a bad way, she just remarked that breastfeeding twins seemed so primal. And it is – our most basic impulses are at play when we nurse. A baby's need to suckle is a primal need, so is a mother's need to nurture her babies, and I understand that.

Therefore, when someone asks me the “How long are you going to keep breast-feeding?” question, I cannot really give an answer. It all depends on how long the babies need to satisfy their basic, mammalian and human need for the warmth, comfort and love they get from nursing.