Ebbing and flowing; waxing and weaning

Well, after 2 and one half years of lactation amenorrhea, the Crimson Tide is back in my life. No, I am not referring to the University of Alabama Athletics. I mean, if I had ever had any doubt of the efficacy of baby led nursing as a form of birth control, I am in doubt no longer. For as long as my boys nursed when they wanted, for as long as they wanted and wherever they wanted; I did not ovulate. About three weeks ago I started saying, “No nursing right now,” at the playgroup, and at music class and in the coffee shop, etc. About two weeks ago I started not nursing them at all at night. That is, I am trying not to nursing at night; it works about half the time – I still nurse the baby if he is feeling hypersensitive and Daddy just isn’t doing the trick. My point is: I woke up on Sunday, feeling tired and grouchy, and hey nonny no…Hey there, Aunt Flo.

I am absolutely positive it was the endless, day and night, baby led nursing that meant I was not ovulating. The moment I said, "No," took over and no longer let them dictate the parameters of the nursing relationship – whammo! I release an egg (or knowing me, two eggs) and have the resulting period. I know several women who have had a menstrual cycle whilst nursing, but none of these women co-slept and nursed on cue. I feel that to be an effective form of birth control, referred to on-line as The Lactation Amenorrhea Method, or LAM, the baby must wear the pants. Or the Huggies. Or the Pampers. Or the washed at home cloth diapers held up with pins. Or whatever. Lactation amenorrhea is a physiological result of nursing, but it must have an emotional cause as well.

I recently read The Nursing Mother’s Guide to Weaning, by Kathleen Huggins, an emotional book, which basically lets the reader know it’s "best" for the baby to let the baby wean when the baby is ready. One of the reasons given for not weaning is a delay of menses, and all the messy, expensive inconvenience that goes with it. Well, it’s just hunky dory for the baby to wean when he’s ready, isn’t it? But it's not always best for mama. In my case, Baby B is ready and willing and able. Today, for example, he asked to nurse when he woke up, I complied for about twenty minutes. Then we had a busy day – went to a friend’s house, had a nap, ate lunch, went swimming, had ice cream, played outside, and he didn’t ask again until about 5:00. He was hungry and tired and missing his Daddy, so he asked to nurse, I said no, he hollered for a minute, then was happy to eat his nice couscous and fresh garden vegetables with his Daddy, who brilliantly showed up just as the meltdown detonated. So that means Baby B has nursed once so far today, and will nurse again for about ten minutes before bed. He will have nursed only twice all day, with about twelve hours between sessions and he’s cool with that. I'm cool with that; I could nurse twice a day for the next month, easily, and save nursing intermittently for soothing an injury or for an emergency. The Nursing Mother’s Guide would tell me that Baby B is ready and to gently guide him to wean.

However, nothing is easy in motherhood/this life/my household. Baby A, to be ornery, has asked to nurse about ten times today, and cries bitter tears every time I say no. I let him nurse a bit in the morning when he was freshly awake and groggy and confused and pissy, and he almost killed me suckling on the painful side. I have had to work very hard on distracting him from the breast today. I know when he gets a chance to nurse he will be so over eager that he’ll latch on with the force of a limpet mine. Lately, it takes real effort to pry his jaws off my nipple, and he’s bitten down a few times in an attempt to hang on. Yes, it hurts, and yes, darn it, I still have an infection on one side because of the force of his latch for the past two weeks. Now I know he’s not ready to wean, but I am not going to wean one baby and not the other. It may seem counter-intuitive to you; with all the cruncgy granola reading materials I consume. Why not let the babies wean when they want to? And if it’s not at the same time, why not let one baby keep going? Well, number one, I no longer want to nurse, it hurts again, it's becoming difficult and, when Baby A nurses at the playground, it prevents me from standing/walking/running and parenting my active non-nurser. Number two, I feel that Baby B is only nursing because he sees Baby A doing it, gets jealous and wants a piece of the action. Also, I AM a part of this nursing relationship and I say it’s over. I long to be able to run after my boys and not have to hold my boobs still. Oh, to wear a real bra again!

If, in the early days of tears and struggle, I could have seen today, and the tears and struggle, would I do it again? Would I nurse my twins for about two years? Absolutely. Without a doubt, there has been a lot of joy and a lot of peaceful snuggling and there have been many, many nights when I co-slept very well and was very happy with one or two babies attached. But now they are much bigger, much stronger and much kickier than they were as infants. I am totally tired out; I can no longer sleep with them attached. I can no longer sleep beyond 5:30 am; it’s not that I wake up then, it’s that they paw me awake to nurse!

I just read an article in Mothering Magazine about an unrelated topic: Passive Parenting, by Nora Rock. In a section urging parents not to speed up the maturation process, a few lines struck me:

“But in the raising, so much is lost…child logic, child language, child priorities - in our haste to grow our seedlings up. If we wean our breastfeeding children before they speak, we will never hear them describe an experience lost to memory for most of us. If we teach them too soon to tell time and live by our schedules, they will lose touch with the rhythm of their inner selves, the same rhythm that carried them into the world when the time was exactly right, hours or weeks after the midwife said simply, "trust".


Okay, I get it. I am not to rush my children headlong into adulthood. I am not to push them faster than they are ready to be pushed. I am not to hasten them away from a magical time in their childhood, a nursing time. I can just hear my boys now, age ten and recalling to each other the details of nursing; how it felt, how it tasted, how loudly I yelped when one of them bit me, how Baby B kicked Baby A in the eye and it swelled up for two days, because Baby A had Baby B’s favorite breast and wouldn’t let go… ah, memories indeed. Somehow I cannot imagine my boys engaging in a discussion of breastfeeding techniques, from the toddlers’ point of view. But then again, I also cannot imagine them ever letting go of their right to nurse, so perhaps they will talk about it someday.


I wonder what Baby A will say if I tell him, years from now, how hard he fought weaning? I wonder what the repercussions of his breast-centric youth will be? Twenty years from now, will Baby A bring home a woman with huge boobs? If he does, I guess I’ll know why.