{She Said} Nursing

Sorry to those of you that are beautifully one with Mother Nature but…

Breastfeeding is not lovely or really all that natural. It hurts even though many might want to say it doesn’t… it does get better but there are always reasons for it to be uncomfortable (for example, take my little over zealous eater). It forces me to be constantly accessible to my child which makes it hard to for me to feel like a real person outside of a food source.

Do you know that some actually recommend that when the child gets worked up that the mother not be the one to calm them because it overwhelms the child since they can smell the milk and get worked into a hunger in addition to what they were already upset about. That makes me like my child’s drug. I can literally drive my child crazy because I am his refrigerator- i.e. his addiction.

Let me also tell you about his eating style… they call him a “piranha” in the lactation world. At times, he latches on, growls, and then shakes his head back and forth. You can see what I mean by over zealous eater and why discomfort happens no matter how much I conquer this process. He is also what they call a “gourmet” in that he likes to take his time. I can be feeding him for over an hour each time. What a champ my son is.

The loveliness factor in all this… I am my child’s ultimate soother. I know I said I shouldn’t calm him when he is worked up but if things get irreconcilably bad I can feed him and all is right again in the world. Matt and I refer to it as the blank slate- it’s as if all that happened before is erased. While I’m nursing we are calm and quiet in our togetherness- this is something that is rare other than when he is feeding. All the other times, he is so busy either learning about the world around him or sleeping that he is generally distracted- not when he is nursing. I also get to give the little guy mid feeding kisses on his cheeks… those are the best!

All that being said- as much as it is frustrating to me, I do have a really hard time when someone else gives my child a bottle. Isn’t that ridiculous. He is mine. I do the feeding here. Get it right.