The World Health Organization is currently recommending breastfeeding for the first 2 years at least - a length I wouldn't consider "extended." However, I do have similar feelings about women who breastfeed much longer than that. I guess it is a matter of perspective - how long is too long? And is breastfeeding really about "self-sacrifice"? These are interesting issues that are worth talking about, I think.
Right, I guess I should clarify that over a year is certainly only "extended" from the particular American middle-class background I come from. I get pissed, actually, when people try to foist bullshit sexual drama on women who breastfeed for 2, 3 years. I think that's a bunch of misogynistic bullshit. But I personally couldn't hack it for that long, which is partially why I react (internally) the way I do, I guess; compensatory judgment for my own worries about inadequacy.
We worried about the same thing with our infant on a cross-country flight. Luckily the guy next to us didn't seem to mind The Sound of Music playing multiple times.
John McCain's war against reproductive rights.
breastfeeding is physically demanding and it certainly entails a certain sacrifice of time as well.
if the child is happy, I don't see how anybody is going to complain about what's on your laptop.
I would mind, but I wouldn't say anything. Also, if given a choice between shrieking/loud babbling and Nemo, Nemo would certainly win.
Also, since I'm sensitive about the sounds in my surroundings, I would come prepared with earplugs.
I secretly feel the same way. We just took a trip from Reno to Baltimore with 3 kids, 7yo, 5yo, and a 2 yo. Nemo is preferable to an upset child, because I found out even on high volume on my portable DVD player, it wasn't really loud at all. My 2yo had to hold it in her lap to hear it well with the volume all the way up. Good luck on your trip.
Oh Sybil Vane, *heart*! I do sympathize. Finding Nemo touched off this entire undersea fixation in our just-turned-four-year-old and I swear if I have to endure one more conversation about effing wobbegongs or barracudas or sweet-pickle-relish-why-I-am-even-rehashing-it? *tears hair( But anyway, yes, I think on an airplane one could do a lot worse than sit next to a toddler watching Finding Nemo. Even as sick as I personally am of Finding Nemo, I'd rather overhear Dory talking whale than I would endure whining.
Re: the breastfeeding thing, I tend to get my hackles up around moms who nurse that long mostly because I've met so many who are sanctimonious and downright obnoxious about their epidural-refusing, home-birthing, cloth-diapering, homeopathic-remedy-researching, vaccine-refusing, organic-puree-making, sling-wearing, Montessori-homeschooling, Dr.-Sears-quoting, Bradley-methoding, designer-parenting, career-deferring ways; and that such moms will usually find some way to unsubtly insult my parenting within 30 minutes of meeting them. Is that sexist? I mean, the whole mommy-perfectionism thing is sexist, yes; but is it sexist to feel defensive because I'm afraid my own mommying is going to be trashed? Genuinely asking here.
(Standard disclaimer about I don't think any of those parenting choices are BAD; I just don't appreciate how they've somehow become the markers of moms who have proven they aren't BAD AND SELFISH BY NOT SERVING UP THEIR VERY OWN HEARTS EVERY DAY FOR BREAKFAST!!! After all, you don't HAVE to work, and they're only small for such a short time, and you can never get those years back so why would you even think of having your own identity, etc. blah blah blah bullshit.)
Okay, syntax was effed up there in the last paragraph. I'm multitasking... the 10 month old is up babbling and I'm trying to get him calmed down because I just want to sleep!! Sorry.
i have to confess that i sometimes feel an irrational disdain for parents on airplanes who dose their small children with laudanum.
why can't they have the decency to wait until the beverage service, and buy them miniatures of gin, like the rest of us do?
what, you don't think those tiny bottles are for grown-ups, do you?
For many women, breastfeeding is far easier than not.
North Americans have a very strong prejudice against breastfeeding as compared to Europeans. So when a woman goes against the grain, it stand out and her choice is considered odd.
My ds, breastfed her son until just before he turned three, but just as she began to wean him, he was diagnosed with leukemia, so she decided the comfort was necessary for him to go through so many painful procedures. Despite his high-risk treatment plan he had far fewer complications than expected. At one point the oncologist asked her ' what are you giving him?", thinking she had found some magic remedy/supplement. Now studies are underway to see about using breastmilk as a support measure.
The leukemia thing is a good example of reason not to judge (yeah, I probably do, sometimes). Breastfeeding to 3 or 4 or so doesn't have to mean it's a ridiculously self-sacrificing mom spoiling her spoiled child, even though that might be my gut reaction. Maybe it's just easier than having to bring along snacks and stuff everywhere she goes with the child. Or maybe someone's got leukemia and needs comforting. Plus it's pretty normal for moms to want to do things for their kids. There are all sorts of primal instincts for that, and they're born cute and fairly helpless, to reinforce it.
A Sarah, it's funny, I assume I can't tell anybody that I gave birth without drugs (any number of reasons, among them a high pain threshhold and a low tolerance for drugs) and nursed until 2--because they'll assume I'm some kind of asshole who's doing it to show people. For the record, I did a little organic puree making, but none of the other stuff on your list. 
If the easiest way to get your kid over the daycare illnesses so you can get your ass back to work is self-sacrificing, well maybe I'm that...and then I go and judge those who continued to 3 or 4. Sigh...what a nest.
BTW, once nursing is over, tootsie rolls are highly effective for the ascent and descent.
1) I agree with you the BF, but to be consistent, I tend to have the same irrational gut-level rejection to a 2-year with a bottle or a pacifier. I say this knowing full well my 13-month-old as yet shows no willingness to give up on suckling and I've not got the will to force him.
2) I'd rather hear Nemo (or gawd-awful Disney Princesses) than whining. We bought ear-phones for the 'puter on our recent flight. Seemed to work; kept the pre-schooler quiet and the neighbors un-annoyed.
Sybil, I don't have a kid, but I've heard that little kids aren't, well, grown up enough to know to pop their ears on takeoff, so that's why they scream because their ears hurt, and something that makes them swallow, like a nice lollipop, is advised.
I breastfed PK for 2 1/2 years. Time to revise your stereotypes!
I am currently 28 weeks pregnant and still nursing my almost three year old. I suppose I'm also a cloth diapering, homemade baby food making, baby wearing, crunchy mama. I'm also a psychotherapist who is home with my kids while they are little even though I miss work terribly, because we can afford it and I think it's the right thing to do for us.
Honestly, while the attachment parenting lifestyle is hard on mama for the first few years, my friends with older children and teens tell me it pays off in spades as they are secure, confident, and healthy. Yeah, it's hard now, but I'm certainly not a martyer. Doing this parenting thing the way I think is right is good for my self esteem as well as my kid's development. I'm not being altruistic, I'm being selfish--I want what I think is best for me and for my kids.
Anyway, I would say that it's really cool that you are able to see your issues in your feelings about extended nursing mamas. I think making it to two is fabulous, and it's no shame to have felt overwhelmed by the nursing relationship--it is overwhelming sometimes!
Some kids are ready to wean earlier than others. A lot of it is cultural.
Bottle is better than breast on a plane because you don't have to worry about the seatbelt rules.
We traveled a lot when my son was that age, and the best toy EVER to have along was a click-on click-off ballpoint pen. He'd never used one before. Had several sheets of paper. Trying to remember how old he was when we started with songs on tape, but this was long before traveling DVD players.
I personally find it hard to feel totally comfortable with the idea of people breastfeeding either substantially more or less than I did--I think it's such an emotionally charged issue (whether or not to breastfeed, and then how long, and how/when to wean) that it's incredibly hard to be open-minded about it. The whole process is so personal and stressful and complicated by hormones and sleep deprivation (more even than other aspects of pregnancy and parenting) that it's hardly fair to lump it in with other forms of prejudice. It's more, say, like having a visceral dislike of spinach, IMHO.
Another one here who feels compelled to not talk about my unmedicated labor or my extended breastfeeding so as to not make people think I think I'm better than them or something. Cause I don't. I suspect a fair number of women who breastfeed for longer than a year aren't as put out by it as women who wean earlier. I know the idea of mother as martyr that you object to, and I object to it too, but it just wasn't much of a bother or hassle to me and it was a really easy way to calm him down. In fact, after I weaned him (at 22 months, which is really only extended by U.S. standards, but yes, he could ask for it and he did), I felt like "now the hard part starts. Now I have to actually parent this kid."
For the record, I did use a sling and puree my own baby food, but I also went back to work at 2 months and it did wonders for my post-partum depression. No martyr here.
Is it sexist to feel defensive and proactively judge women who haven't judged you yet but might? That's kind of a hard question to answer, but consider that lots of those mothers may be doing the same thing - being proactively defensive because it's not really like society at large approves of their parenting. Society at large judges them a lot more harshly than it judges you.
The more I think about it, the more I think it is sexist in the sense that a lot of sexism between and among women has to do with how we judge ourselves to be meeting or not meeting societal expectations, and any area we feel uncomfortable with is an area where we are going to feel a lot more sensitive to being judged - whether it's how we dress or how many people we have sex with or how we parent - and those are all areas where we might be judgmental in advance and rely on stereotypes rather than wait and see or approach with an open mind.
So, Dr B, you breastfed PK till he was 2.5? that is so typical SAHM of you...
(just teasing)
I also breastfed my son till 2.5, but I was working all the time -- luckily in academia, it's not so hard to go home or have nanny bring baby to nurse when he was younger. when he was older, I could go to conferences etc for a few days, and he would be absolutely fine -- when I came back, I would breastfeed him again.
I am internally prejudiced against SAHMs, and also moms who do not even want to try to breastfeed. But I am fully aware there are perfectly good reason not to breastfeed (physical or menta), and I believe that it's important the parents are happy. Still, I can't shake both these judgments. about sahm: I think in an ideal society, we should have SAHM and SAHD as well as two working parents. But it bugs me that it's almost always the mother, and the criticisms(e.g. "why did you even bother having a baby if you are not going to raise him" or "you are not a full time mom") are never applied to men, like their own husbands, who work all the time and never see the kids. In fact, men sahd are often not respected
I feel similarly about people who say SAHMs don't work, or that breastfeeding is "always a sacrifice," when actually, I do it because I'm lazy, cheap, and born with highly productive milk glands.
But I've been breastfeeding continuously for over 4 years now, two kids with an overlap, and I even use slings because I'm too lazy to use my arms all the time and I fucking hate pushchairs.
I quite like laziness-driven parenting. It gives me more time for stuff I enjoy, like making my own bread and reading the whole internet.
I am self-critical of this stereotype of mine, I want y'all to know. Even before all of your very helpful evidence, I knew it was sexist and shitty and not accurate. SO, that's by way of apology I guess.
I'm listening, but still struggling. Where I live it is EXTREMELY Catholic and EXTREMELY conservative, and the crunchy natural parenting bit is SO wrapped up in this kind of idyllic-madonna-and-child, "look, why do you even HAVE lady bits if you aren't going to use them FOR YOUR HUSBAND AND CHILDREN?!?!" religious hangup. You get SO much approval here for following the crunchy-mom lifestyle. Online I see moms say that they chose those ways of parenting because they're easier and it worked best for their family, and they don't look down on other moms who do things differently. In person, the only concession I hear moms making to people who do things differently are qualifiers like, "Well, if they were just more INFORMED they'd do it my way."
I am sorry for the times I've undoubtedly contributed to the climate in which crunchy moms felt like they had to keep it a secret lest they be deemed a sanctimommy. And I too will try to revise my stereotypes. I think I'll have an easier time of it, when we (soon, God-willing!) live somewhere else. And also, honestly, if someone in my real life would occasionally give me props for my own non-trendy, making-it-up-as-we-go-along parenting, it would sure help.
I had never before connected my dislike of "the self-sacrificing mom" attitude with sexism, but now that you've mentioned it it's so obvious to me! And my anti-self-sacrificing-mom feelings were based on not having any children myself too, so I should have been more suspicious.
Now that I have a three-month-old darling plump little babykins (ahem, sorry, I mean my daughter) I find that in spite of myself I am more and more willing to adapt my life to suit the baby. I think I have a good sense of self-worth, but devoting myself to my daughter (even to the extent of giving up all my staple foods in an effort to cure her eczema - gah!) seems like the more comfortable alternative to worrying about the health and happiness of this little being who didn't even exist a short while ago. That is to say, I'm incapable of distancing myself from her right now, so catering to her every whim doesn't seem like a choice.
Must cut this comment short now cuz baby is hungry. Must fulfill primal instancts. Self really does no longer exist I guess...
That said, I still find it annoying when moms who get a What Not To Wear make-over claim to have no concern for their appearance because they put themselves last. And Stacey and Clinton say "and so you should, but" (and give some reason why nice clothes are also important). I think it's not so much the self-sacrifice that bothers me, but the self-description of their self-sacrifice, and a sort fo smugness that seems to put down less self-sacrificing mothers.
Oooh, I can so get behind this one. I nursed my daughter til she was about 15 months, then effortfully weaned her and felt totally bad about it. My older son went til 18 months and then dropped it on his own, which I felt much better about. With the twins, one went to about 17 months, then he had much more interesting things to do, thanks, but the other strung out til 19 months or so. My attitude was basically, fuck it - they'll know when they're done, and they probably won't be doing it in elementary school. We took essentially the same approach to potty training, and it's worked well.
We only hung on so long because it was well and truly the path of least resistance, and we didn't really try to show off about it. In retrospect, I think I hung on to that because I went back to work after about 8 weeks with each of them, and that was a very nice part of our connect time at home. I sympathize with those who are nursing til 3 or 4, but I feel that would be hard to carry off - my youngest guys are 3 (almost 4), and I can't picture either of them nursing. They'd much rather make fart jokes.
They make headphones that will fit a 2 year old. We had several.
But honestly I would mind it less on a plane than I did when a woman with a 4 year-old was BLARING Dora the Explorer from her laptop in a Panera the other day!
I tried so hard to be a Bradley Mommy, with no drugs and everything, but after 33 hours we had a c-section. It's a good thing, too, because I was tired.
I love the phrase sanctimommy - it just perfectly describes the judgment thing. I'll do my best to stop doing that to other moms who aren't as pure as I am, having nursed my son til he was 4.
/snark
Another one who finds herself keeping her birth and nursing to herself when its comes up. WHich is highly annoying some days because its totally societally acceptable to tell an expecting mom "Oh, get the epidural as soon as you walk in the door, and breastfeeding is icky.
Its especially galling, some days, because for some people, even mentioning that you went med-free or that you breastfed 18 months is taken as a rebuke against those who didn't. Someone who asks me outright "how long did you nurse" will get defensive if I simply say "DS weaned around 1.5." and start justifying why they didn't go that long. You know what - I really don't CARE! Just don't freaking assume I'm a judgemental freak because I did differently!
And no, I didn't make babyfood out of any self-sacrificing martyrdom. I did it because it was ridiculously cheap. Because, in reality, most of my parenting decisions come down to me being cheap (breastmilk is free) and lazy.
My breastfeeding experience was different with each of my 3 boys.
#1 hated it, went back to school, weaned at 6 weeks.
#2 got used to it, actually liked it, weaned at 7 months.
#3 much more in touch with my body, more relaxed and supported in parenting, and discovered the hormone rush is amazing! The oxytocin is better than nicotine. I weaned at a year but I wish I had done it longer!
(n.b. I don't smoke cigarettes but I do like the occasional cigar.)
Conclusion: a mom's enjoyment of breastfeeding depends enormously on her personal situation in life as well as the cultural and social support around her.
I just honestly have never heard another mom say that breastfeeding is icky. (Non-moms, yes.) I don't doubt that others have... I just wonder why I haven't. What accounts for that difference, you know? All I ever hear from other moms is about how "formula is sock water compared to breast milk" and the ubiquitous "breast is best" and so forth. Is it regional? Cultural? Class-related? *confused*
I may need to check out of this discussion because like someone else said it is so fraught and makes me feel rotten even to be reminded of all the nasty comments I've encountered while BF'ing and while formula-feeding. Anyway, though, thanks for giving me food for thought.
I returned to work when my son was 3 1/2 months old, and he weaned when he was almost four years old. During the first 6-7 months I was back at work, when he was still getting most of his nutrition from my milk, I spent all of my non-work time--including lunch and breaks--pumping, nursing, or otherwise caring for him. In retrospect, I see how crazy that was and I would do it differently a second time. Not sure how, but somehow. I was wreck, but I didn't know how else I could do it.
Where I grew up, nursing mothers were the norm.
Where I live now, a rural county dominated by customary Mexican folkways, mothers nursing their babies for two or three years is the norm.
Its the milkless mamas that provoke comment. I guess where you stand depends on where you sit. Which is how nursing is done around here.
Again, I want to make it very clear that I don't *believe* these stereotypes to be true. I should've anticipated the defensiveness that swirls around breastfeeding, but somehow I managed not to. Please try not to let me make you feel defensive. As I say above, it's a shitty instinct to have and I am working on it.
Please try not to let me make you feel defensive.
Christ, that sentence sucks. What I mean is, I's prefer if my problem didn't make anyone defensive.
Is it really possible for women to be sexist towards each other?
That's rhetorical, right?
I hated breastfeeding. I did it with both my boys until they were about a year old, but mostly because breastmilk is free and convenient, while formula is expensive and requires mixing. But I really, truly, disliked every second of it and once they were old enough for cow's milk, I quit. Also, I'm personally a little squicked by kids who are old enough to walk and talk and ask to nurse. But that's my own personal hangup.
That said, I think it's great if that's what you want to do. I certainly don't (or try not to and definitely not out loud) judge other women for making choices different from mine.
Also, the Nemo thing shouldn't be a problem. I took my kids on a flight without their dad a few months ago and it was Scooby Doo and Peep on my laptop. I had earphones for them, but even without it just wasn't very loud. And it was certainly better than their whining and my exasperation with them if they hadn't had entertainment. Everyone on both flights (outbound and return) that was sitting near us took the time to comment on how well-behaved my boys were. The movies didn't bother anyone, they mostly seemed grateful that the boys were quiet and mostly sitting still.
A Sarah, head right over the to Ask Moxie blog if you want to find folks who will give you props for making it as a normal mom, whatever your specific choices. Awesome blog about reality.
i think its v important to be willing to consider ones own potential prejudices, and i hope my comments didnt seem defensive at all. if its impossible to admit one has racist/sexist/bigottd attitudes one cant change, eh?
is the comment from chris a joke btw, or am i missing the point?
sorry 4 poor typing - i have a baby in 1 arm (am i a supermom or what - ha ha just a joke).
Your statements didn't make me feel defensive - I think you are gutsy to make them. Because yeah, we're all prejudiced against certain things for no really valid reason, and admitting that isn't easy.
Re: the breastfeeding. I nursed one kid till 2.5 and the next for almost 4 years. Not because I'm an Attachment Martyr (ha!) but because it made us all happy. They loved it, I didn't mind, nursing gave me lots and lots of time to read, and - most crucially - it was a foolproof way of getting them to sleep. For a stay-at-home mother/writer, productivity is all about naptime. W
(Also, I feel compelled to add that when non-parents hear "nursed for four years" what they often imagine is a 3yo nursing all the time like a baby - which would be downright weird. But it's more like a 3yo checking in once a day for that hit of magic sleeping potion.)
And also, honestly, if someone in my real life would occasionally give me props for my own non-trendy, making-it-up-as-we-go-along parenting, it would sure help.
A Sarah, I don't know if you are still reading 'cause you said you might check out, but I'm sorry if my comment, among others, made you feel personally attacked. That wasn't my intention. I guess things really just look different from wherever you are. One of the reasons I weaned when I did was because I was starting to feel really self-conscious about what other people would think of me for breastfeeding a toddler. But reallly what I wanted to say is that for the vast majority of parents, whether they breastfeed to four or go straight to bottle, we're all making it up as we go along and I suspect anyone who says otherwise is lying, maybe even to themselves. People are so quick to judge parents, especially mothers, for just about every ill in society, and it really is both sexist and a reflection of society at large abdicating its responsibility to families and children. You can see from this thread - all the breastfeeding mothers rushing to reassure everyone they aren't "like that" and you and Sybil feeling bad - how fraught this whole thing is and that in and of itself shows how much pressure women are under.
One last thing - I honestly feel that I am less judgemental now that I am a parent because even the things I do that are supposedly praiseworthy, I realize they were possible only because of specific aspects of my situation, my personality, my child's personality, etc. That is, I'm doing this really the only way I can and my assumption is that most other parents are doing it the way they can, and I'm always a bit surprised to see how some parents can come to the opposite conclusion, that because they are doing it one way, everyone can and should do it that way.
Okay, and one more thing - just read your last comment on the playing cards thread, and that's another great example. I always hear from childless feminists how judged they feel by society, and it's really hard for me to hear, because I feel like my position in society was a lot better before I became a mother, and becoming a mother really opened my eyes to what a raw deal women get in our society. I often feel like I went from being a full human being with agency to just one more annoying lady with a screaming kid in tow who should get her kid the fuck home so he doesn't bother anyone. And childless folks don't always want to hear that or understand that, yet I don't always want to hear or understand where they are coming from. So much of this depends on where you are, and yet big picture-wise, it's just one more way the big P keeps us all in our place.
Sibyl, I don't think your feelings are sexist. I think they are *caused* by sexism, in that sexism requires moms to be doing it wrong no matter what they are doing. So it's a natural defensive reaction to say, But *I'm* not doing it wrong! That reaction is aimed at countering the oppressive system that puts all moms in a double-bind, but it misfires because it ends up leaving a lot of that system in place.
Oppression works like that.
I love mamasquabs comment. I was just signing back on to say my biggest hang up is probably large children (over abou 2) with pacifiers. but I do find myself less judgmental now than i was before I had kids and when I was a newer mom. Honestly, I was probably at my worst in terms of judging other women's parenting skills when my daughter was first born and I was so unsure of myself. it was a defensive reaction, fueled by my own sense of inadequacy.
I'm still defensive about certain things, don't get me wrong. I just don't think I'm quite as judgmental.
I do feel judged, though. Often. So many women I know discuss their choices in terms of what's going to produce the best smartest happiest fastest uber child. The comment above about attachment parenting being hard now but producing happier more confident children. What, like my kids are going to be unhappy because I didn't keep a family bed?
And that's coming back to momsquab's comment because I think both my defensiveness and my judgment of other women comes down to the bare facts: women are doing it wrong. no matter what.
Living in Britain where the crunchy-mum thing is all mixed up with old-school Tory notions of gender roles, I was so pleased with my daughter when she refused the breast at 4 months once she had had a taste of the bottle (with expressed breast-milk in it).
I always found the holider-than-thou thing here deeply misogynist, mostly because despite our daughter having a very hands-on father (who changed more or less every single nappie until our daughter was 4 months old), everyone kept looking at me and saying things like, "What you returning to work when she is 4 months old? But kids need their *mothers*..." and it burned me that not one of the self-righteous parents ever said "kids need their parents"...
So with #2 due in August, I also hope to wean him at 4 months...
My 2 kids are in their 20s now, so that phase was a long time ago. I nursed them each about 2 months, and was not that fond of breast-feeding, maybe I was just an impatient sort of person. I went back to work around that time and had them in daycare. I never really cared what other women did or said about our different practices (although when my mother, who was against breast-feeding, called me up when my first was an infant and told me she didn't think I was giving her enough nourishment and so should give her the bottle, it did make me cry). Not really. But... I did get an attitude a bit about certain SAHMs who were wives of my husband's coworkers. Not about the breast-feeding per se, more about their whole attitude about infant care. I thought these college-educated women maybe were kind of bored at home and focused a bit too hard on this mothering thing for my tastes. They often had extensive notebooks on exactly what they ate and when, and tried to relate everything their baby did to the tomato they ate yesterday etc... had WAY too many baby gadgets for my tastes... were such nervous nellies about every damn thing with their babies. Like they were making it a research project or something. I would get a little annoyed when they said things that made clear they felt sorry for my little daughter because I worked, but I just smiled and ignored it. I did kind of grin inside, though, when our kids were around 1 - 2 years old and theirs were totally freaked by strangers at the barbecues and parties while my little daycare-babies were calm and happy in company!
BTW, for travel with toddlers, if you still have time go buy a bunch of very very very cheap stuff (crayons, plastic ducks, that sort of thing), with nothing more than a couple of $$$, wrap them and have them as little prezzies to whip out whenever Toddler becomes too impatient or begins whining...
I breastfed each of mine about 2 1/2 - 3 years. It may help to realize that for some women it's more of a sacrifice to wean early with kids of some temperments or stomach/allergy issues. I did it because that was easier than weaning, not for self sacrifice.
Yes, go with Nemo. You'll have a happier kid and happier neighbors.
As a sling-wearing, co-sleeping, Bradley, epidural refusing, midwife using parent myself, I don't judge other women for making other choices, and hope others extend the same toward me. That's what worked for us, as did my quitting employment for a while. Many careers demand far more than 40 hours a week, plus commute, and since my husband also had to work very long hours then, that was more sacrifice of time with our baby than we wanted--there often is no happy medium. He made a salary that could support us. It wasn't logical for him to quit his, though he would have been glad to do so instead.
What I like is that a greater range of choices are being opened up to women, so that we're not criticized as much for breastfeeding or for alternative birth and can find likeminded friends for support; the downside is that all women still feel criticized for their individual choices because no matter what you do someone will disapprove in the meanest of ways. And judgmental people are more vociferous than supportive ones.
That said, I have my points of sexism against other women too. I'm glad that I recognize it's sexist so I can try not to impose it on others.
I suspect breastfeeding gets the blame for a lot of mothers feelings around sacrifice and the overwhelming nature of maternal responsibility. If the answer to the 'problem' is breastfeeding, there's no way of avoiding the conclusion that you are solely responsible. If you're bottle feeding or providing a dummy (pacifier) then you can at least theoretically get someone else to do it. I think for me getting my kid to have a dummy some of the time, and accept bottles (of expressed milk or formula) some of the time was part of my struggle with those issues.
I don't think those breastfeeding substitutes create emotional distance for babies though. Babies still just want their mothers, and so do toddlers. They fall over? They want their Mum. They're tired? Mum is the answer. If you are breastfeeding it can be an easy way to chill the kid out. If you're not breastfeeding, you still provide cuddles and rocking and patting and any number of other things that are physically demanding, keep you up at night and mean that you miss your meals. Or that you spend time comforting the kid when really you'd like to go to the toilet.
I'm still breastfeeding at 17 months, and I am frequently exhausted and overwhelmed by the responsibilities of mothering. I just don't think that one is the cause of the other. I think my kid would be demanding, and that I would find those demands challenging, no matter how I fed him.
I had post-partum depression for a while which I think had a lot to do with breastfeeding. I was exhausted, since only I could feed my daughter, and she was hungry at least every two hours. And even though I thought I'd be completely OK with switching to formula if the breastfeeding didn't work out, it turned out I had subconsciously absorbed the idea that formula would hurt her. This wasn't a rational attitude, which I could have reasoned myself out of, but a visceral article of faith over which I literally lost my sanity. So because I thought my baby would die or get sick if I didn't breastfeed, I shut down so completely that I couldn't bare to touch her or be in the same room with her unless someone else was looking after her for me. It was terrifying and awful, and I really believe a significant part of my cure was my extremely reluctant decision to allow my husband and friend to give her formula until I could cope again.
Well, what do you know, she didn't die from the formula! My Norwegian friend tells me there is a neologism in that language that means "pressure to breastfeed" that is considered yet another potential hazard for a new mother to deal with. La Leche League people are only trying to help mothers resist the commercial and industrial pressures to formula feed, but the old-fashioned way of nursing often depends on our having support at home and at work to do it, and we don't all have that luxury. We're all made to feel so responsible for the well-being of our children that any mothering choice is frought with the dread of being wrong.
Hence our tendency, as someone commented above, to criticize others who made different choices, since it's the simple way of trying to prove that we ourselves made the right choices.
I don't have time to read other comments right now so this may be redundant, but take it from me: it's a rare toddler who would want to nurse when the excitement of being on an airplane was the competing activity. And I DID nurse both my boys until they were 2 1/2 but in an atmosphere like that they both would have rejected the breast in favor of going to the bathroom to flush the toilet 500 times.
I nursed both my kids until they were about 2. Funny, though - I never thought it was any kind of 'sacrifice' on my part. As a work-outside-the-home mom, it was just a fantastic way to reconnect and have lots of cuddle/snuggle time.
But I can totally see how for someone who did not enjoy nursing - that it would be a sacrifice. And I would hope that they would stop after a year (or whenever.)
I do think it is dangerous when we start to project our own preferences onto other mothers. i.e. "I hated nursing, therefore any mother who nurses over a year is a self-sacrificing martyr."
My philosophy is that you never *really* know what is going on within someone else's life/family, so it's better to err on the side of minding your own business and keep the judgmental comments about parenting to yourself.
You can say "I wish I didn't do this" all you want, but that isn't going to stop the mother who is nursing her toddler from reading it and feel like she has to justify her choice to someone she doesn't even know.
Interesting to read all the comments on this post as it brought to light some internalized sexism that I have. Reading all the posts from working moms who breastfed for longer than a year brought feelings of inadequacy to my mind immediately. I intended to breastfeed my oldest for at least a year, but I had problems from the get-go. I was relentless, though. I bought an expensive medication through a compounding pharmacist to stimulate my milk production as well as OTC remedies. I also dropped all kinds of money on lactation consultants and equipment. I joined a lactation support group as well looking for some sort of clue as to what I was doing wrong, which left me feeling more inadequate (because I was also supplementing with formula at the time) in the presence of the super-milk producers. My son wasn't particularly into nursing, so I often pumped and gave him a bottle as well as bottles of formula as needed. By 5 months my son refused to nurse at all, so I kept pumping as much as I could until my milk began to run completely out when he was 9 months old. So I gave it up entirely then. Of course, I was disappointed that I didn't make it to one year, even "part-time" feeding.
I'm now 27 weeks along in my 2nd pregnancy, and I wonder if I should expect to have the same experience. My mother nagged me that I was putting myself through too much then and has already stated that I shouldn't repeat that experience. (She parented in the 70s and didn't nurse, so I think she felt my insistence on nursing was somehow a reflection on her.) If I do have trouble, though, I will try to remember that any feelings of inadequacy are probably internalized sexism rearing its ugly head. If my body is unable to meet my child's needs, I should not feel like less of a woman than the one next to me who breastfed her child until the age of 4.
Ruth, that is a totally sweet and sensible point. My thanks.
Don't get unnerved if your toddler does have a meltdown. Reasonable people will understand toddlers don't have enough language or skills to deal with their frustrations and that parents are doing what they can to try to keep disruptions to others to a minimum. Many people on the plane have once been there themselves. Toddlers are allowed to exist, and other grown-ups should demonstrate a little more patience for families rather than acting sulky because there are other human needs than their own. I'll bet your daughter will enjoy the trip, though, and don't lose any of your enjoyment by worrying what impatient people might think.
I had two babies, three years apart, tandem nursing for 6 months of that. I nursed for a full 7 years, 4 months, two weeks, and a handful of days, before having ornamental breasts again.
It made me a Human Being.
It was one of the most important things I've ever done in my life. I loved being pregnant, and I loved giving birth. I went into breastfeeding pretty ignorantly, thinking I'd give it a try for 4 months or so. It took about 10 weeks to even get successful at it, with the help of our local La Leche League. My second daughter nursed to live, but my firstborn lived to nurse. As she kept on nursing into toddlerhood, it was obvious that it was still really important to her. My husband and I have a business we run from our home, so work issues were not such a problem.
I suppose it was being bathed in oxytocin, and all the body contact, that really made the difference. My kids and I weren't bonded, we were welded. It brought me into my body, and into relationship with my children that was the most intimate relationship I've ever had (and I say that with 36 years of marriage). I lost the walls I'd always put up in self defense against the world, felt myself for the first time in truly intimate relationship with my children and by extension the rest of the world. It was grace to be given a chance to experience that mutual unconditional love. I got warmer, and more patient, and less snotty and judgemental.
I asked my younger daughter when she turned four if she intended to nurse much longer. She said she was planning to nurse for a thousand years. But vacation at a house on the beach that summer distracted her, and she quickly forgot nursing. It was harder for me. I'd be driving and see a baby fussing somewhere, and want to jump out the window to offer a breast. When the oxytocin infusion finally dwindled, I was amazed to suddenly feel that I now knew why some animals ate their young.
When some of you sneer that we're being holier-than-thou about our mothering experiences, you have to understand that it's not that we were holy people, but that they were holy experiences our mothering put us through. Not just occasionally, but as a chronic low level ecstasy. I'm truly sorry if it wasn't like that for you.
Being a mother is the best thing that has ever happened to me. Ever. Except for the day when they were very small and taking a bath together and one of them had explosive diarrhea in the water, and they were howling hysterically and slippery, and covered with shit on every square inch.
A toddler on the plane with Nemo sounds pretty good to me. I flew cross-country for a conference with my younger daughter once, as she was only 14 months old, and still nursing lots. On the flight back, about 20 minutes before landing, being the kind of kid who gets carsick in every conveyance known to humanity, she puked all over me. The flight attendants were trying to herd everyone back into their seats, and there I was trying to get mopped off sufficiently so as not to be a biohazard when we landed in Newark, where it was about 90 degrees. May your trip be less exciting!
Firemouse, I know you are trying to be nice but saying things like "I'm truly sorry if [breastfeeding] wasn't like that [i.e. holy] for you" is precisely what bothers me about what i called holier-than-thou attitudes.
As much as I love my daughter and look forward to having a second kid, I don't define myself or my life through motherhood. I understand women who do, but I don't, and I wish people didn't feel sorry for me, as if my desire to not be defined via this particular biological role is some sort of psychological or physical mutilation.
Put down my intransigence on this to rebellion against growing up in Iran (where aside from my uber-feminist parents, EVERYONE defined a woman as a baby-machine) and having children in Britain (where some weird residual biblical fetish requires women to live an aesethic life during pregnancy, have, indeed desire and need, pain during labour, and to be beatific, suffering, sacrificing madonnas for the next few years).
I still get my thrills from an intellectual conversation, from the pleasure of walking in a hectic city, from having a lovely dinner with my partner and friends, and now, as my daughter is actually becoming a person, from seeing how she is becoming a generous, funny, kind, and unconventional little person. Not for me the pleasures of breast-feeding. So please don't patronise me by feeling sorry for me.
In the above, "EVERYONE" in Iran, should read "EVERYONE around me"....
I'm one more of those mothers who had a no-drugs childbirth, and children-led weaning (early: around 13 months, and one at 8 months). I don't feel holier than anybody else. I took no drugs because I am SCARED of needles and had no big pains anyway. I breastfed as much as possible because I liked it. For me breastfeeding was pretty much a selfish choice.
I am very comfortable (if slightly envious) with mothers who breastfeed very long. With those who don't because they have physical problems with it, I am sorry for their problems and very often impressed by how long they breastfed despite physical discomfort, and sometimes pain. I wouldn't have done that, I think.
For those who chose not to breastfeed, I don't judge them at all. I'm pretty sure they're doing the best for their families - which include not only the newborn, but other children, coparents, and most importantly and too often forgotten, mommy herself. I occasionally wonder if they would have chosen differently, had they had enough information (which is not routinely given where I live).
sybil vane, thanks for your honesty. i have to echo that it makes me really sad that you (and so many people) have this stereotype, especially in light of the fact that a year is not "extended" except, as you say, by middle-class American standards.
i'm in academia, in my second year of a three-year tenure process; my son was one when i started it, and i breastfed him until 21 months. do you want to know how much institutional or personal support i got from my colleagues in terms of breastfeeding (or pregnancy; i stopped breastfeeding when i did primarily because i was six months pregnant with my daughter)?
yup. that would be none. no cultural or institutional support, nor with my daughter either (in fact, i kept my pregnancy a secret from the entire department, which was possible because i'm small and she was due in sept., right before school started). and in fact, the division chair was recently giving away some formula coupons she had somehow found, and two of my colleagues with babies (one woman, one man) were gleefully fighting over them, and it was very clear that all present were miffed as to why i wasn't because clearly you can't have a full-time job and nurse a baby.
i had medicated labors.
i make organic purees.
we don't watch television.
i hate slings, but i have been known to wear the snugli when cooking.
oh yeah, i do all the cooking. i worry about sodium intake. i worry about pesticides. i try really hard. does that make me more "self-sacrificing than you think is warranted" and therefore not feminist?
maybe i should quit my job and go on welfare just so people can hate me more, and i fit into their stereotypes better? i've spent (and probably will spend, as my daughter will be only 15 months when The Big Tenure Decision is made) my entire tenure process either pregnant, breastfeeding, or both. why do i feel like the message i'm getting is that makes me lame?
also, to appropriate some of dr. B's language from another post: breastfeeding is not a choice. NOT breastfeeding is a choice. and while there ARE good reasons to choose not to breastfeed, it's not just a "lifestyle for the mother" issue, and it irks me when it's presented that way.
ceb, it seems like a lot of women have an easier time breastfeeding with the second kid, but if you have that many problems again, I really think it's fine to just use formula and try to enjoy your baby. (I am one of the working mothers above who breastfed to 22 months.) I was very committed to breastfeeding, but it also came very easily to me. When I read about women who go to the lengths that you did, I know I wouldn't have lasted nearly as long if I were you. Even for myself, I pumped for 10 months with my first, and I was glad I did it because I went back to work very early and it helped me still feel connected to him. But with a future child and a more secure financial situation, I would try to stay home longer (maybe six months), then give formula at daycare and just nurse at night and on the weekends and skip the pumping and lugging that damn Medela back and forth and spending time sterilizing parts and all that crap. I liked breastfeeding because it was easy for me! and pumping is not easy. I guess one of the lessons I see looking back is that each and every decision is not the MOST CRITICAL THING EVER, and we do our best and sometimes our best is just good enough and that's okay.
ceb, you might relate to this post:
http://www.alittlepregnant.com/
a...u.html#comments
Ceb, I'm one of the mothers above who breastfed for over 2 years. What I didn't say is that I had an awful time of it with my first kid, with supply issues that never resolved. After 4 months of herbs, pumping, lactation consultants, etc. I said "fuck it" and quit trying to make it work.
By that time, of course, the baby loved the breast, and I was hardly going to stop nursing him. I nursed him for over two years. But the kid was sustained primarily by formula for
that first year. Making that decision was the best thing for my sanity, and I finally began to enjoy my baby, without all the anxiety.
I was determined to give nursing a go with my second baby, but also determined not to go through such a struggle if I had the same problems. And I'm here to tell you that it all worked out the way it's supposed to the second time around. So it definitely can happen. Good luck.
The xCLP and I have reached the stage that makes a lot of people go "ick": she can ask, in a fairly intelligible sentence, for "supper milk from Mummy's boobie". The biggest reason I'm in no hurry to give up, which I don't think anyone else has mentioned, is the way it makes me feel about my body. It's like, they aren't just useless lumps on my chest any more, they're actually doing something useful. Not a sacrifice at all to keep on feeling that way.
On the other hand, if it's not a sacrifice, it must be something I'm doing for my own evil perverse pleasures, warping the xCLP for life. Yet another illustration of how we can't win.
First of all, I know I probably shouldn't get sucked into this but Firemouse, "it made me a Human Being?" Capital H, capital B? That's the most patronizing, insulting thing that anyone has said on this thread, and although I was a long-term breastfeeder with both kids (about 2 1/2 years each) and even volunteered with a nursing mother's group for a while, I'm so offended by that tone. I was a Human Being WAAAAY before I had kids, I'd be a Human Being if I'd never had children and certainly if for whatever reason I never nursed them. Holy cow, that's frankly just insufferable.
And Nick Kiddie, that is a trap we often get sucked into but you know my theory? Parenthood itself is selfish. Is there really a selfless reason to have children? We have them because we want someone to love, and someone to love us, or we want the physical and emotional satisfaction we think we'll get, or whatever. I'm of the opinion that even the most altruistic-seeming actions are at their core selfish, because the person performing those actions is getting something out of it too, whether it's a sense of well-being or the accolades of others.
Plane tricks:
1. Kid-size headphones. Multiple movie choices. I even downloaded a few episodes of Dora/Diego from iTunes to my iPod in case we ran out of batteries. All of my best granola parenting goes out with the bathwater on airplanes.
2. Small, silly wrapped gifts. Plastic lizards. Magnifying glass. Unwrapping them takes time and then there's the toy too. they magically appear at the first sign of whining.
3. Snacks. Special "vacation only snacks."
4. Rolls of scotch tape. It's a total blast for toddlers and cleans up in two seconds. Tape your finger together. Tape my fingers together. Tape the barf bag to the seat. Nothing permanent.
Best of luck.
Ruth, I didn't take Firemouse's comment about breastfeeding making her a human being to be anything other than a statement about how it made *her* feel.
I mean, read the rest of her post. Here's a woman who actually got to experience the blissful oxytocin trip that the breastfeeding books swear is in store for us. Me, I didn't feel a twinge of that kind of cosmic bliss, not once in my combined 6 years of nursing. Dang, I'd sure have traded my chronic sleep deprivation for Firemouse's "chronic low level of ecstasy." After an experience like that, I guess anyone would be a different person.
(But Firemouse, you don't have to be sorry that breastfeeding wasn't "holy" for me. The fact that it fed my kids and gave me time to read was quite enough for me, thanks.)
I was a Human Being WAAAAY before I had kids, I'd be a Human Being if I'd never had children and certainly if for whatever reason I never nursed them. Holy cow, that's frankly just insufferable -- Ruth
Whoa, let's back up a little, since I seem to have hit a couple of hot buttons with people who appear to be taking this personally.
I was making "I" statements about my own experiences. Not saying you or anyone else wasn't a human being, or trying to invalidate your experiences as such.
I guess I didn't express it well enough. I was going more for the anthropological sense -- the tribal notion, embedded in the vocabulary, that your own tribe was the "human beings," and that's what you called yourself. I was the outsider, I didn't have a tribe. My father fits a lot of the characteristics of Asperger Syndrome, my mother was smart but naive and not well-educated. Growing up we didn't talk about people skills in that family, we didn't ask questions, we didn't have family stories.
I had to figure all that out starting in my teens, with the blessed luck of falling in with people who had grown up in a matrix where they were appreciated and understood, congruent instead of being the little mutant I was. I could relate to what Temple Grandin says about feeling like "an anthropologist on Mars" when trying to figure out why and how other people do what they do.
My first baby birthed me into that greater community, and deeper connectedness.with other human beings. I hear tell that I hadn't actually been bad at connecting at that point, but it was nothing compared to the growing I would do as my children grew. Some of it was conscious effort, but much of it came from the organic unity of being with my children 24/7 for their first four years.
Firemouse, I know you are trying to be nice but saying things like "I'm truly sorry if [breastfeeding] wasn't like that [i.e. holy] for you" is precisely what bothers me about what i called holier-than-thou attitudes.
As much as I love my daughter and look forward to having a second kid, I don't define myself or my life through motherhood. I understand women who do, but I don't, and I wish people didn't feel sorry for me, as if my desire to not be defined via this particular biological role is some sort of psychological or physical mutilation.
Put down my intransigence on this to rebellion against growing up in Iran (where aside from my uber-feminist parents, EVERYONE defined a woman as a baby-machine) and having children in Britain (where some weird residual biblical fetish requires women to live an aesethic life during pregnancy, have, indeed desire and need, pain during labour, and to be beatific, suffering, sacrificing madonnas for the next few years).
I still get my thrills from an intellectual conversation, from the pleasure of walking in a hectic city, from having a lovely dinner with my partner and friends, and now, as my daughter is actually becoming a person, from seeing how she is becoming a generous, funny, kind, and unconventional little person. Not for me the pleasures of breast-feeding. So please don't patronise me by feeling sorry for me. -- Laleh
Again, I ask that you don't take this personally. I was speaking of my own experience, not of the experience of anyone here. I was also speaking to those who are silently reading it, who have not had children, or may be hoping that their next experience of birthing and raising a child will be different from their earlier experience. Many of us grew up in times and cultures where there was an assumption that all women should have babies. Seeing how that turned out in practice, and how it screwed up so many mothers and consequently their chilldren, I think we all realize how important that it be a thoughtful, conscious, willing commitment to have a child.
We take our norms from the attitude of the people around us. I didn't see anyone else here who expressed that spirituality was integral to her mothering, or even a facet of it. Some even expressed that their birthing and early parenthood experiences were not pleasant or supportive, because of luck or choices or circumstance. I think having my spiritual practice integral with my parenting makes a qualitative difference, and it's something that is very positive and intensely joyful. I think that joy is better than not having joy. Your mileage may vary.
I'm an artist. I'm a writer. I'm a bookseller. All of those are as integral to my life and identity as being a mother. But this was a breastfeeding thread. All the "thrills" Laleh describes are ones I've had all along as a 24/7 long-term breastfeeding mother.
Sacrifice? It honestly is not a word that has ever come up for me. "Investment" might be a better concept. Investing my time and energy to make a good childhood for my kids, not just because it will pay off down the line, but because it's extraordinarily satisfying for all of us at that time in our lives I was totally surprised to find out how much I loved babies and toddlers, even two year olds. I loved their dedication to communicating right from the start, their sense of wonder and excitement at the smallest things that were new to them.
The pain thing? It's actually pretty useful to learn techniques to deal with pain, and they've come in handy plenty of times since then. I didn't find 40+ hours of labor as painful as a root canal. or a urinary tract infection. I was glad to learn that I can handle just about anything for 60 seconds at a time, and that I can engage with things that I fear will be hurtful and scary and come out the other side having conquered my fears. That's priceless.
Another airplane thought. My inlaws were in England, and we had occasional business on the west coast, so I did a fair amount of long-distance flying with small children right from the start. It was before 9/11, so I can't advise on the changes in routine flying. But I will warn from experience that if something goes wrong, such as repairs and security issues keeping everyone trapped on the plane for 11 hours on what should have been a 5 hour flight, or a flight being cancelled overnight, you may find it is a social Darwinism hellhole where no-one gives a damn about the children or the elderly, or anyone else with special needs.
Know your rights, know how to deal with the system in that kind of situation, and have someone (or draft someone there) who can watch your back if you have to be focusing on the immediate needs of your child. Recent economic problems seem to have directly affected satisfying passengers' basic needs. Figure they'll cut corners, and it won't be in a way that is in your best interest.
Nick Kiddle, is your child receptive to a code term for asking about nursing around other people, instead of "supper milk from Mummy's boobie"? My daughters used "nanny," which was sufficiently ambiguous. Used to leave me with a big dopey grin occasionally when I'd take a taxi past a restaurant in the city called "Nanny's."
Zinemama, the reading was a big plus for me too. Not to mention the satisfaction when my kid was old enough to put her own book to my breast so it could nurse too. 
My first daughter didn't read the baby manuals, and didn't realize that she was supposed to sleep 16 hours a day instead of just 8. My IQ went down to that of a waffle for the first 6 months with both of them, from the sleep deprivation.
But after a few years, somehow the oxytocin allowed me to get by on only 7 hours of sleep instead of the 9-10 I'd always needed. When I finally lost that chemical boost, I suddenly desperately needed 2 or 3 hours of sleep more a night, which was really hard to find the extra time for. It's only now that I'm post-menopausal that I'm suddenly finding a decreased need for sleep again, and it's such a blessing to have that extra time.
ceb, another working, extended-breastfeeding mother responding to your post at 06.03.08 - 7:04 pm. If I had had to deal with what you did, I would have a very different story to tell. In my previous comment, I said that during the months of simultaneously working and pumping, I was a wreck. (Well actually I said, "I was wreck," which probably more accurately expresses my state at the time!) And that was in spite of the fact that I fortuitously had lots of milk, lots of emotional support from family and friends, practical support from a lactation consultant funded by a local non-profit, my son was an enthusiastic nurser, and my workplace was more than reasonably accommodating. Let me just say again: even with all that going for me, I was a wreck for several months. If any one of those advantages had not been present, *especially* if I had had any problem making milk, there's no way I would have done what I did.
Fwiw, I had Pitocin, an epidural, and a c-section, and my son never liked his Baby Bjorn. Now he is four, and I have sworn at him more than once in his brief life.
It's awful how everyone blames mothers and we blame ourselves. Gotta blame the patriarchy for that.
As a CNM, short term breastfeeding mother and other things, I'm going to look at this from many perspectives.
First: plane flying. As noted above, toys, something to chew on that provokes swallowing (which is what helps the ears to pop). Also...LOTS of extra diapers and at least 1 change of clothing.
Breastfeeding:
1. I personally believe that all women who CAN, should breastfeed their children. Preferably, for at least the first year of life (same length of time formula is recommended for). After year 1, it is mommy/baby choice.
However: Many women can't breastfeed for physical reasons. I have always said that I would prefer to have a happy, loving, bottlefeeding mother than an stiff, unhappy, breastfeeding one. I have also known many women who can't breastfeed for mental reasons (one of my dear friends can't stand anyone touching her breasts....not her husband, not her md, not herself. Yes, there are body issues). Forcing a woman like that to breastfeed would ruin the mother/baby relationship. I have seen women who felt pushed into breastfeeding. The baby had lots of milk, but the mother/baby bonding sucked because the mother felt so much resentment.
I breastfed both my daughters. One quit nursing at 8 months, the other at 4 months. My then 4-month-old had an ear infection. She decided that the nursing was causing her ear pain (bottle feeding, which she got during the day at daycare, didn't make her ear hurt as much). She refused to nurse again. I tried for 3 weeks to get her to nurse again, unsuccessfully. She won, and my heart broke.
I had patients that never nursed, patients that nursed for 6 weeks until they went back to work, patients that nursed for a year, and patients who nursed for years longer, tandem nursed, or whatever. If how you feed your baby works for you and for your baby, and you are BOTH happy and healthy, then it is the very best thing.
Keeping your kid busy on the plane is great, but please, please, please use headphones. To those of you saying you have played DVDs before on the plane without headphones and no one minded, well, just because no one said anything to you doesn't mean that they couldn't hear it or that they weren't bothered. When I have been on planes with people who did this within a few rows of me, I could hear it, and it was annoying.
Time to revise your stereotypes. I'm still breastfeeding my toddler, and I'm no martyr. It's cheap and easy and saves me from having to muck about with cups and bottles. Believe me, if it felt like self-sacrifice, I'd have stopped months ago.
point two is a good point. while sometimes I find myself standing all day to prevent my 2 yr old from bugging me to nurse, sometimes, it's just easier on me to nurse her.
it's just as self sacrificing to go through the process of weaning, etc, or to not nurse at all.
take that same point to the way you treat parents of disabled kids (or the way parents think of their disabled kids) cause I can tell you, there are days when my low functioning autistic boy is worlds easier than the more typical girls... I'm not performing some mean feat raising him. I'm just raising him.
and that was posted with said 2 yr old nursing in my lap.
I'm sure that with 75 comments this has been addressed multiple times, but sometimes it's not self sacrifice that keeps us nursing that long. It's mutual enjoyment or laziness. It's so much easier to offer a breast than to actually deal with something or go get a drink/food :-D
For me, after age 3 is when it becomes a serious sacrifice to nurse.
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