I was asked recently to write an article about my breastfeeding relationship with my 16 month old daughter. It was published in the current issue of Women's Voice, a quarterly online publication. With permission, I'm republishing it here.
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In the first days and weeks following our daughter’s birth, breastfeeding posed such a challenge, such an immense difficulty, that I could not have guessed that we would be fortunate enough to still be breastfeeding even a few months later, let alone well over a year later. Now my daughter is 16 months old, and still nursing. Not only is she still nursing, she is, in all her toddler-hood, still exclusively breastfed. She eats no solid food at all.
It was a difficult road to get here. Born at 36 weeks gestation, she refused to latch well, barely opening her mouth. Everyone checked for tongue-tie, but no cause for her difficulty was ever found. I began a long and constant relationship with an electric breastpump, a machine I grew to both adore – it was, after all, establishing, increasing, and maintaining my milk supply better than my daughter was – and loathe. I was on various herbs and eventually prescribed Domperidone, which I took in handfuls daily. At long last, at almost 7 weeks postpartum, with a child who had still only gained about one pound more than her birth weight of 5lb 8oz, we drove to Toronto to meet the great man himself, Dr. Jack Newman. He looked at my daughter, helped us latch, looked me in the eye and said, “You’re doing fine.”
Three days later, Glynis opened her mouth. Later that week, I took our breastpump back to the lactation consultant who had rented it to us. Soon I was off the Domperidone as well. We were finally on our own, and I was elated.
As the months passed, our nursing relationship became stronger and more confident. We were pros. I could – and would – nurse her anywhere and anytime. I nursed her in coffeeshops. I nursed her in the park; is there anything more sublime than nursing outside in the afternoon sun? I nursed her while taking Communion at church, right in our pew. After our terrible, debilitating struggle, one through which I wept more tears than any mother should while loving her newborn, we had settled into a comfortable and delightful pattern of natural nursing. We had no schedules, I watched no clocks: I just nursed her whenever she needed or wanted.
Eventually the day came at about 7 months old when we offered Glynis her first solid food – it happened to be roasted sweet potato wedges. But she wasn’t interested. What was truly remarkable was that she remained entirely disinterested in solid foods as the days, then weeks and finally months went by. Her first birthday came. There was to be no crazed picture of a tiny child smeared with chocolate and icing for her baby album: she examined the icing and then entirely ignored the cupcake which sat before her.
But she nursed! She nursed quickly, and slowly; she nursed at length, and in tiny snacks. She nursed first thing in the morning and to sleep in bed at night. She remained, as ever, round and pink, plump and robust: the very picture of health. At her final well-baby weigh-in, the nurse looked at her, lying in her diaper on the changing pad, kicking and playing, round and adorable, and shook her head: “She’s perfect. That’s a perfect baby.”
And so we continued. As my friends and acquaintances weaned their babies and toddlers, as I read of the horrible backlash against breastfeeding and breastfeeding mothers, as I encountered terrible stories and commentaries in which the mothers of nursing toddlers and older children were denigrated and insulted, slandered and shamed, we continued to nurse.
When this magazine goes live, Glynis will be 16 months old. She is, at the time of writing, still exclusively breastfed. She has virtually no interest in solids – though she did nibble a grape earlier today – and my milk is her sole source of nutrition. I like to say that after so many weeks of worrying that we would never have an easy, relaxed nursing relationship, she’s more than paying me back for persevering.
Glynis, my husband and I are surrounded by children who eat entire meals, who feed themselves with forks and spoons, who consume hard biscuits and meats and sandwiches and vegetables. It is unfathomable to most everyone we know that she is entirely satisfied on my milk alone. It is equally unfathomable that we are all happy with this arrangement: surely I must need a break! In truth, there are days when I would relish handing her a fistful of Cheerios to keep her occupied while I eat my own lunch or finish reading something or get some dishes washed. And I’m a little envious of the parents I know who are learning what foods their toddlers love, who laugh as their children feed themselves awkwardly and enthusiastically.
But I know that Glynis’ day will come. Moreover, on that day, I will know that I did not rush her, did not push her or her body to try something for which she was not yet ready. And I will know that I allowed her to be as close, as connected, as intimate and as much a baby as she’s needed to be, for as long as she’s needed.
Through this extended and extraordinary nursing relationship, I have gained a profound respect for my body. I was able not only to grow a tiny baby, but to nourish and grow a toddler, on nothing but my milk. It is truly remarkable to me that we are, to quote Ina May Gaskin, so “wonderfully made” that the food of our bodies, the milk of our breasts, is enough to sustain and satisfy even an energetic, active and growing child. This is an important and valuable lesson for us, as women and mothers, to remember: our bodies are able to accomplish amazing things, if only we will let them.
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