Strollerderby : nursing toddlers

Babble Talk: Extended Nursing = Bad Parenting?

Jen Chaney — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:28:00 GMT

Ronda Kaysen's son is attached to her breasts. Often literally. He is seventeen months old and, as Ronda writes in this Bad Parent essay, he still nurses, hungrily and heartily.

Kaysen says she always intended to breastfeed her child until he self-weaned. Yet even she is often embarrassed by his behavior, especially when her boy demands a meal from his mom in public. Frankly, I can empathize with that feeling. While I totally acknowledge that it's perfectly natural, even healthy to nurse a child into his or her toddler years, I can't imagine ever wanting to do it. After a child reaches a certain age, there is something about that process that seems sort of ... ooky. I'm not saying that's right or fair or even remotely justified. But I can't deny I feel that way, even though I completely respect Ronda's decision.

Based on the comments posted in Ronda's essay, I may be in the minority on this.

"I too am nursing a toddler and I try to dodge the judging questions I get from family. It's almost as if I'm trying to give an excuse when I say,'Yes, he still nurses but it's only three times a day!" when in actuality it's more like six,'" writes one reader.

"I nursed my daughter until her 4th birthday. I loved it and don't regret one second of it," adds another.

In fact, one of the prevailing opinions among the commenters was that perhaps this essay didn't qualify for "Bad Parent" designation: "I am getting very annoyed with Babble editors who continually put rather banal topics into the 'BAD PARENT!!!' column," says one reader.

And this comment just made me laugh:

"Babble... what the hell has happened to Bad Parent? Are there no more parents willing to share stories about being gun-toting, pot-smoking, toddler-alcohol-providers bragging about keeping their kid out of school so [as] not to interfere with a busy bar-hopping schedule?"

Yes, America, where are those parents?

In Babble's defense, I have never thought of any of the Bad Parent authors as "bad parents," but rather as people making choices that some might consider controversial. For the record, I don't think Ronda Kaysen is a bad mother at all. Could I do what she is doing, even if someone gave me $150,000 and a year's supply of nipple cream? I don't think so. Actually, maybe that makes me a bad parent.

I'm not sure. But perhaps you can pass judgment on one or both of us by posting a comment.

Uncover Your Nipples! 7 Gems from the Mouths of Nursing Toddlers

Miriam Axel-Lute — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 18:00:00 GMT

Every mother who has nursed past a year has heard someone's opinion that "Once they're old enough to ask for it, they're too old." This is, from health and evolution standpoints, absurd.

But especially in a culture that's still a little iffy on being made too aware of breastfeeding at all, the fact remains that having a verbal nursing kid can lead to some, ahem, interesting moments. They fall into a few key categories:

Baby Talk: Too Much or Too Little

1. "Num-nums!" "Oobies!" "Boob!" "Nu-nu!" There's no better way to realize that you have, despite your pre-parental protestations, incorporated sickeningly cutesy baby talk into your everyday vocabulary than to have it shouted at you in public and realize you're going to have to respond as if those words were language, and possibly even speak them yourself.

2. "Mama snacks!" "Hello nipple!" "Where's your breast?" Or the gourmet who says "Yum!" whenever he passes by the bras at Target. Some toddlers don't just nurse, they are vocal and articulate nursing enthusiasts. Some times so pointed that it's verbal equivalent of saying "damn the discreet cover-up." Which is fine. Except of course it was your kid's choice, not yours.

Your Words Out of Their Mouths

3. Version A: The politeness backfire. "Ask, nurse, please?" says one kid. "Hi. Milk. Smile," said mine for a while, betraying our attempts to explain what, beyond the technical words, constituted asking nicely.
4. Version B: Crossed wires. One mother reports that after training her son out of bad nursing behavior (oh, the dreaded twiddling) by repeatedly telling him he was all done with that, now he asks to nurse by saying hopefully "All done? All done?" (Bet she gets the "He wants to wean and you're not letting him!" treatment.)

The "Other Side" Confusion

4. "Side! I want side!" I thought it was a funny fluke that my daughter's younger friend picked up on her saying "other side" and began calling nursing "side." But apparently he's far from alone. That doesn't mean that anyone hearing will think it makes any sense though.

Parenting Shortcuts Exposed

5. Many of us have tried the squirting-breastmilk-on-an-oozing-eye trick. Whether or not it works, it gave my daughter the idea that she wanted milk squirted on her every injury. Once she got this in her head, a symbolic waving of a bare nipple across the offended limb was placebo enough to make almost anything instantly all better, so I played along out of laziness. Until, that is, I was on the sidewalk with a kid with a scrape who was screaming "Mommmmy! Milk on my knee! No! Milk on my knee!"

The Mini-Domme

6. "I'm going to open you up!" It's one thing to have a kid determinedly lifting your shirt before you've said it's OK. It's another when it comes with a declaration worthy of a TV surgeon. Of course that's better than . . .

7. "Uncover your nipples!" It's not as bad as it sounds, as she usually means it as a contrast to my having drawn the covers up over us in bed for a falling-asleep nurse, but I admit that I'm not-so-secretly hoping this one never leaves the house.

I'm sure I and mothers I heard these from are not alone. What has your nursing Baby Einstein come out with?

(Images were submissions to the Mothering breastfeeding icon contest.)

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Custody Court Tells Mom to Stop Breastfeeding Toddler

Karen Murphy — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 16:50:00 GMT

A custody court is telling a Minnesota mom that she must stop breastfeeding her 15-month old toddler because of the medications she takes for migraines, complications from an auto accident, and sleep problems. While the pharmocopeia ingested by nursing mom Christa Burton is certainly an issue, what concerns me more is that her behavior is being examined more closely simply because she's involved in a custody dispute of son Carter, born 6 weeks premature, and that a court is telling a mother what she can and cannot do.

If presumably Christa and her doctor checked out her meds (I was unable to find much on them other than discovering at Kellymom that her sleep medication, Ambien, is considered "generally regarded as safe" by the AAP), then what's the big deal? It seems to me that the medication issue may be being used as an excuse to cover the fact that the court has discomfort with a mother breastfeeding a toddler.

In my own custody court experience, the need to continue nursing my then-two-year-old was questioned, and the trend there seemed to reflect society's discomfort with breastfeeding older children. I wasn't ordered to cease but would have been if he hadn't weaned at about that time anyway. Certainly my son's developmental need to remain connected with me through nursing wasn't considered important. In Christa Burton's case, breastfeeding was recommended because of son Carter's delays due to being born prematurely.

So which is it? The medication issue or the toddler issue?