To Wean or Not to Wean, That is the Question

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Remember that time when nobody judged anyone else and we each had magic ponies that granted wishes? Yeah, me neither.

I've been trying to decide how long I plan on breastfeeding Mr. Man. My original goal was 1 year, and (I cannot even believe that I'm saying this) that's rapidly approaching. I didn't think much about it beyond that because 1 year was SO FAR AWAY *sobs into keyboard*.

Some women have very strong feelings about breastfeeding. They super love it or super hate it. I don't feel strongly about it. I don't like having to schedule pumping when I'm away from Mr. Man. Sometimes I wish I could have a beer with dinner on the occasion that dinner is ready before I nurse the baby *sob* to sleep. But those things are becoming less of an issue as he nurses less and is staying awake late enough to eat with us. There are times where breastfeeding is sweet and touching and special, and sometimes it's annoying because he has to pop off fifty bajillion times to point out that the dog is in the room or he keeps trying to snap my bra strap.

As I started researching extended breastfeeding*, the fact that many women have strong feelings about breastfeeding was rapidly apparent with the judging and the agendas and the I HAVE STRONG FEELINGS ABOUT THIS that were not so much hidden between the lines as waving a middle finger over the lines. And, because I am human, I started feeling defensive that I was even considering weaning.

*Extended breastfeeding = breastfeeding beyond a year. I don't know who decided to call it that either, but I'm guessing it was a man who wished his wife would stop breastfeeding so he had access to boobies again.

My brain started in with the rationalizations: I exclusively breastfed my baby who happened to eat every freaking hour he was awake for months and months. Do you know how much pumping that requires? I have suffered, people. My baby started getting teeth very early. He went through a nipple twisting phase - and sometimes I didn't trim his nails often enough! Serious suffering!

Of course, it doesn't help that most of my friends have breastfed their baby for two years or more. Though, my defensive brain points out, only one of them exclusively breastfed.

AND attachment parenting is the current thing. Whether you like it or not, there is always a current trend that does influence your behavior, even if you don't realize it. Sometimes you react against it, sometimes it just "coincidentally" coincides with what makes sense/feels best/works for your family, etc. I don't go out of my way to ensure my parenting approach is attachment oriented BUT (I admit grudgingly) the majority of the things we do fall in line with the crunchy attachment parenting zeitgeist: cloth diapering, breastfeeding, making our own baby food, baby wearing, room sharing yada yada yada.

Extended breastfeeding definitely falls into the attachment parenting camp, where it is viciously guarded by Le Leche League badge wearing warriors.

Speaking of Le Leche League, I went to one of their meetings recently. The topic was weaning. I was there to get some perspectives. Qualitative research, if you will. There were two women who dominated the discussion. One was talking about weaning her five year old. The other was talking about how to wean her oldest, as she was tandem nursing her three and one year olds. There's some perspective for you.**

**When I said I don't feel strongly about breastfeeding, I should note that I feel very strongly that I don't want to be either of those two women. Do NOT. Nope. No thank you.

The research on extended breastfeeding isn't very robust. Breastfeeding is great for babies, especially cognitive functions, IQ (which is often measured separately because research babble), and greater disease immunity. The research shows us that these benefits are strongest for babies who have been exclusively breastfed to six months and who have been breastfed for a year. No one is arguing that. Skirting around the statistical jargon and research methodology, basically the benefits after one year are about immunity. The toddler who is breastfeeding gets more antibodies and gets less sick and sick for less time. The other benefits may be there to some degree after a year, but there's not much evidence that supports it. There is some, but the research tends to have some pretty big flaws and it hasn't been reproduced.***

Personally, based on my research and personal experience, weaning is more about the relationship with my son. Much to my husband's chagrin and my mixed feelings of pleasure and guilt, I am my son's most favoritest person in the whole wide world. It's a big responsibility. But I don't think it has much to do with boobs anymore. He mainly likes to nurse to sleep, mostly to go to bed at night. Even then, he's just as happy with a bottle. We nurse several times during the day, but that's almost always me offering it based on our schedule. He doesn't nurse to help self-soothe. A cuddle from mama is all he needs.

Total disclosure: If there is an exposed nipple within his reach, he will latch on because nipple, obviously.

I think I could drop all but the three sleep/night related feedings (going to bed, middle of the night, first thing in the morning) without him even noticing. In fact, he doesn't always ask to nurse first thing in the morning, I just usually want him to because of throbby boobies.

So, here are my lists of the pros and cons to weaning him over this summer. 

Pros related to weaning:

• Mr. Man wakes up once in the middle of the night to eat and I could totally do without that. 
• I could finally stop taking that cruddy-tasting prenatal vitamin. 
• I would have my body back for however short of a time that is before we start trying to reproduce once more. 
• Will not accidentally get bit on the nipple! 
• No more pumping!!
• Getting to skip people judging me for breastfeeding my toddler, who, at 10 1/2 months, is already huge compared to me.

Cons related to weaning:

• When he's sick, it makes him feel better. 
• If he wakes up early in the morning, we can bring him to bed with us, I nurse him, and we all get another hour or two of sleep! 
• I currently eat whatever I want and continue to lose weight. 
• People judging me for not breastfeeding my toddler.

Basically, I need that magic pony so I can skip the judgment and guilt of either decision.


***For those of you who are interested and/or who want to fight about it, strap on your nerd goggles: The effect size (eta squared or r squared, depending on research design) representing the benefits of extended breastfeeding decline below statistical significance after one year in almost all studies. This is because most of those studies were not designed to measure effects after one year and the initial study grouped babies breastfed for one year or longer together; some studies were reanalyzed later to focus on extended breastfeeding - a big research no no. Studies specifically looking at the benefits of extended breastfeeding are often conducted in third world countries because there are not enough women in industrial countries that breastfeed beyond one year - in both of these populations (babies in third world counties and those in industrialized counties that have extended breastfeeding experience) there are other confounding variables that make comparisons to babies who have breastfed for less time very difficult (meaning there is something different about their mothers' education/health/resources/etc. that may be responsible for any differences found in the babies). Also also, many babies who are breastfed for an extended period of time are actually sick or weak in some way that leads their mothers to breastfeed for longer, which is referred to as reverse causality and is a prime confounding factor in much of this research. Then you toss in family size and birth order and the whole research design becomes so messy that odds ratios have to be interpreted with all these addendums and qualifiers and no one wants to bet their career on these findings but they HAVE VERY STRONG FEELINGS!

I'm resurfacing to tell you about my experience with motherhood - 7 months

I see it has been a month and a half  more than 2 months since I updated my blog. That's got to tell you something about my life. Basically, just read the last blog post and add a three week break from work, a revolving door of family and friends, and the giddy, tedious ambivalence of the holidays. And, since I wrote this and am now (hopefully) going to actually post this, another baby illness and a mad sprint to finish work-related projects.

I am still thoroughly addicted to my baby. Who, by the way, is now seven months old!! Babies have the ability to create micro worm holes, by the way, that cause them and those around them to move faster through time. Pretty sure that's a fact.

What I wrote 2+ weeks ago:
My baby now sits by himself, sometimes rolls places and obviously feels very brave and adventurous for doing so, loves to stand (with assistance of course), will occasionally try crawling (imagine flailing legs and a lot of squealing) before he rolls over, and has five teeth. He eats solids with wanton abandon...or at least as wanton as his abandon can be since mommy refuses to give him as much as he wants (He has never indicated he was full, ever. This kid can EAT.). He lunges for whatever catches his eye, making it important to keep a firm grip on him at all times. He has a desire to get his hands and teeth on ALL THE PAPER. He's babbling up a storm and his favorite sound is currently mama*. His feet are always soggy and he often waves a sock at us happily while yelling gu, which I believe translates to "HAHA, I have once again thwarted your attempt to imprison my feet with this hosiery!" 

An update to my update: 
He is now rolling everywhere and has almost figured out crawling. He pushes himself forward with his feet, rather than thrashing them uselessly. We are so screwed.He now has six teeth. And, the other day, I decided to see how long it took for him to give me the 'I'm full' signal. After 7 tablespoons of food he was still opening his mouth eagerly and I decided that this experiment was going to end in gastronomical disaster and cut him off. Also, screw you every single breastfeeding resource out there that claims a breastfed baby is better at identifying when he's full.

*My heart grows three sizes every time I hear it. **THIS is still totally true.

He is a reverse imagine of himself outside the house. Inside, he's loud and he never stops moving. Outside, he's a quite observer, studying everyone and everything. I swear if the kid could write he'd be taking notes on what everyone is doing...and then ripping them up and eating them.

The Little Guy gives his mama kisses. This involves grabbing me by my hair or ears, pulling my face to his open mouth, and then licking me. Sometimes he then screams in my face for good measure. R is super jealous.

I could go on and on. He almost always spends part of the day laughing uncontrollably at some mundane or unexpected thing I do (once it was saying the word "poop," another time it was laying on my back next to him and waving my feet in the air), so, of course, I do it one million times. He drools on everything I wear. I'm revising my "do not encourage the baby to move" policy and am encouraging crawling, because that's better than walking, which he really wants to do. He loves pureed kale but hates turkey. He stretches out the neckline of all my shirts. He has mommy and daddy wrapped around his pudgy, wet fingers and we love it.

Recently, I've seen a lot of "it's so hard posts" about having babies, about being a new parent, about the dramatic shift in life and identity that it brings. I'm not saying that isn't true. But for our family, our experience has been 90% positive. I realize that my husband plays a larger role than most, and that makes a big difference. We've been together a long time (13 years next month!) and I think that makes a big difference as well. And our baby is pretty easy. What can I say? We lucked out. That addendum aside, I want to add my voice to the online parent babble and say, it's not always that hard. Challenging? At times. Exhausting? Certainly. There's also poop and slobber, teething, biting, more slobber, and babies change the rules daily.

Yep. It's pretty awesome.