It's normal, dang-it!

I am still breastfeeding my twins Oscar and Matilda. They are 19 months old.

*gasp*

That's 18 months more than is considered normal here. You can make it to 6 months, but before then you have already been bombarded with all manner of "advice." Be it well-meaning and merely misinformed aunties or downright rude and cruel strangers, it's still the same result. Little to no confidence or self-esteem in what is a process closely connected to the mother's confidence and stress. But I digress...

Yes, they have teeth, and yes they've bitten me. So what? If they throw their bottle or chew the nipple, does that mean they should be weaned?

Yes, they can ask for it. "Mama! Booboo?" "Why, yes son, you may"... If I kid can ask for "baba" does that prompt a bottle-weaning?

So, congrats! You made it to 6 months. Say hello to a semi-comfortable, unwanted-advice-free period from 6 months to 10 months, at least it was that way for me. I guess people thought, 'Well, she didn't wean at 6 months, I guess she'll do it at 12 months.' So when that deadline started creeping up, so did the inquiries about weaning. People started with the:

"Surely you'll wean it before it's birthday!"
"She can walk! Surely you're weaning her."
"You've done a great job so far. Surely you want a break."

Um...no- we're not weaning. And don't call me Shirley.

So after their birthday, it was like open season. Luckily the people most close to me who were being negative were keeping mum. I guess by now they got it. Now came the uncomfortable silences when I would try to open dialogue with other moms, trying to make some friends. You tell someone you're still breastfeeding your toddler and they get this look. It's like you just said you feed them dog food. Actually, something worse than that- it's like breastmilk suddenly takes on this perverted or disturbing association. So, instead of dog food...maybe more like you just admitted you like to feeding your kid eat dog crap smoothies. Yeah, that describes that look much better.

Not only do you experience this from the lady you met in line at Kroger, but from medical professionals as well.

My son had physical therapists and some were very aggressive in encouraging weaning him. Not to mention the doctor visits I had for myself for various reasons. I actually had one convo with a dermatologist go thusly:

Doc: So, any allergies or anything?
Me: No, but I am breastfeeding.
Doc: Oh, that's nice. How old is the baby?
Me: It's twins actually, they're 14 months old.
Doc: HAHA! Seriously?
Me: *uncomfortable* Yeah...
Doc: What, do you just lay up and give them each a breast?
Me: Uh...yeah... it's easier that way.
Doc: Oh man...that's funny...*continues chuckling*

No, I won't be going back to him.

I can complain all I want but luckily I do have support. Most of my family are supportive, despite most being inexperienced with breastfeeding. Our hospital was very supportive of my efforts to breastfeed my twins. Oscar was very sick at birth and his doctor at Vanderbilt told me "It's as good as medicine." Their pediatrician is perhaps my most treasured gem. She is completely supportive and encouraging of extended nursing and child-led weaning. She herself has extended-nursed 5 children.

Bottom line, breastfeeding is natural and normal and most optimum for babies. You can't deny that. The AAP recommends:

"Breastfeeding should be continued for at least the first year of life and beyond for as long as mutually desired by mother and child... Increased duration of breastfeeding confers significant health and developmental benefits for the child and the mother... There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer." (2005)

The American Academy of Family Physicians noted:

"If the child is younger than two years of age, the child is at increased risk of illness if weaned." (2001)

Katherine Dettwyler, an anthropologist, researched lactaction and nursing among various mammals and found a range of typical weaning, in comparable human age, to be 2.5 to 7 years.

There are benefits to nursing a toddler. There appears to be a link to higher IQs, better social adjustment, fewer allergies, less illness, lower rates of cancers for both child and mother, among others goodies, directly correlating with duration of being breastfed.

Bottom line, when my children nurse and stare up at my with those contented eyes smiling and I feel their bodies relax and melt into me, feeling totally secure, how can I deny them that? Better yet, why should I, when what's urging me to are merely two generations of regular Joes and Joettes, befuddled by an aggressive formula propaganda effort early in the 1940s? It's not their fault, it's how they were raised, it's all they know. I get that, I really do. However, now we know better. Let my kids nurse in peace.

introductions

My name is Melina. I live in a very small town in West Tennessee. I hear of places like Whole Foods and Trader Joes, but they may as well be The Lost City of Atlantis to me. My kids wear cloth diapers and people look at me like I am absolutely crazy. To them, breastfeeding is something only to be done until the baby is 6 months old or when they cut their first tooth, whichever comes first. And why wear your baby or co-sleep? Stick them in a crib with a pacifier and "train" them or else you spoil them and they'll become horribly selfish and totally dependant on you for the rest of their life. At least, that's what I'm told. Despite this unsupportive local atmosphere, I continue to try to be the best mom I can be for my 15 month-old twins, Oscar and Matilda. Yes- I still breastfeed, I co-sleep, I do not spank, nor rely on "training" or "scheduling". My son is uncircumcized and we selectively vaccinate. The farther I get into this whole trip called "Motherhood" the more I feel alone in this town. I have no friends, other than usernames on various parenting boards. Does that make me pathetic? Probably. Fortunately, I am determined and optimistic and on the look-out for new, like-minded friends and maybe in the near future I will find some. Until then, I will continue to trudge through my horrible grocery/super store and sniff through dusty cartons of organic fare, wearing my babies in my slings, while one or both of them probably will poke at my chest a few times in earnest. When people see me, at least most just politely, maybe uncomfortably, smile and nod.

(Also, let it be known, I don't judge any other mamas for breastfeeding or not, cloth diapers or not, circumcizing/vaccinating/organic/etc etc etc. My feelings are that we get enough of that judgement from other non-parents, why should we do it to each other? The first thing I learned about being a mother is that every choice you make is 6 of this, half a dozen of the other. Just research and make the best choice you can for your very own little one. That's all we can do.)