This is us, at the seafront (Aberavon) last Friday evening.
Ethan is almost 2 now (1 month tomorrow – eek!), and sometimes he gets very lazy when latching to feed, which means it can hurt a bit when I’m feeding him. We’re working on getting a better, deeper latch to make it more pleasant for the both of us. I’ll let you know how we get on.
Happy breastfeeding!
Ethan is now 22 months (and 9 days) old. Every night when I am here (I work 2 nights a week), I feed him to sleep. Every night.
Here we are tonight:
Every night, if he wakes, I feed him back to sleep, in my (and my other half’s) bed.
In all of his 22 months so far, Ethan has never ever been left to cry alone without comfort. And he never will be.
We never really decided to not let him cry. We followed our instincts. From when he was born, if he cried, every instinct in me tingled to respond to him and solve whatever was wrong. It physically hurt me to hear him cry. So he was never left to cry alone.
As he got older (6 months? Absolutely geriatric!), we were told we were spoiling him, giving in, making a rod for our own back, why wouldn’t we just leave him cry?! That’s around the time I started doubting our instincts (no idea why, we were perfectly happy until other people decided to give their opinions) and started researching.
And you know what? It’s normal. It is fundamentally biologically normal to respond to your baby/toddler/child, and adjust your response to their needs at that particular time. Babies expect this. They expect to be close to you (they have been for 9 months, it’s all they know!), they expect you to respond when they need you.
Babies, regardless of where they’re born, are still cave babies. They have the same reflexes and instincts human babies have for thousands of years. That instinct is to survive. If cave babies were left alone, they’d be eaten by a sabre toothed tiger. If they’re alone, they cry, when they cry alone, their stress hormone levels rise, which causes neurological changes. It messes with their attachment and trust with caregivers.
But, I hear you cry, my friend/auntie/cousin left her baby to cry and they learned to sleep through.
My answer – think back to those cave babies. They cry, no one comes. If no one comes after a while, are they better off –
a) keeping crying, keeping expending energy and possibly attracting a predator
Or b) shutting up, saving energy, not attracting the attention of a hungry wolf.
The answer’s obvious. You’d be quiet. However, the stress levels in the now silent baby’s brain is still raised. They’re still stressed. Distressed.
And that is why I will always respond to my child’s needs, whether he’s 22 hours, days, months or years old. Children are blessings, not inconveniences to be controlled.
Today, we went shopping. Ethan napped in the car and I managed to get him into the sling without waking him (woohoo!). He woke just before we went to the coffee shop for lunch, and of course wanted some boob before his toasted sandwich. He’s 20 months now, and eats a huge amount of food, alongside breastfeeds whenever he wants
On an unexpected sunny day, we were both luckily off work, so we decided to take a trip to Manor House Wildlife Park in Tenby.
It was a lovely day, the wildlife park is brilliant and the animals have so much space.
Obviously, Ethan (now 19 months – where did the time go?!) wanted some boob as we were waiting for food in the restaurant, so here we are 🙂
Here we are breastfeeding at an Ospreys rugby match!
We also made a breastfeeding symbol in our carved pumpkin for Halloween 😉
And here’s another photo of us breastfeeding in Frankie & Benny’s after some Christmas shopping!
Happy breastfeeding!x
On Sunday October 6th, Oliver ran Cardiff Half Marathon to raise money for Chester Milk Bank, which collects, screens and distributes donated breast milk to babies who need it. Donated milk saves the lives of babies. I donated to the milk bank myself.
While he was running, I was sat on the base of a statue in the middle of the green outside Cardiff museum. Naturally, Ethan wanted feeding, so here we are…
And here’s Oliver after he’d finished (in 1 hour 53 minutes!). We’re super super proud of him 🙂
We took part in Subway’s Helping Hearts 5km walk around Bute Park, Cardiff on Sunday 11th August, which also happened to be Ethan’s 13-month birthday!
We managed it in 1 hour and 2 minutes, which isn’t bad with a baby! We had multiple stops to pick up Ethan’s hat every time he threw it off, and he swapped a few times between his little bike and the sling.
Here we are on the da
My not-so-little baby turned one on 11th July, which also marked a year of breastfeeding! I’m so proud for making it this far, especially after we had problems to begin with. We have no plans to stop; broccoli doesn’t stop being healthy at a certain age, neither does breast milk!
The World Health Organisation, NHS and American Academy of Pediatrics all recommend breastfeeding until at least 2 years and beyond. I hope we will achieve that.
Remember: every drop of breast milk your child gets counts. It’s amazing, incredible stuff!
Here we are, on Ethan’s first birthday:
We went to the Gower yesterday, as the weather is positively tropical here (for Wales anyway!). The Gower is the most amazing place, we are truly blessed to have it on our doorstep. There are so many places to go and things to see there, but we chose to visit Llangennith. We ate at The King’s Head inn, and visited the legendary Pj’s surf shop before hitting the beach via Hillend caravan park.
Ethan enjoyed crawling around on the sand, and loved playing in the waves even more – he shouted for more when we had to leave.
As it was so warm and sunny, I fed him in the car after the beach (he was too distracted by the sand and sea to feed on the beach anyway!). Not the best photo, so apologies for that.
We had a fabulous day, and apparently the weather is here to stay, so here’s hoping for more sunshiny posts!
No photos today (hopefully tomorrow!)
I’m writing this post to celebrate UK National Breastfeeding Awareness Week. There have been many reports in the news about breastfeeding this week, some of which are shocking, such as the fact that breastfeeding rates in England have fallen for the first time in many years. Many attribute this to the Conservative coalition government cutting funding for infant feeding co-ordinators. We are lucky to live in Wales, under a Labour government, with devolved health boards.
Another startling statistic was that around 90% of women who stopped breastfeeding in the first 6-8 weeks did not want to stop. They stopped due to lack of support, be that professional support with latch or troubleshooting, or simply moral support from fellow breastfeeding mothers. In a culture where breastfeeding is not the ‘norm’ (in number at least), it can be daunting to continue breastfeeding when you have very little or no support from your family and social group. In fact, far from being ‘pressured’ and ‘intimidated’ into breastfeeding, most women feel immense social pressures from friends, family, strangers, media to formula feed.
I live in an economically deprived area with the lowest breastfeeding rates in Wales, but these rates are steadily increasing. We have infant feeding co-ordinators, midwives and health visitors who work tirelessly to help breastfeeding mothers. Our hospitals are UNICEF Baby Friendly Initiative (BFI) accredited due to their hard work. Step 10 of the BFI guide to successful breastfeeding is having a network if peer supporters in the community, and this is how I, and many other breastfeeding mums, spend some of my spare time. We provide help, in person and online, to mums who may be struggling with breastfeeding, and simply provide a social group of breastfeeding mums to counteract the anti-breastfeeding social message our culture emits.
This National Breastfeeding Week, I implore all breastfeeding mums to do just one small thing to help other breastfeeding mums. This could be just posting a breastfeeding photo on Facebook, or talking to a mum who is breastfeeding in public – put her at ease.
We need to be an active, dynamic breastfeeding community, our voices need to be heard, breastfeeding NEEDS to be normalised.
Happy breastfeeding!
Today I Breastfed. 