breastfeeding – The Late Stork

Faith’s Oral Examination

SherryApril 23, 20131 Comment

Today was Faith’s oral examination with a speech and oral therapist. We are trying to understand why Faith has no interest in eating baby food. The pediatrician wants to make sure there are no physical issues with her swallowing. I don’t believe there is. She swallows milk fine, and water, and pureed foods. However, it seems she has trouble swallowing textured foods. Once textured food gets towards the back of her mouth, she tries to push it out with her tongue, or she gags. The same thing happens when we give her a cracker or a cookie. If she bites off a piece, she doesn’t like the texture of it, and spits it out. She refuses to chew it up, and swallow it.

So today we had Faith sit in the cutest little kitchen filled with bright colors, and she tried out several different foods. As predicted, she hardly even opened her mouth. First of all, she realized she was at the doctor’s office so she was quiet, big-eyed, and looked a bit nervous. When we put her in the highchair she started getting scared, and whined a little. I put a couple of her toys on her tray and she calmed down. We tried applesauce, chocolate pudding, a cheese stick, a Gerber snack cracker, and some pasta in tomato sauce. She never willingly opened her mouth for any food except once. I knew she was hungry because I made sure to delay nursing her so she would hopefully eat at the doctor’s office. She didn’t :(

We have another appointment with an oral therapist on Monday. I asked the doctor if it would be helpful if I recorded her feedings at home where she is more comfortable. She said, “Yes! That would be extremely helpful!” This way, the doctors can observe how she eats, what she eats, the quantity of food she eats, and the duration of time it takes her to eat. Also, they can better observe how her mouth works as she chews the food, and swallows. I think Faith will be able to give the doctors more information at home where she’s more comfortable, than in a kitchen, and in a highchair she’s never been in before. So I will begin creating a video log of all of her feedings.

I’m still not too worried. She is getting all the nutrients she needs through my breast milk, and I’ve heard people say, “Food for fun until they’re one.” However, I agree with the doctors that she should have more experience trying out a variety of foods by now. She should be wanting to open her mouth and try different foods, at least for fun.

I’ve researched several articles and message boards, and heard moms say, “None of my breastfed babies were interested in solids until they were at least 9 months and didn’t get solids quite regularly until they were 12+ months.” So I don’t necessarily believe Faith is behind developmentally. I won’t truly be worried until she’s 1 year old, and if she is still behaving this way. Another mom said, “None of my kids had solids before 12 months – just not interested. They’re all healthy young women now who will eat anything. They all turned into foodies, in fact!”

We went to Walmart today to get a few more foods for her to try out. I am posting her first feeding since we’ve been home from the pedicatrician. If any moms out there, or other pediatricians have any helpful advice to give, please do!

In Blog

Faith is 9 Months Old Today!

SherryApril 3, 2013

A whopping 9 months old! Yay Faith! It seems unreal that in only a few short months we will be celebrating her very first birthday. Wow.

She will be going in for her 9 month check-up next week. I’m sure she has gained a healthy amount of weight, despite the fact that she rarely eats solid food. Her main nutrition still only comes from my breast milk. Trying to get Faith to regularly eat solid foods for the past 3 months has been difficult. Once she turned 6 months old, I started her out on baby cereal…. she didn’t like it. Then I tried pureed vegetables of all kinds…. didn’t like any. I tried pureed fruits of all kinds…. didn’t like any. I’ve tried Gerber baby desserts… and she doesn’t like it. Any of the foods she may like a little bit … she will eat a few bites and be done with it. She has never had a full serving of any kind of baby food yet.

She is still getting up every night for milk as well. To be honest… her nursing schedule is still pretty much the same as it always has been ever since she was a newborn. She wants milk about every hour throughout the day, and during the night she will wake up sometimes every hour… sometimes every couple hours… and occasionally she will sleep 3 or more hours before waking up for a feeding but that’s rare. I’m tired. I wish I could add some baby cereal to my breast milk in a bottle for her to drink before bedtime… hoping that it will satisfy her enough to sleep through the night … but she refuses bottles. She never drinks from a bottle. Bottles are toys to her. She’s no dummy… she knows breast milk is best, but c’mon! :)

New mothers with newborn babies are always tired because newborn babies want to be fed every couple hours around the clock. I’m still feeding Faith every hour to two hours, and I still get up anywhere from 2 to 5 times a night. I haven’t slept all night since I was pregnant. I am TIRED.

I will be weaning her when she turns 1 year old. How will she adjust to being weaned when she refuses to eat solid food? I plan to start her on bottles of organic cow’s milk when she’s a year old… but she has always refused the bottle. I expect the transition to be rough. I believe she will probably lose a pound or more until she finally accepts solid food for nourishment.

I really hope she will happily dig into her birthday cake and gobble it up like most one year olds do. We shall see soon enough!

In Blog

My 5 Year Old Daughter Is Still Breastfeeding And I Don’t Know How To Stop

SherryMarch 9, 2013

When I read the title of this article, I thought, “Wow! Five years old, and still breastfeeding?” But when I finished the article, I could see how this mom feels.

In four months, Faith will be 1 year old, and I plan to stop breastfeeding her at that time. The main reason I will stop when she is 1 year old is because we may plan to have baby #2, and it will be hard to conceive while breastfeeding. I suppose if we don’t plan on having another baby, I may want to nurse Faith until she is 2 years old… but until she’s 5 years old? No way. I will take my cue from mother nature…. once they have sprouted a full set of teeth, they are 100% ready for solid food.

My 5-Year-Old Daughter Is Still Breastfeeding And I Don’t Know How To Stop

Lisa C. Baker

Mayim Bialik‘s 4-year-old finally weaned himself.

I’m jealous.

Because my daughter just turned five, and she’s still going strong.

I know what you’re thinking: I’m just doing this for myself. You thought that about Mayim too. And that mom on the cover of TIME. But if you think giving a preschooler access to my boobs is something I do for myself, well, you’ve obviously never done it.

And why should it be about me? Our culture is perfectly comfortable with child-led achievement of other milestones (potty training? walking?), so what makes breastfeeding different? Why is it a good idea to let a child decide when she wants to quit diapers but totally inappropriate to let her decide when to quit the boob?

I’ll be honest: I’d love to let my daughter decide when to stop. But at this point, I’d also be happy to take the lead myself.

I just can’t figure out how.

It’s not that I can’t tell her no. I do all the time (she doesn’t have ice cream for breakfast, and she doesn’t watch TV all day, although she begs to do both). It’s certainly not that I’m clinging to her babyhood (I’ve got a younger baby who is also breastfeeding). It doesn’t help me lose weight (quite the opposite), and I don’t particularly enjoy it.

And I know she doesn’t really need it anymore.

It’s just that she still thinks she needs it. And like any other step toward independence, I’m not sure she’ll really thrive without it until she decides for herself that she’s ready.

She always enjoyed breastfeeding more than the average baby. As a newborn, she latched on within minutes and barely unlatched for a year. At her first birthday, when many of her peers were weaning, she was cutting back to once every two or three hours. Back then, nursing a toddler didn’t faze me. Most of the time I liked it. It was a powerful parenting tool. I could stop a tantrum mid-scream, end a fight instantly, or put her to bed in seconds, all with the magical power of mama milk.

But by the time she turned two, I was getting tired. She still nursed at least every three hours, more on some days. She could go without it — she went to preschool two days a week and managed just fine — but if I was around, she wanted my boobs.

So I added limits. I established a “nursing chair” and told her that was the only place we would nurse. Instead of grabbing my shirt and whining, she learned to climb in the chair and ask politely, “May I have mama milk now?” We stopped nursing in public, and I began to hope that maybe, soon, she’d be ready to stop.

But all the limits only seemed to make her want it more, and I couldn’t bring myself to refuse her entirely. The way her whole body relaxed into my lap, the way she gazed up at me with those big, adoring eyes, the way she snuggled into my arms — she didn’t seem like a big kid. She still seemed like a baby. My baby

The right moment to wean just never arrived.

After her brother was born, I cut her back to two sessions a day. We talked about how big kids don’t need mama milk, and none of her friends drink it. But if I hoped that peer pressure would embarrass her into quitting, I was wrong. It made her appreciate it more. Like she was getting cake while all the other kids ate vegetables. She started telling her friends the “secret” that she got to drink mama milk. She even announced in children’s church once, as they discussed gifts that demonstrate love, that “my mama gives me mama milk because she loves me so much.” Sweet, right? She thinks it’s a gift of love. I sank deeper in my chair and contemplated switching churches while I prayed desperately that no one would figure out exactly what she meant by “mama milk.”

She wasn’t embarrassed at all. But I was.

So I cut her back more. I replaced her bedtime session with ice cream. (Because that’s healthier, right?) It’s been a month since she nursed at bedtime, but she still asks for it. I rock her instead and sing her a lullaby, promising that she’ll have mama milk in the morning.

And while I do that, I wonder why. Because ice cream is certainly not better for her than breastmilk, and rocking a 5-year-old in my arms is much harder than lying down to let her nurse. And if you can forget about the hang-ups our society has about breasts, if you can think of them as just another body part, like hair, or a hand, or a foot — then you’ll realize, as I have, that trying so hard to wean her is a little ridiculous.

If your child wanted you to tell her a story every time she got upset, would you say she was overly dependent on you? If she begged for a story before bed, would you insist that she shouldn’t need that and ought to be able to go to sleep alone? No. You’d trust that she would outgrow that ritual on her own when she was ready. And if she didn’t — if she still asked you to read a chapter to her from her favorite book when she was a teenage — you wouldn’t refuse. You’d know the time was fleeting, and that she’d outgrow it all too soon.

Does that mean I’ll let my daughter breastfeed until she’s a teenager? No way.

But I’ve let her breastfeed this long for her. And when I finally persuade her to quit, I’ll be doing that for me.