Natural Family Planning International

Breastfeeding: Going for the Gold for how long? By Tracy Reeves
          #2 in WBW series
After learning about the benefits of extended breastfeeding in our NFP
class, I planned to nurse my son for at least 2 years.  The more we read
about nursing, and the more that we experienced all of the benefits for
ourselves, the more my husband and I felt convicted to allow him to nurse
as long as he chose.  He was still nursing at 3 years, 4 years, 5
years…  Many people see a child nursing that long and think that
something is wrong, and that they will never stop without “help”.  When
my son was about 5 1/2 years old, we had a conversation in which the
subject of him eventually not nursing came up.  He was devastated at the
thought, and despite my assurances that someday he would not need or want
to nurse and that until then he was free to do so, he cried and cried.
He simply could not imagine life without that comfort.

About 3 months later, he was completely weaned!

His nursings just got farther and farther apart, and he eventually
stopped.  He got sick shortly afterward, and I offered to nurse him then
for the antibodies, and he politely refused!  About a month after his
last nursing, I talked to him about it.  I asked if he missed it, if he
was sad?  No, he told me, he simply didn’t need to nurse anymore, and
that was that.

I have a couple of friends with older nurslings, and they joke that when
they send their children off to college, the kids will have to form a
support group since they won’t be able to nurse anymore.  I offer my
story in the hopes that other mothers in a similar situation, as well as
those who don’t understand the place nursing can have for an older child,
will see that these children really are fulfilling a need by continued
breastfeeding, and they really will stop when they no longer have that
need.

Tomorrow: Prevention is the Best Medicine

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
Natural Family Planning (an online manual)
www.nfpandmore.org

Breastfeeding: Contemplating the Baby by Mrs. Darwin
          #1 in WBW series

Here’s a confession: I haven’t been to a Holy Hour or sat in Eucharistic Adoration for a long time. I know that we have Adoration at our parish, but I’ve never looked into the times or dropped by. And when I have gone in the past, I’ve been the fidgety sort of person who needs a rosary or a devotional booklet or the missalette or something to keep my mind engaged,or I start wandering off into the most banal inanities. To be honest, I haven’t taken part in much adoration because I thought that I wasn’t much good at it.

But lately I’ve found myself spending many hours engaged in contemplation of our new baby. As we lay together I’ll watch her nursing or sleeping and find myself gazing at her perfectly round little head or her cheeks (just like her sisters’!) or her sweet pointy little chin. Or I’ll think of how she might behave when she’s older and wonder if she’ll be like the bigger girls in various aspects of her personality. I can even get all worked up about how one day she’ll be all grown up and getting married, and I’ll watch her walking down the aisle (snuff!). And before I know it, half an hour has passed.

So it’s obvious that I can contemplate. I just need to extrapolate what I’m doing with the baby to contemplation of our Lord or of religious subjects.

One of the first aids that comes to mind is having a large stock of images to pull from. I can gaze at the baby and simply enjoy her beauty, but I also have memories of her sisters at that age, of my own siblings, hopes for her future, and a daily knowledge of her health and activities. So when I’m looking at her I don’t just stare blankly, but I’m interacting with her not just physically, but also mentally with the idea of her. In the same fashion, having a large store of devotional material, whether it be hymns, Bible verses, religious art, or ideas from the vast body of Christian thought, won’t mean that I’ll be fortified against any distraction. If my mind does wander, however, it will be much more likely to wander toward something worth incorporating into my contemplation rather than something stupid and unedifying.

I also engage with Baby. I talk to her about whatever pops into my mind,although since I’m focused on her it tends to be something regarding her. I tell her how sweet she is, how much I love her, that she has bright eyes, that her sisters better stop jumping on the bed… Even though I could say anything to her because she doesn’t understand any of it, she holds my attention. There’s my next aid to contemplation. When I love something, everything relates back to what I love. So actively working to strengthen my love for God means that when I sit in contemplation of him every thought or distraction will automatically lead me deeper into meditation about Him and interaction with Him.

Sometimes Baby and I just lay quietly together. She doesn’t do much more than eat and then sleep as of yet, and since I’m her source of food I have to take the time to sit or lay still for as long as it takes to feed her and then get her settled. It’s very pleasant and relaxing to have this peaceful time with her, time in which I’m not required to do anything but be. Brendan and I (before we had children) used to just sit quietly with each other in the evenings. (Now that we have toddlers, we can rarely sit still, or sit quietly. When we do, it’s usually out of sheer exhaustion.) And it’s not always necessary, when in prayer, to be actively thinking about something. I recall hearing once that Bishop Sheen always spent an hour every day in front of the Eucharist. “I wasn’t always awake,” he said, “but I was always there.” Sometimes just being in the presence of the beloved is enough. God told Moses that his name is I AM — the eternal now. To be with God, existing only in this present moment for Him, is of greater worth than carefully crafted devotions or elaborate prayer routines, and far more refreshing.

Unfortunately, it’s harder for me to sit quietly with God than to read a spiritual book or do something that keeps my mind engaged. Still, I have a lifetime to work on it, and a good spiritual companion in Baby.

http://darwincatholic.blogspot.com/2006/03/contemplating-baby.html

Tomorrow: Going for the Gold but for how long?

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
Natural Family Planning (an online manual)
www.nfpandmore.org

Next Friday begins World Breastfeeding Week (WBW). The theme of WBW is “Going for the Gold” and focuses on the need to support mothers in achieving the gold standard of infant feeding practices: exclusive breastfeeding for six months, followed by appropriate complementary foods and continued breastfeeding for two years and beyond.

Breastfeeding is the gold standard.  All of us should be encouraging mothers in any way possible to nurse their babies and offer any support they need to accomplish this task in a society which encourages new moms to use bottles and pacifiers and where moms are expected to leave their babies for whatever reason. 
  
Last year during WBW, I blogged daily on the abundant breastfeeding research.  This year the following story led me to choose stories and experiences of individual breastfeeding mothers which start next Friday, August 1st.  Such stories encourage and support those mothers who are breastfeeding.

How many mothers would spoon-feed breastmilk to their premature baby for two months until the baby was able to suckle from the breast?  This premature baby never had formula. How many working mothers would run home three times a day to breastfeed their baby?  This mother did it all and “ran for the gold.”    Here is her story.

“I am a 39 year old and mother of 3 children, now 20, 17 and 12, [and all born in Bhutan, a country between China and India].  My daughter was born premature in the year 1987.  My elder son was born in 1990 and the youngest son in 1996.   Although bottle feeding (formula) was becoming more readily available and more popular in Bhutan, I always wanted to breastfeed my children and I did.  My first child was born premature and I had a tough time breastfeeding her for the first 2 months.  I had to squeeze first into a cup and feed her with a tiny spoon.  At that time I never tried formula.  I was lucky for I was not working at that time.  I had full time for my baby and I could spend a lot of time in my effort to breastfeed her. The first two months I fed her by spoon until she reached the normal birth age of a pregnancy.  She could not suck properly until 2 months old.
   By the time my second child was born, I was working as a government employee.   Government employees were entitled to three months maternity leave and after the completion of that leave time, we (mothers) had to feed our children only during lunch time which was 1- 2 PM.  Keeping in mind how important my job was to me and how important my child was to me, I fulfilled both responsibilities and did not fail at either.  I would breastfeed my child before I left for work.  I worked hard to clear all my papers on my desk as fast as I could so I could run home to feed my baby.  I ran at least 3 times a day back and forth between my work and my baby.  
   It took me 15-20 minutes going and coming back. I needed at least 10 minutes to nurse my baby.  Every day I was gone for about one hour.   For example, my office hours were 9 am to 5 pm with a lunch break from 1 to 2 pm.  I ran home around 10:30 in the morning and was back around 11 am.   I took my lunch break from 12.30 pm to 1:30 pm. when I went home to feed my baby.   I made another visit to my baby at 3 pm. 
   I was always worried that someone would see me leaving and that an office memo would appear on the notice board stating that this was not allowed.  I was fortunate that my job responsibilities dealt with other offices.  If anyone saw me and asked questions, I was able to cover up this activity.  In fact my work involved other offices dealing with foreigners visiting Bhutan.  These offices were out of my work area and so it was always easy for me to make excuses.
It was difficult but the difficulty was nothing compared to the excitement that you get from holding your baby and breastfeeding.  The excitement of being a MOTHER may not be felt so deep inside if one does not breastfeed their children.
   My first child breastfed until age 3 when I became pregnant with my second child.  (We believed [erroneously] that breast milk spoils and is not healthy for children when you become pregnant.)  My second child breastfed until almost age 5 (until start of pre-primary school).  My third child breastfed until age 3.
   My culture is very conservative in many ways.  As a young girl or teenager, we do not wear anything that is too revealing or which would expose much skin.   However after becoming a mother, no matter where we were (i.e., in a bus, in a crowd or in a public area) we understood that our baby’s need to feed was immediate.  Being conservative was not as important when it came to breastfeeding.  Breastfeeding comes first.  Therefore, with my own experience of being a mother and breastfeeding my three children, I take breastfeeding as “MOST IMPORTANT”.  Breastfeeding helps our children to be healthier and good health is the most valuable wealth. My kids are very healthy now and I believe that is the result of BREASTFEEDING” (emphasis in the original).

Friday, August 1, 1st Day of World Breastfeeding Week: “Contemplating the Baby”

Sheila Kippley
Breastfeeding and Catholic Motherhood
Natural Family Planning (an online manual)
www.nfpandmore.org