I had my baby! It’s a boy! It was a wonderful birth, at home, with my fabulous midwife. I have never used any birth control of any kind. I naturally got a break between children of 16 1/2 months, then 2 years and 9 months, then again 2 years and 9 months, and then 3 years.
I do chart, only because I find the information very helpful (and fascinating!). My midwife has always been very respectful of my charting, lifestyle, etc., and she’s always set my due dates based on my charts.
ON DUE DATE: With this most recent baby, I would have been officially two weeks overdue, if we had simply calculated on when my last period was, which as you know, can be sharply inaccurate if you were nursing a baby during that cycle….. I imagine that without my due date based on my precious chart, there would have been all this anxiety, stress tests…Perhaps I would have been sliced and diced at a C-section 🙁 The whole time I was “overdue”, I was measuring up perfectly based on my chart due date, and was only three days late.
ON EARLY CRAMPING: I just wanted to confirm that I am recalling correctly that you wrote somewhere that with one of your children, you were feeling cramps, and some extra focused effort to increase nursings made the cramps go away??
My baby is only 3 months old, and, while I am certainly nursing on demand, and napping, too, I am up late at night with a lot to do, and I suspect that the late nights are bringing on this cramping. I am hoping you can give me some reassurance that with more effort to get to bed earlier, and to offer the breast more, the cramps will dissipate?
SHEILA: You have a good memory. Yes, I would encourage you to get more rest, plus that daily nap/rest which you’re doing, and nurse while doing so. Actually, with adequate rest you can usually get more done sometimes.
CORRESPONDENT ON THE IMPORTANCE OF NAPS: I have a good memory only because I’ve read your writings so many times, every time I have a baby!! The daily nap is probably really instrumental in delaying fertility return because not only do I feel rested, but I find the baby always nurses a tremendous amount, oftentimes still suckling at the end of a one hour nap!
Sheila Kippley
For more on naps, read Chapter Five in The Seven Standards of Ecological Breastfeeding.