Come, Mommy

When I was pregnant with Liam, I knew I would nurse him. At the time I was concerned mostly with getting nursing off to a successful start, and any thoughts I had about the duration on nursing were along the lines of, “I’ll nurse the baby as long as he’s still baby.” And then Liam was born, and I nursed him through some early difficulties and bad advice. By the time nursing was well established with Liam, it had been such a struggle that if he had shown any signs of self-weaning early on, I probably would have dissolved into a puddle of tears.

In one of the many advice books I read during that pregnancy, the OB/GYN who wrote the book was not fond of nursing toddlers, saying that if a baby was old enough to lift up Mom’s shirt and help himself, he was too old to be nursing. Then I went to my first La Lache League meeting, and there I saw several nursing toddlers who were more than old enough to “help themselves.” It was pretty obvious that both the children and their moms were quite happy with extended nursing, so it was there that I decided I would nurse until my children weaned on their own schedule. I was worried about nursing a larger child in public, and I couldn’t imagine that nursing an older child would be as rewarding and cuddly as nursing a tiny baby, but I figured I’d cross those bridges when I came to them. And I’m glad I did.

Kieran is at the point of toddlerhood now where he’s more like a little boy than a baby most of the time, but he still nurses often. And it’s good thing he does. Unlike his older brother at this age, Kieran is a boy intent upon chaos and destruction. He loves to throw things, swat things, and bang things just to see what the result is. When the result is a reprimand from Kevin or me, he gives us a sweet and charming apology-”Me sowwy, Daddy!”-and runs off in search of more noise and chaos. If he didn’t love to cuddle up and nurse several times a day, I’d be run off my feet by him. It also helps to keep us close during times where my patience is sorely tested by the number of messes Mr. Destructo can create. He’ll run up with a charming smile on his face, say “Nurpy please, Mommy?”, hop in my lap, and nurse.

Like a lot of little ones, Kieran is scared of things that wouldn’t bother most older children. A large crow roosted in our cherry tree a couple of days ago. Kiri was frightened by his size and his glaring face, but after a couple of minutes of nursing he was ready to go chase off the crow.

And then, too, like many toddlers, Kiri gets sick from time to time. His nursing has been a saving grace on several occasions where with the high fevers he ran, he would have been dehydrated if not for nursing. Picky eaters get even more picky when sick, so knowing he’s getting balanced nutrition from nursing is a big thing that I don’t have to worry about. And just now my writing was interrupted by Kieran, who came in from playing outside where he had scraped his toe-a few minutes of nursing and he was back in action

Nursing mean so much to him and to me that I’m glad I didn’t try to wean at some arbitrary age. While it’s true that he could eat a varied enough diet to support himself without nursing at this age, he gets so much more than just nutrition from nursing that it would be deleterious to him to deny him the experience of being a nursing toddler. As he was nursing to help feel better from his scraped toe, he popped off and looked up at me. “Mommy?” he asked. “Nursing makes me happy-happy.”

Now isn’t being happy with life what we all want for our children?