Archive for the ‘Breastfeeding’ Category

My Breastfeeding Yo-Yo


With 100% sincerity I am about to attempt to promote the annual Breastfeeding Celebration event at City Hall taking place this Friday and share my current waning desire to continue nursing.

What?! Attachment Mama wants to wean?  INCONCEIVABLE!

Hey — it is what it is.  Some women highly committed to Attachment Parenting will breastfeed until their child chooses to wean and I applaud this choice.

And despite fully appreciating how honoring this is of the child’s emotional needs and my own strong desire to maintain whatever level of secure attachment I can while being away from my children so much now that I’m working full-time,  over the last few weeks I’ve been hearing myself thinking and even occasionally saying out loud, “I want my boob back.”

Yes, it’s singular. One boob. Both my girls rejected my left side within the first six months of nursing. Or maybe I was more comfortable with them positioned on the right side and the rejection evolved from me unconsciously putting them there more often. Either way, they both eventually refused the left side and I’ve been lopsided ever since.

For the last three and 1/2 years I’ve looked in the mirror to see a Picasso painting version of my former self. So that I didn’t get too angst-ridden about my post-motherhood body which includes lumpy ass, permanently pregnant looking belly, and lopsided chest, I wrote a little ditty to add some levity to my situation. This is three years old now and many of my friends have already heard it. Many of you have not.

I will share it here now and hope not to lose some of you with my foul language which — outside of my Home VBAC story, I’ve been careful to omit from this blog.

My little song is called My Left Tit and you sing it to the tune of Three Blind Mice.

Ready?  Here we go:

My left tit.

My left tit.

Oh what a sight.

So much smaller than the right.

My baby stopped nursing it months ago.

It shrunk like a dick in a cold water you know.

Now I feel like a walking Picasso.

My left tit.

There you have it.

The irony is that my shrunken side is likely to ultimately be the better looking side — because when the day finally comes for me to actually say “sorry honey, no more” my Mighty Righty may turn into a little shriveled-up tea bag.

AND NOW — let’s talk about Friday’s Breastfeeding Party in Austin!!!

Friday, 11:00 am – 1:00 pm at City Hall (301 W. 2nd Street)

Hosted by Central Texas Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition and City of Austin WIC, the “Austin Hero of Breastfeeding” award will be presented in the council chambers at 12:30 pm.

I am going on my lunch break — sadly sans my babies because it will be too difficult to coordinate with preschool. Hanging with my fellow AP peeps, I may be inspired to extend my current plan to wean my Littlest nugget when she turns 2 (first week in October!).  We’ll see…..

Regardless of how long I personally choose to continue, I will forever be an advocate of breastfeeding and do my best to support programs and efforts that help to educate and inform our community and beyond — all with the goal of normalizing it.

Hope to see some of you there!


Posted in Attachment Parenting, Breastfeeding, Mama Self Expression | 2 Comments

Austin’s World Breastfeeding Day Celebration: A Flash Mob!


Yesterday Austin celebrated World Breastfeeding Day in a classic Keep Austin Weird (and Breastfeeding) kind of way.

Aside from outrageous 100 degree Texas heat that made for seriously sweaty mamas, children, babies —  and boobs if I might add, participating in the choreographed “yay breastfeeding” dance in front of Barton Springs was a fabulous community building event and rockin’ good time.

Both my girls loved joining in on the rehearsals and my eldest took part in the actual performance (standing still most of the time).

Check out the fantastic video that my friend Seabrook put together from the event.  It manages to capture all the highlights except the fantastic go breastfeeding rap lyrics. If I can get my hands on those, I’ll post them tomorrow.

Here’s to influencing communities everywhere to support mothers breastfeeding — IN PUBLIC!!

VIDEO: Austin Breastfeeding Flash Mob

P.S.  Anyone on here a Word Press pro that can tell me how to load a video so the screen shows up in your post versus a link? Not seeing how to make it happen through “embed video” widget and need to get some zzzzzzz’s.


Posted in Attachment Parenting, Breastfeeding | 3 Comments

Get Yer Boob On!!


God I love Austin.  Check this out Mamas.  Austin is coming together to celebrate World Breastfeeding Day in a super cool way this year.  I plan to participate and hope you’ll join me!

WHO:  You, your family, your partner — anyone else who supports breastfeeding

WHAT: Choreographed Flash Mob — (“a large group of people who gather in a predetermined location, perform some brief action, and then quickly disperse”) to promote breastfeeding in public

WHERE:

  • All rehearsals will take place at Galaxy Dance Studios, 1700 South Lamar Blvd, Ste 338.  Final mandatory rehearsal is on the day of the Flash Mob, August 1st, at 11:00 a.m.  Location TBD.
  • The actual “Keep Austin Breastfeeding” Flash Mob Event will take place in front of Barton Springs Pool, August 1, 1:00 pm

WHEN:  Participants asked to join at least one rehearsal, preferably two.   Remaining dates:

Sunday, July 18, 3:00 – 4:00 pm; Thursday, July 29, 7:00 – 8:00 pm; and Saturday, July 31, 10:00 – 11:00 am

Yay! Yay! Yay! to Sponsors: Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies, Special Addition and Galaxy Dance School. You rock!

Questions?

Gail Gresham: ggresham@hotmail.com, Lauren Reyes, laurenreyes@gmail.com


Posted in Breastfeeding | No Comments

Cultural Differences in Breastfeeding Project


Natasha Sriraman (MD, IBCLC) and Stacy Meyers (RNC, IBCLC), some groovy lactation consultant Mamas and founders of a breastfeeding support group called Best Milk Bistro are working on a project regarding cultural differences in breastfeeding. More specifically, they are interested in the attitudes, beliefs, and practices of breastfeeding within specific cultures.

They’d like both personal stories from mothers and professional experiences of Lactation Consultants or other Health Care Providers working with moms and babies to get a picture of how breastfeeding is viewed within each particular region, country, and/or religion in the context of the mother, the baby, the husband, extended family, and social issues.

They are looking for moms of a distinct cultural group to interview for anecdotal stories. It can be any culture; they are casting a wide net.  Questions they posted to me that I’m passing forward:

  • Do you know any past or current breastfeeding moms with whom you can put us in touch?
  • Are you aware of any providers who work with a particular cultural population?

Most everyone that reads my blog has or is breastfeeding a baby or toddler and you all live in very different places, have different spiritual or religious beliefs, and your own unique extended family situations.

Ladies — if you’re up for an interview to support this research project, please email:  stacyibclc@gmail.com.

Curious to know the story behind Jiang Xiaojuan, the amazing woman in this photo I stumbled upon tonight?  You can read about her on a Moderate Voice post from Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of Women Who Run with Wolves (loved it).

How cool would it be for Natasha and Stacy to interview her for their project?


Posted in Breastfeeding | No Comments

Believe Breastfeeding Past 2 years is Healthy? Speak up!


Hey Mamas –

There’s an article today in the Huffington Post about Rielle Hunter (John Edward’s Mistress) nursing their 2 year-old toddler.  They’ve incorporated a survey:

What do you think about Rielle Hunter nursing her 2-year-old?

  • Good for her! It’s healthy.
  • Fits with all the other weird things we know about her.
  • None of my business.

I wish that a woman nursing her two-year-old wasn’t news. And I am disappointed in the juxtaposition of an important topic that could benefit from media coverage with a high-profile controversial woman that “people love to hate”.  How does that not influence a negatively slanted view on the subject?  Thankfully Huffington quickly followed what appeared to be an eye-brow raising take on extended breastfeeding with endorsing statements from the World Health Organization, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

To be clear, I am not standing on some Queen Bee breastfeeder be-like-me soap box here. I hold no records for nursing my babies.  I weaned my first angel when she was 17 months while pregnant with my second.  I am still nursing my second baby at 18 months and intend to nurse until she’s 2, maybe longer depending on how I feel in six months. But I applaud women that choose to nurse longer and ultimately think it’s their life, their child, their family. Each to her  own!

Whether you personally choose to breastfeed past two years or not yourself — if you agree with me that it’s normal, healthy and ultimately each woman’s business, you can “speak up” about it with your vote on Huffington Post.

I’d like to see the vote percentage for “Good for her, it’s healthy” and “It’s none of my business” sky-rocket in comparison to the “fits with all all the other weird things we know about her.”

Takes 5 seconds.  Come on y’all.

And if you feel like reading more on the subject.  KellyMom’s page on extended breastfeeding benefits rocks.

Related Posts with Thumbnails


Posted in Breastfeeding | 2 Comments

SUBSCRIBE VIA:

  • You are currently browsing the archives for the Breastfeeding category.




  • Categories




 

 

    Follow Me



 





 

    Places to go


     


Art by Erika Hastings at http://mudspice.wordpress.com/

 

    Add us to your site!


     

Click to get the code!