I believe most who’ve hung around these parts for a while know what an advocate I am of breastfeeding. Not that I’m “against” bottle feeding. My belief in mothering is that each mother should do their very best, whatever their best may be, only THEY truly know. It’s not for ANYONE else to judge, and definitely not me! I’ll take care of MY parenting, and you take care of yours. 😉

There’s enough stress in each of our lives that we really don’t need to be stressing about OTHER’s parenting, now do we?

Anywho, nursing my children was one of the most blessed experiences I’ve had as a mother. I’ve nursed a long time.

Our first, I nursed for about 18 months, until I was 4 months pregnant with her brother. My milk simply dried up at that time.

Our second child, I nursed for 12 months. It wasn’t as long as I had hoped, but at that time I was working out of the home  in the evenings, AND started full time in home daycare. Life just got very busy and I wasn’t able to nurse him often enough to keep  my milk supply up. I probably wasn’t exactly taking the best care of myself at that time either. I was at the lowest weight I’ve ever been in my adult life (105 pounds) and I’m sure that played a big part in not being able to keep up with things.

Then we had our third child when our second was 4 years old (I had 2 miscarriages in between the 2nd and 3rd full term pregnancies) and she nursed right up until I was about 5.5 months pregnant. She was about 19 months old at that time, and until shortly after that point, I didn’t even know I was pregnant with twins. One day she simply told me my milk was “yucky” and she no longer wanted to nurse. I expect the twin pregnancy was changing the taste of my milk. She still nursed very occasionally, even after the twins were born, but our true nursing days together were pretty much over.

Then the twins came along! Tandem nursing at it’s best. I would, and will, HIGHLY recommend it until my dying day. Nursing twins allowed me much more freedom then I think I would have had bottle feeding.

Instead of needing someone to help with two babies while I was fixing bottles etc., just very rarely I’d ask someone to help with ONE baby while I latched on the other. The old recliner we inherited from my husband’s grandfather became my new best friend. I even slept some nights in that recliner in the early days with a super large nursing pillow I had made, stretch across from one chair arm to the other to keep my c-section incision well protected as I learned how to jostle two babies in the middle of the night. Once I got better with things, both babies slept in bed with us and nursed like pro’s until they got too big for our queen size bed and I moved them to a crib in ‘side-car’ fashion up to our bed. Then I’d simply take the one who woke up first, into bed with me without even having to leave the comfort of my pillow, nurse and fall back asleep, and then move that first baby back to the side car crib when the other baby woke up. I’d simply move them back and forth all night, as needed, without even barely waking. Just waking enough to know what I was doing.

This is how we survived those early months. Having twin babies as children #4 & #5 with a VERY busy 22 month old, while also homeschooling a 6 year old and an 8 year old deemed it necessary to get as much sleep as humanly possible with two newborns.

We survived. We didn’t get much schooling done, the house wasn’t always spotless, and I didn’t have time to bath all five kids every day, but you know what? Now, our twins are 12, and our other children are 13, 18 & 20, and whether those five kids bathed every single day 12 years ago, doesn’t matter much now!

Somehow, we don’t think about whether or not Mom kept the house clean in those years either. We also don’t ponder the school days that were not as organized as I might have liked.

What I do remember though is spending many, many, very precious moments with all five of my children through the years through the nursing bond. I also feel great contentment in knowing I didn’t waste those baby years trying to be a “Martha Stewart”. I was simply mom. A mom with the knowledge that nothing would ever be enough each day, yet each day must be enough to last forever in my heart, and the hearts of my children.

The twins nursed until they were over 2.5 years old when one day Julia looked up at me sadly and said, “WaWa drinked all my babas.” Translated, that meant, “Shaylah drank all my milk.”

And so our nursing days came to a close soon after that day.

I had nursed our five children a combined total of 109 months, or a total of over 9 years. It was worth every minute of pain, soreness, sleepless nights, and blurry eyed days.

Some time soon, I’ll share about some of the more difficult times I had with nursing.

What got me thinking about nursing today? I read this article linked on my fb feed here:
http://www.bestforbabes.org/alyssa-milano-charmed-by-breastfeeding