This past month my daughter has been reminding me of one of the joys of breastfeeding. I suppose some would look on it as embarrassing, but I truly relish it and find it more than amusing. My daughter has officially become a boobie smacker!  Breastfeeders everywhere are familiar with the light pat-pat-pat at their breast when their young ones want to nurse. For some, this is a sign that they need to wean; for others it is something to be discouraged; and then for some of us it is something to be laughed at and enjoyed. Over the past month, my daughter has moved from the light pat-pat-pat to the heavy-handed smack-smack-smack, which makes the request a little more obvious. If the pat-pat-pat signalled the end for you, you may not have enjoyed the heavier smack except during those weaning tantrums of “I want boob!”

When my eldest daughter first began to signal when she wanted to nurse, I wasn’t sure how I was going to feel. Would I wean? Would  I discourage it in public? Because when she started ASKING for boobie I was certainly going to wean! None of the above was true. I nursed her for 2.5 years, long after she was able to vocally ask to nurse. Once she stopped nursing, I missed those times when she would crawl onto my lap and pat at my breast and ask for boob. So this past month there have been many fond reminisces of those first experiences and many sighs of “here we are again.”

My daughter has for many months has been telling me when she wants to nurse. She crawls up onto my lap and assumes the position with mouth at the breast she wants to nurse on first. Sometimes she would even smack her lips at my shirt if I didn’t seem to be getting the hint. I knew what she was doing, but most people would watch her and think she just wanted a cuddle. Now that she is an overt smacker of the boob, what she is trying to convey is way more obvious, and really, is just one step away from yelling ” I want boobie now mommy!” Oh how I look forward to those days!

Just wanted to let you all know, and make note for myself, that The International Baby Food Action Network’s 2009 Breastfeeding Calendar is available for the festive season!

Every year IBFAN produces this lovely calendar featuring 12 beautiful photos of moms breastfeeding their babies from around the world. If you are a breastfeeder or a breastfeeding supporter, you may want one.

The calendar costs $15 and can be ordered online at: http://www.infactcanada.ca/mall/calendar.asp

-or-

 by calling the INFACT Canada office at 416 595-9819.

My daughter, now 15 months, has reached that age where she tells me when she wants to nurse. She tells me in a not so quiet, not so discreet kinda way. She wants the boob and she lets the whole world know it by first, requesting loudly in her sing-song, babbling voice that she would like to be picked up. Second, continuing with her babbling sing-song voice she then begins to smack my chest and ask “mama?”

Now I love my baby’s sing-song voice, there really is nothing in the world that is more precious and lovely to hear right now. But it is summer, which means tank tops and bathing suits, and that smacking hits bare flesh and really echoes across the pool.

I remember once upon a time before breastfeeding I proclaimed my breasts were mine and not to be used for breastfeeding. I then changed my tune when I became a mother and proclaimed the breastfeeding stops when she can ask for it because that would just be too embarrassing. I also remember when that time came with my eldest daughter and I was not ready to stop breastfeeding, so I introduced quieter,  more discreet ways of asking to nurse. The pounding on my chest while asking “mama?” really brings me back. A little awkward at the pool, but it reminds me of why I love breastfeeding.

So I was at a family celebration recently. One of my cousins was married and we had an informal and child-friendly reception at his farm to celebrate. Much fun was had by all, including my breastfeeding self. Anyone who knows me knows I live to breastfeed in public. It is my personal mission to promote a breastfeeding-friendly culture and force the naysayers to become well-adjusted about breastfeeding. Breast is best people, ya’ll best get used to it.

My daughter was only 5 months old at the time and is an exclusively breastfed-on-demand baby. Mid-afternoon she was rooting at the breast so I headed inside to find a cozy place to feed her. The living room was full of family, both my family and my cousin’s wife’s family. I saw an empty seat on the couch and plunked myself down ready to feed. A second later one of my cousins sat down beside me and started chatting, how are you doing, how is the baby, she is so cute; you know the typical new baby conversation. I was answering her questions, mentioned my daughter was hungry and started lifting up my shirt and unfastening my nursing bra.

Now my cousin is a pretty open woman, and I live to breastfeed in public so I really didn’t think anything of feeding my daughter on the couch. The other people in the room were comfortable when I had nursed my daughter earlier and well, this was my cousin, she knows me, or so I thought. As I brought my daughter up to the nipple and let her latch on my cousin quickly looked down with eyes wide, leaned away, then looked at me and said, “you’re not shy are you?” Honestly, what would you do in that situation? I looked back at her, laughed and very happily replied, “hell no, I live to breastfeed in public!”

I love family gatherings.

So we were away camping for the Victoria Day long weekend. Not camping in a tent camping; camping in a 28 foot travel trailer with a 4-piece bathroom camping. It’s our mini-version of a cottage until we can afford a cottage. It’s a nice family campground, so it will work until like I said, we can afford a cottage.

This campground organizes a dance every long weekend. We have mostly refused to attend these dances. Drunken patrons claiming to be a “red-neck woman” a the top of their lungs and instructional songs telling me to “clap my hands and do the cha cha slide” — not my cup of tea. You have to drink yourself into a stupor to listen to that music… and the revelation hits… well this is a long weekend.

So as a family we took to the dance floor. As always happens the DJ has been the DJ for every dance and always plays the exact same torturous play list, moved into his AC/DC + Ozzy set. After chasing my daughter around to Blondie (Debbie Harry is my rock goddess!), I heard the familiar opening to Ozzy Osbourne’s Crazy Train. Funny thing, as I started walking back towards my stroller-guarding husband, I felt a tingle in my breasts. Odd. Once the ever-familiar “Ai, ai, ai, ai” scream of Ozzy Osbourne opening opening the first heavy guitar riff, not one, but both of my breasts let down! Not a gentle let down, a full force, hands flew to the nipples to put the pressure on and massage the tingle feeling like a semi-pornographic water fountain let-down. I approached my husband straight-faced and in shock, and said “my breasts just let down to the sound of Ozzy Osbourne’s voice.” After a pause, we both doubled over laughing in the middle of the dance.

My husband has since tried to force my breasts to let down with his own “Ai, ai, ai, ai” scream, but I keep telling him “You have no accompaniment, and you’re not Ozzy.”

He wants to test it out a second time to see if it happens again. I’m fine with the memory.

Today as I nursed my daughter off the right side, I couldn’t help but notice the rush of milk into my left breast. Whoa Nelly! Am I Mount Vesuvius ready to rupture? Talk about intense let-down!

The let-down reflex was not like this with my eldest daughter - really I didn’t feel a thing except the instant endorphin “everything-is-great-in-the-world” rush. She would nurse and the milk would just appear, no tingle, no pressure, most certainly no “whoosh I am a water cannon with 150 psi”. This time, my girl starts to nurse and 30 seconds later I am pressing on my nipple trying to prevent a fountain of breastmilk. You know that fountain of the little boy peeing? I could be the model for a fountain of a mom holding a baby in her lap with naked breasts defiantly pointing forward like the masthead of a ship. Imagine the spectacle once the water is turned on. I’ll give you a moment to truly soak it in. Can you see it? Some would say it’s pornographic! I say it’s brilliant!

Amazing discovery today! I was in the bathroom doing my morning routine, and my youngest DD got cranky - I guess I took too long. I ran into the bedroom where she was on the bed and when I pulled down, or rather was about to pull down the diaper shirt she was wearing to pick her up I noticed a bubble of milky white fluid on her left nipple! Her left nipple was lactating - how amazing is that? She still has my hormones in her! She bled a smear a week or two ago, but I thought my hormones would be out of her body by now.

I checked her nipple and her ducts were full. I wiped the drop away and gently squeezed her nipple to see what would happen and another droplet appeared. For a split second I thought something was wrong, but quickly remembered this happens with some girl babies. So weird and so cool!

So, my girlfriend sent me a link to an article written by Rabbi Schmuley. Actually, she sent it to my husband with this message:

Please pass these links to Trace…
…..and stand the hell back!!
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/194/story_19451_1.html
or the summarized version:
http://www.shmuley.com/articles.php?id=277
(…getting DD out of earshot might help too!!)

Now why did she think I would need some space? I am a reasonable, rational individual. Perhaps she knows my passion for sharing the experience of breastfeeding. Perhaps she knows I believe men should be active partners. Perhaps she knows my passion. I read Rabbi Schmuley`s article and I understand what statements my girlfriend believed would incense me. And to some degree they do. Like what you may ask? Well…

The first point that irks me is that Rabbi Schmuley considers breastfeeding to be a “de-eroticization of a woman’s body”. The comment that breastfeeding turns breasts, the “most attractive body parts into a feeding station, an attractive cafeteria rather than a scintillating piece of flesh” is ridiculous. Why can`t the breasts be both a scintillating pice of flesh and an attractive cafeteria? Why is it one or the other? Breastfeeding can most certainly be considered sexy (as he also says thanks goodness), but more so, any husband should look at his breastfeeding wife with pride not jealousy. A breastfeeding wife is doing something that only she can do (feed his child!), and something that many women can`t do despite giving it their all. Yes, breasts are sexy to look at, but they also provide an important function, a function that truly is more important that just being a pretty appendage. Really, in what Jewish Holy Book does it say that a woman’s breasts were made for the primary pleasure of her husband and not to feed her child? Please tell me! A woman’s body was made for the primary pleasure of man? Considering that only woman can bear and feed children, I would think the woman’s body was made to birth and feed babies, if she so chooses. I wasn’t aware that the Jewish faith was so focused on carnal pleasure, I should convert to Judaism!

The second point, likening extended breastfeeding to an extra-marital affair has to be taken humourously. Rabbi Schmuley says “when a mother gives her breasts to her son and takes them away from her husband, the effect on the marriage can feel the same.” What about giving her breasts to her daughter, does that change things? Considering breastfeeding takes anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour, I don’t think any woman is taking her breasts away from her husband for any amount of time that a man can’t handle. Are men that breast or sex obsessed that they can`t chill out during the short-lived breastfeeding run? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that during the National Immunization Survey for 2004 only 41.5% of women were breastfeeding at 6 months which dropped to less than half at 12 months. Of the 30.5% of moms who breastfed exclusively to three months, only 11.3 were exclusively breastfeeding at 6 months as recommended by the APA and the WHO. Considering that virtually all new moms can breastfeed if they have accurate information and support, those numbers are tragically low. Women sacrifice their bodies and lifestyle for 40 weeks and longer to bring babies into the world, am I to suppose that men are so selfish that they can`t sacrifice having their wife`s breasts all to themselves for a lousy 3 months? Besides, if a woman “takes them away from her husband” for any extended amount of time, there is something else going on there that has nothing to do with breastfeeding. But this runs into the longer point.

“If breast-feeding gets in the way of the marriage—if it means that a husband and wife never go out on dates, or that the mother is so tired from always waking up with the baby that she has no energy to ever be intimate with her husband—the child will probably end up worse off”. First, even a formula fed baby will wake up in the middle of the night rendering the mom too tired to be intimate with her husband, so this argument doesn’t wash. Breast or bottle, babies wake up for a variety of reasons, not all of them stem from hunger. The only solution to keep a mom awake and her libido intact is to keep her in bed… asleep! Maybe dads should hire a night nurse to get up with the babies, whether breast- or bottle-fed. Maybe that will keep mom bright-eyed, bushy-tailed and ready to go.

The bigger issue here is blaming breastfeeding for the lack of intimacy in a marriage. If breastfeeding is contributing to the breakdown of a marriage, something was wrong with that marriage long before the breastfeeding started, maybe the under-lying issue should be dealt with instead of yammering on about the need to stop breastfeeding. Can breastfeeding lead a husband to stop seeing his wife as a woman and begin to see her as the mother of his children? Sure it can, but NEWS FLASH, she is both his wife and the mother of his children. Children CHANGE things: schedules, routine, lifestyle, family roles. If you don`t want things to change, you shouldn`t have children. Rabbi Schmuley says this change from wife to mother is “a negative trend that has begun in his mind that can only subvert his erotic interest.” It doesn`t have to be negative at all, what about loving your wife even more now that she is the mother of your children? What about finding her even sexier? Why must a woman lose her sex appeal for birthing and breastfeeding a baby when a man retains his even while his nightly snores wake up the neighbourhood?

Rabbi Schmuley concludes that breastfeeding “should always remain subordinate to the romantic and passionate needs of a marriage” especialy if it is contributing to the loss of erotic desire in the marriage. As I said before, if there is a loss of desire in the marriage, it most likely has nothing to do with breastfeeding. Deal with the real issues instead of finding a scapegoat. If breastfeeding should remain subordinate, I would certainly hope the husbands out there would have something extra-special to offer and entice with besides a generic roll in the sack. More often, the loss of desire in the bedroom is a result of boredom. Women may hide behind breastfeeding instead of hurting their husbands feelings. “Ì need to breastfeed” sounds much better than `Honey, you bore me in bed” even while it needs to be said. I certainly wouldn’t shun breastfeeding for a mechanized, automatic, predictable, lackluster romp in the sack - I’d prefer the oxytocin bliss to the predictability of “now we do this, and then this, and then this…” any day. Maybe my girlfriend was right… thank goodness I edit. I mean don’t even get me started about the men-shouldn’t-watch-the-birth-of-their-children-for-fear-of-de-eroticizing-the-crotch argument, good lord. I cannot say anymore, it’s almost midnight, my husband is in bed and I have to breastfeed my daughter.

I can’t say enough how much I love breastfeeding. I have never been so entertained or enjoyed my body like I do when I am a breastfeeder. Today I entertained myself (and others) with my magical inflating-deflating boobs.

If your breasts are like mine, you will go up and down a cup size or two over the course of a day. I hope this entertains you as much as it does me. Today I woke with D cup breasts. I fed my girl (one side only) before my lunch date and not thinking fed her off the small side. My right breast is an over-producer and has always been a little bit bigger than the left one anyways. Except now it is more noticeably bigger. So not thinking, I fed my girl on the left. As I watched my breast shrink back to size, I caught a glimpse of my larger-than-life so-full-of-milk right breast and started laughing. The husband who is home for the week asked what was funny.

“Look at my seriously lopsided breasts!”, I said. What was I thinking, feeding her off the small boob? I’m going to have to wear a jacket to cover up my lopsided breasts. With a mocking come-hither voice, I questioned him, “Do you enjoy watching my breasts inflate-deflate-inflat-deflate throughout the day?”. We both broke out in laughter.

“I get such joy out of it, watching them go fffffp. ffffft. fffffp. ffffft. (imagine the hand gestures here) throughout the day. Big cleavage, small cleavage, big cleavage, small cleavage. It’s better than a water bra.”, I giggled. ”Do you think people notice?” I asked. Truth be told, I hope they do. I love my magical boobs.

Gods I love that my body is efficient. I love that I can see and note the changes. As of our 2:00PM feeding, I officially make milk! It started with colostrum, but about 10 minutes into the feeding I heard those tell-tale gasps, suckles and gurgles that told me she was swallowing mouthfuls of milk and lots of it! I missed those noises.

Sure enough, when I looked down, the corners of her mouth were filling up with warm, white milk. She emptied the right side, moved on to the left and slept for four hours! Gone are the feedings every 2.5 hours, hello full warm belly and long naps. I wonder if this will last?