Yeah, very well when I became pregnant with my second because I've nursed I have breastfed through all my pregnancies and if one thing that mums talk about and reasons they say for giving up breastfeeding is because they are tired and I've never found I'm tired because I'm a mum, I'm tired because I've got children I'm tired because I do work for my husband, I'm tired because I do, I'm doing other stuff but I've never seen breastfeeding as being what makes me tired and I've always found that breastfeeding through pregnancy is actually one way that makes you sit down because if you weren't breastfeeding you wouldn't sit down and probably if you've got a toddler running around, with a toddler, you wouldn't sit down half a dozen a times a day and put the telly on and get your book and read like you do if you're breastfeeding, so I've always found that, that nursing through pregnancy hasn't made me tired. In the beginning of still nursing when I'm first pregnant, it's a bit uncomfortable it has been a bit uncomfortable and I've kind of grimaced a bit and probably limited, tried to avoid feeding as much but that was only for weeks you know never for very long and I think probably I can't remember who, but I think one of the kids might've been worse than the others, it wasn't a you know, it wasn't really bad with all four of them, or all three of them I should say and so yes so I've breastfed through pregnancies and then hoped that they would wean by the time the baby came along.
From going to La Leche League meetings and from experiences of other mums and that I've talked to other mums, their babies seemed, their toddlers seemed to have weaned by the time their next baby came along, there was one mum who had tandem fed and I felt at the time it wasn't something that I was that keen on doing but I wasn't completely opposed to it so it would be if it happened it happened anyway, it didn't my son weaned, he weaned himself with I think he was down to one feed in the morning and the way I stopped that was I just used to, I just got up out of bed before it happened and that was it and it was never an issue, he was never, I didn't, he wasn't upset about feeds stopping he just, he just stopped when my second son was born. I can remember saying to my La Leche League Leader, “What will I do if he asks for it?” and she said to me, “Don't offer, don't refuse” so if he asks don't refuse him just say, “Yes, let me just finish feeding the baby then” and he did ask and I did that and when I said, “Come on then come and sit on my knee” he ran off [laughs] and it and it's like, “What are you doing?” so he, once he knew he could have it, it wasn't an issue for him and that was it, he never looked back. Next one again he weaned but he was older he was three because I had a bigger gap and he weaned, he was having two feeds, no he was down to one feed, this was the night and I started just around I started when he was three, trying to wean him and he no I didn't start his last feed, would have been around his third birthday and what I did instead of lying in bed and feeding him I just sat on, knelt on the floor and cuddled him and I think we had something like two nights where he didn't have it then the next night he asked for it and I let him because I didn't want him to get upset about it and it went on like that for I think a week and then it just gradually, he just stopped having it and it took me from then which was February till May to wean him off me actually being with him in the room to go to sleep and I gradually, I remember reading a book, got further away from his bed to actually standing on the landing and sorting out the washing to go in the machine that night and that was how I got him to sleep by himself and that was three and then my next daughter, my first, my eldest daughter she again I nursed her through pregnancy but she didn't show any signs of giving up at all, she nursed I don't think she nursed in the night because I think I tried to stop that and I'd got her, she was in her own bed by then but she nursed in the morning, she nursed at night she nursed in the day and she wanted, she just didn't stop so I kind of went into it thinking, “Well [laughs] if that's, if that's what she needs then I'll do that” so and she did she did continue nursing and it was fine. I was by this time I've got a friend who's somebody that again I met at La Leche League meeting who had tandem nursed and she was a real support to me, of what of her experiences so I just went along with it and it was fine and in actual fact it was brilliant because she was just, she was never bothered about her baby sister I mean the others haven't been bothered but she by nature she's very, very clingy with me, she's very, a real mummy girl and she, you know, she was just not bothered, she'd come and sit on my knee and I'd feed both in the early days I would feed them together but only at home you know and only in the privacy of my own home, I'm not into feeding them both in front of other people because it's not quite so discreet but it's been fantastic because she's always, she's always known that she has her place as well and there was a stage when she got a bit older where she would, was demanding it and I and I was starting to feel like I was resenting it, it was too much I didn't want to because it was her sister's the you know the baby needs this time, you had your time and it's the baby's time so then at that stage I started to cut her down and say, “No” only if it was right and then eventually it got down to just having it, a very quick feed before she went to bed and then in the morning, it's a probably ten minute mummy cuddle as well it's not just I think it is the closeness that she likes but one of the things I'm really glad that I just carried on feeding her is when she had to have an operation and she had to have a general anaesthetic and the fact that I was able to nurse her, I mean she was nearly three, when she came out from under her general anaesthetic was just, it was so, so nice it was all the other, we'd been waiting for her to come out and all the other children that were coming out into the ward were screaming and crying and really distressed, when she came out I just picked her up and latched her on and she just fed for probably an hour but she was so happy she was like, you'd never realised that she'd just had, you know undergone an operation, so it has its, breastfeeding has its benefits for older children as well as for babies.
When the new baby came along, did you make any specific rules about feeding the baby first and then the older child or did they have a breast each or you know, separate sides? How did you make sure that the new baby got what it needed, what she needed?
I did restrict her to the time of the day that she wanted to feed at the same time as the baby, was always around her bed time so it was, it was more that the baby was feeding when it was her time rather than the other way around and, yeah, I used to always used to feed the baby first and, but I don't because I didn't ever refuse her it never became an issue that she, as soon as she saw the baby feeding that she wanted it because I was free with her, she was always fine about it, she didn't demand it you know, when I didn't want to give it her.
How did she cope with the new milk when it came in, in the beginning?
I think she loved it [laughs] yeah when I when my milk came in and obviously because towards the end of my pregnancy I couldn't believe that she was still going because there was just nothing there but she would obviously get colostrum and she didn't nurse very long but she still came to me so she would have a few sucks and still kept the sucking action but she didn't really get a lot so once my milk came in, it was like, “Wow, look at this, this is great” and she actually, this is really funny, my mum, because towards the end of my fourth pregnancy I had to go into hospital a lot to be monitored so my mum had to have my daughter I think she had her for about three weeks, three days it was almost whole days by the time I got back and then my mum would say, “Oh I'll bring her back at three o'clock” so I had quite you know nearly the whole day without her and, so my mum had her and so my mum was used to picking her up and holding her a lot and carrying her around, when my daughter was born, and then mum had her and obviously continued to help me because it was school holiday and I had all of them off school, my mum came and helped me a lot and she said, “This child has put weight on” she put weight on because she'd had so much milk and she really filled out so [laughs] she piled the weight on as well, so it was like I was nurturing two of them they were both piling it on.
Was she old enough then to verbalise anything about it?
Yeah, she was two.
What sort of things did she say?
She used to call it mummy nilks I yeah, she was she used to know what it was called she used to have it's name and that's right yeah, when, because when the baby was born, she one of the things that she used to say, well we were, we couldn't believe when she was first born because I thought that she would be jealous of the fact that the baby was feeding, but every time if the baby cried or somebody had got the baby she would say, she was known as the baby as well because we didn't have a name for her for a while, “The baby needs a mummy, the baby needs a mummy, baby needs mummy” and then it would be, “baby needs mummy nilks, baby needs mummy nilks” so she was, you know, she knew that the baby needed mummy and she was never bothered by that at all [laughs] so she was always, always fine with it. |
