One year since the last ‘mlilk’

This weekend was exactly 1 year since my last breastfeed with our youngest, after well over 8 years of continuously growing someone from the inside or out. I didn’t realize it until someone said this to me recently; I stopped right at Imbolc. I wish I could take credit for this alignment of impactful events, yet it simply had to do with my spouse being home from working away… 

My 2 boys STILL would love to go back to 'mama's milk' vs ‘fridge milk’. I can still hear the ‘mlilk’ ringing in my ears, spoken with the cutest incorrect way only a young child can. My boys absolutely loved their 3+ and 4+ year journeys of nourishment and nurturing, of the liquid gold, of literal love. 

I asked my littlest one last night if he still remembers. Yes, he does. Not the flavour anymore, but he does remember the physicality of snuggling up to me and having milk. My oldest doesn’t remember it anymore, having stopped earlier at the age of 3 and a bit.  

There are definitely upsides to no longer breastfeeding for me. 

• My body feels more like it's mine again, the ‘lease’ having come to an end. 

• I sleep less while feeling more rested (all relative, may I add). 

• My mind is sharper (again, it is all relative and moment-to-moment). 

• I don't eat like a ravenous person anymore, and I don't NEED to add grass-fed butter to everything I eat or drink... Goodbye bulletproof tea. 

• Oh, and some of that weight I hadn't yet shed came off without any extra movement, before I started noticing a drop in appetite. Not expected but definitely welcomed and without effort my extras reduced to about 10lb of Matrescence weight*. 

* This 10lb is my hormone protector / nervous system buffer / extra earthing / extra ‘I am here’ square footage, and so I keep reminding myself this is welcome, even if the magazines / pro athletes show me differently. 

Can I mention that I am still waiting for my boobies to flatten out to pancakes? I was expecting the very worst, and so in comparison to my breast doomsday I am quite happy with the post-mlilk results. 

There is something to the ‘no-bra’ list of positives including bouncier breasts - it was definitely part of the ‘breast health’ module in the INNATE training. Since birthing our oldest, I have only worn little tops that are more like granny panties for the breasts, saggy pieces of fabric requiring next level faith and prayer to cover my breasts. I use them till they really won't stay anywhere near the right spot anymore. Last summer I started embracing ‘#freetheboobs’ more, although funny enough during the winter months I've picked up my granny-fannies more - they do match my granny panties well. A big change from the European girl almost 20 years ago landing in these lands, always wearing lingerie even when rock climbing. ;-) 

However, I miss it. I miss breastfeeding so much when I take a moment to reflect on this journey. The snuggles, the intimacy, the connection, the wordless conversations through eye-gazing. The purpose and meaning by simply existing. The co-regulation and oxytocin that I received from this, not just my children, was a lovely gift I received out of this. I miss the buffer this created for night wakings; this is clearly missing now when I get woken up in the middle of my deep sleep. Plus, the co-regulation and oxytocin was a welcome and helpful parenting tool. 

And the 'baby-boobely-muffler' worked well many times, haha! That's what our oldest asked for during car rides to quiet the baby, while I was doing that acrobatic hanging-over-the-side-of-the-car-seat type of nursing while being buckled into the middle seat myself.

I am sad that I cannot really, precisely remember the last time I nursed the boys. I know, despite my memory fog, that I was intentional about the last time nursing. I vaguely remember it being in our current home in Squamish for our youngest, and our Blue River home for our oldest. I remember coming to the realization that I would have to be the one ending this journey, as much to my regret my boys would never self-wean… 

Like many of the other earlier parts of motherhood, and now especially for marketing purposes, I wish there had been more professional photo shoots to commemorate big milestones, not just newborn shoots. I don’t know that I would actually want to stage this last precious moment for a photo. I guess what I am wishing for is even more intentionality behind the moment of connection during that last time. Luckily I now know that for the good, too, the body does remember the story, even if the mind's memory is less accurate.  

I am grateful for the (relatively) easeful and long journeys that I had with my boys. As a baby, I did not have a long breastfeeding journey, and neither did my sister. It was a time where predatory marketing was rampant around formula, and a time where it was still honestly thought that formula was just as good (or according to my parents ‘better’) than breastmilk. 

Of course, there was engorgement and mastitis at some point, there was biting with teeth to the point of my nipple bleeding and without teeth to the point of me screaming, hair pulling, necklace breaking, and more involved. Yet none of this really sticks in my memory at first glance. Just the good times are what come up first. 

I am not sure why I went the opposite way compared to my own short stint of ‘mlilk’, other than that it started off easily, after a traumatic birth. Maybe it was a confidence booster, after feeling like I failed at undisturbed home birth, that at least I was doing this right, and so I kept going with it? Yet, that doesn't explain the years rather than months of nursing, considering the cultural stigma around walking & talking children still breastfeeding. I didn't do any ‘inner child work’ around my perception or values around breastfeeding - deep down I just knew it to be right for us. Even when our dentist started warning me about cavities and milk during the night. (My intuition was confirmed by a podcast interview of a dentist, who said the building of the jaw takes precedence over the baby teeth’s health and so to keep nursing. Unfortunately, I don’t remember the name of this podcast or dentist…)

I credit the long journeys of my boys to my sister's friend in Haida Gwaii, a prominent Haida mother. We were both visiting my sister (me for a few days, she for a few hours) and she - without skipping a beat - started nursing her then 4 year old. I was in my early twenties. I was blown away, yet not necessarily in a roll-out-the-red-carpet-way that I would do now that I've breastfed a 3+ and 4+ year old myself. It was the first time I saw someone breastfeeding a child instead of a baby, and she did it so casually and confidently. 

It confused me, and I was full of judgement. Now, I am SO grateful I got that exposure. It was engraved in my system, my body, my memory, that some women breastfeed their 4 year olds, and somehow that had become normalized in my body, despite my mind's response to witnessing it. So if you breastfeed in general, and especially with older children; do our future generations a favour by doing it publicly. Those teenagers and people in their early 20s rolling their eyes or giving funny looks: they may be the ones doing it 20 years later. 

Alright, I gotta reign in the fire horse here… As you can clearly tell, I am STOKED to go beyond the 2200 characters of Instagram. Yet I also would like to honour your time.

Before I go…

Some of you moms are still in it. And while it’s super lovely and yes soak it all up while you can, it’s not always easy to be THIS much of service to another being. I see you.

If you have breastfeeding challenges, here is my top list of first actions to take:

1. Slow down your life A LOT (activities, energy, sounds, anything that is not sunlight or light from a flame, toys, screens, visitors & house guests - all of it).

2. Extended skin-to-skin time for baby/toddler & mama in particular, which requires warmth of the environment - both temperature and human interactions.

3. Let mother speak her birth story out loud (and let her tears flow freely) with someone who can truly listen and witness her.

4. Baby (& mama) receiving Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy or other nervous system healing work including Reiki.

5. Find more time for deep friendships who nourish your nervous system, not the ones where you end up on guard or in comparison.

6. The caloric advice for breastfeeding mothers is insanely below what it should be - eat when you’re hungry, and prioritize nutrient dense, easy to digest, warm in nature and temperature foods. Soups, stews, meat stocks, offal like liver pâté or cod liver oil, and lots and lots of butter - the higher the quality the better the medicine of butter. 

If things don't improve with a latch issue (especially if ‘tongue tie’ etc is mentioned), an osteopath who can work with newborns may bring relief through adjusted bodily alignment. 

And not all of you can resonate with my long breastfeeding journeys, or with the relatively easeful nature of my journeys. 

I see you in this and your story and voice matters. If there is any regret, shame or guilt around this; I hope you can sit with Peter Crone's saying “What happened happened, and couldn’t have happened any other way, because it didn’t." (very similar to Byron Katie's work). Acceptance helps us land back in the present in trust, and from trust we can welcome curiosity, so we take forward oriented steps from a creative and expansive place, rather than fear and restriction.  

I hope this was in some way inspiring or helpful. Please leave a comment below how it landed!