Still Breastfeeding

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When I began breastfeeding I had no time table for how long I would breastfeed, other than wanting to be able to breastfeed. Of all people to broach the topic, it was my brother in law at Christmas, who first mentioned length of breastfeeding.

We had gathered for an extended family Christmas in country New South Wales. Although Christmas has always meant heat wave for me, in that part of the New England Tablelands it is uncommon to have heat in the high thirties and even stranger to have warm nights.

I was 18 weeks pregnant and feeling at a loss amongst my new family, as the women crowded the kitchen getting food ready for Christmas lunch, I was shooed out. There was no solace in alcohol so I found myself wandering around the beautiful garden, looking for my partner and admiring my growing bump in the tight summer dress I had on.

I spotted my partner with a gaggle of other men under a tree, drinking beer and sucking oysters. When got closer to the group I overheard my brother-in-law advise my partner to encourage me to breastfeed, for as long as possible. My first impression was curiosity. As a stock and station agent it seemed to be an old area of interest for him. After all I was still getting my head around being pregnant, let alone actually giving birth or what came next. It was the first time I ever realised breastfeeding might be part of this package I had accidentally bought into.

I assumed to be counseling my partner to this ends, my brother in law was supportive of breastfeeding. It was followed by a thought of how progressive it was for a man in his early 50s. But it was far from being progressive. “The longer she breastfeeds,” he said, “the longer you get to sleep without getting up with a bottle to a screaming baby. I know you like your sleep.”

My brother-in-law looked up and saw me standing there. In that moment, the rebellious part of me stomped my foot and thought bugger breastfeeding if it is just for a man’s convenience. If I’m getting up, come hell or high water, Dave’s getting up, too. My cheeks flushed and I walked off.

But it never came to that. Once we established breastfeeding I was committed to breastfeeding for the first six months so bottles never entered into the equation, even for expressed breast milk. We agreed to co-sleep which seemed to suit our son, so Dave was never woken by a crying baby and I never had to do more than stir to get the baby attached to the fullest breast.

But that comment came back to bite my brother-in-law.

They had come down to Brisbane to look at a horse float and were staying the night with us. We were sitting around after dinner, chatting and Dylan climbed up into my lap for a breastfeed. He would have been about 20 months old, out came the boob and he settled in for a breastfeed.

My brother-in-law didn’t quite know where to look. It seemed the best thing to do was to just breastfeed and not make a comment. I had long since learned I did not have to own someone else’s discomfort with my breastfeeding. There was an uncomfortable pause for a few seconds and the conversation continued on.

Later on, once Dylan was asleep my brother-in-law made the first “still breastfeeding” comment, but without actually saying those words. “I know what I said about encouraging you to breastfeed for as long as possible,” he said, “but I didn’t think you’d go this long. It wasn’t what I meant.”

I could have got upset about the comment – especially since it eluded to the fact breastfeeding my 20-month-old son was somehow wrong. Or more absurdly, I had chosen to breastfeed this long because he’d said so! I could have begun a rant about the benefits of full term breastfeeding but I didn’t. In my house, at my table, with my son, among family, I didn’t feel the need to justify breastfeeding. Having openly and comfortably feed in front of them seemed to be statement enough.

I have no doubt my breastfeeding practises were spoken about at length behind my back by my partner’s family. I imagined comments were made in regards to me being a “bad mother” because I was “still breastfeeding.” It was unnatural to breastfeed so long. But that may have just been my overactive imagination.

Unlike other families, no one ever said anything about it to me, other than my brother in law. There were insinuations about “still” breastfeeding, but I gave up caring what others thought. When I did wean my son at three years of age, it passed without a flutter of an eyelid by my extended family and while I mourned the passing, I definitely did no miss the feelings of defensiveness rise up in me when I said, “yes I am still breastfeeding.”

Jodi Cleghorn is a Brisbane mother, writer, lactivist and natural birth advocate. When she’s not writing breastfeeding articles she is working on her fiction stories including a new novella and joint publishing project Chinese Whisperings. Her blog Writing in Black and White chronicles her journey as a writer, editor and publisher. This week she has the priveledge of attending the launch of Mary-Rose MacColl’s The Birth Wars which she was interviewed for earlier on in the year.

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