Re: I win!

[Rosie]

SIX!!! Wow! Does your daughter remember it? What does she think about it
now?

(Sorry if you've been asked these questions before...)

Well done!
ROSIE
XxXxX

"Jenrose" > wrote in message
...
> Well, sorta...
>
> Was chatting with the pediatrician today and she mentioned that my
daughter
> and I were the "longest nursing" in her entire lifetime of practice. My
> kiddo weaned, if you remember on her sixth birthday. She's now 10 and yes,
> she really did stay weaned.
>
> I liked her attitude, that it was a good (although obviously a little
> strange to her) thing.
>
> Jenrose
>
>
>

[Larry McMahan]

Rosie > writes:
: SIX!!! Wow! Does your daughter remember it? What does she think about it
: now?

Heck, do YOU remember it?

:-)
Larry

[Jenrose]

"Rosie" > wrote in message
...
> SIX!!! Wow! Does your daughter remember it? What does she think about it
> now?
>
> (Sorry if you've been asked these questions before...)
>
> Well done!
> ROSIE
> XxXxX


She remembers it a little, and it's just one of her "stories" about her
life. The ironic thing is that the last two years of it, there would be
times that I would forget she was "still nursing" as she'd go a week or more
without even asking--and after age 4, she was not allowed to nurse if milk
came out (I weaned her to go on medication at 4--after a couple weeks she
said, very seriously, "You know, mommy, you don't have much milk left
anyway, and I'd stop if ANYTHING came out so I wouldn't get the bad
medicine, so can I PLEASE have my num nums back?") so it was totally about
comfort/security from about 4 up, (actually it was about comfort from about
age 2 1/2 up...she was capable of going a week without at age 3.)

She totally thinks nursing is good and doesn't see anything weird about as
long as she nursed--she had several friends who weaned somewhere between age
4 1/2 and 6 (i.e. I knew they were still nursing at 4 1/2, 5 even, but knew
they were not nursing by age 6, never asked when weaning happened) so it's
pretty normal in my "circle" and at her school for kids to have nursed a
very long time.

I don't think we NIP, ever, from about age 3 up. It just didn't come up.
She'd nurse sometimes going to bed, mostly in the middle of the night (even
sleepwalking into my room, latching on without waking either of us up...)
and when she stopped getting up to nurse, she'd only nurse at home very
occasionally when she was cranky or frustrated or just needing me. The last
time she nursed in public it was while travelling with my family--we were
"out" during naptime and she just lost it...I think she was just three...
and my mom said, "If she wants to nurse, just nurse her!" Even by age 3, NIP
was really unusual for us, not because we felt weird about it, but because
when were out and about she wanted to be exploring or playing or what have
you.

I think one of the reasons it was okay for me to go so long was that I
really set some hard-and-fast rules about nursing when she was old enough to
understand the concept of rules. It would have driven me up a wall if she'd
been a gropy kid--I never let her put her hands down in my clothes and was
pretty consistant about distracting from the twiddles--going so far as to
make my own clothing so that I could foil her hands without being the mean
ogre mommy about it. Didn't take long before she quit trying to grab my
boobs or take my clothes off. I set limits according to what I could and
couldn't stand. And I let her say when she'd wean, but I insisted that she
set a time and stick to it. I also didn't grit my teeth through nursing much
after she turned two--if it was uncomfortable, made me feel squirrelly or
made my period cramps worse, we stopped for a while.

I thought for sure that when she went with her dad to visit Puerto Rico when
she was three and a half, that she'd be weaned when she came back. But "Num
nums" was one of the first things she wanted from me, after her hug. I'd
heard of kids that age "forgetting how", but this kid has an insanely long
memory--she remembers the day of her birth, and the balloon that flew off
its' string when she was two, etc. (She burst into tears about that balloon
a year after it went away... which would have been okay except that she was
still blaming me for it... Augh.)

She was born with an intense sucking need and it was clear that even at 4
and less at 5 that she still had a biological need to suck. When she didn't
get to nurse for a while, she'd gradually get more "mouthy"....putting
things into her mouth that didn't belong there (which she never did much as
a baby) and "talking back". She'd nurse, even for a very short time, and it
would be as if all were right with her universe again.

I've known a lot of 4-year olds who'd been weaned at 2 or so, and many of th
em were clearly still attached to "boob comfort", and in ways that I'd find
much more objectionable personally than nursing. I really can't stand having
a child play with my boobs--nursing doesn't bother me at all, but little
fingers trigger a "get-away" reflex and I would MUCH rather nurse a child to
age 4 than have them constantly groping me for comfort. But the whole point
is that parents need to do what works for them, in their comfort levels.

I think my daughter would have weaned much earlier had I not been a single
parent. Not because I needed something from HER nursing (because the only
way I was able to tolerate it was that it was very brief when she was older)
but because without an extra adult around to buffer the stresses, etc.,
nursing was MUCH more important than it might have been with a non-nursing
parent in the picture. When her dad was around when she was 2 and 3, she
nursed MUCH less than when he was not visiting.

Jenrose