Breastfeeding at 19 months

This was supposed to be an update on breastfeeding an 18-month-old but I am so late with it it's turned into breastfeeding a 19-month-old!

When I had Violet I had no real timescale in my head for how long I would breastfeed. I weaned Cherry at nine months to kick-start my cycle again so I could have Violet, but knowing she was to be our last child there wasn't the same pressure.

And so I find myself breastfeeding a nearly 19-month-old with no surprise. There has never been any real reason why I would wean Violet, and so I haven't.

Well actually that's not true. There's one very big reason why I might consider weaning and that's that Violet wakes frequently to feed at night. Still! So from time to time the subject of night weaning has been broached. Once or twice I've tried settling her without feeding, and sometimes this works for the first, second and even third wake ups. But eventually there will come a point where Violet will make it abundantly clear she's not settling without feeding, and I will of course feed her.

I know night weaning has worked for many a knackered breastfeeding parent, but it doesn't seem likely it would work for us. In all honesty I think I would just spend hours comforting a crying confused toddler. I fancy that at 11pm, midnight, 1am, 2am, 3am, 4am and 5am like a hole in the head.

Plus I can't shake the feeling that she will get there when she's ready. Of course I'm tired and so is Noel but we get on with it, we don't moan and complain (well, not much) and it doesn't have a dramatic impact on our quality of life. We remind ourselves and each other constantly that it will end, it won't be forever, this will pass. Perhaps we're just used to it. I have faith in Violet and faith in my instincts.

Breastfeeding her at 19 months is never dull. She calls it 'EAT!' and she's quite insistent when she wants to feed. She will march her little self over to the nearest chair or bench or sofa, clamber up, announce 'At-dee' (her word for 'up' or 'getting up', I think she's trying to say 'upski!' which I often say when I pick her up) and demand 'Eat.' If no 'eat' is forthcoming she will absolutely insist. Violet is fierce, I rarely argue with her.

She's entertained by the way I spray during a milk letdown. I am fascinated that I still do this after 19 months, and can only assume I have gold-top fuelled torpedoes for breasts. I can also safely assume that, given that she feeds hourly at night (more eat! MORE EAT!) which is when milk production is governed, I have the supply of a dairy cow. Certainly Violet is bursting with health and vitality.

She's quite physical and feeding, especially at bedtime, can often involve a good deal of wriggling and hands flailing around and even a bit of pinching, which I don't like and tell her so. I also don't like it when she pulls madly at my clothes, but other than this I do very little in the way of 'discipline' around breastfeeding. She asks, I provide.

I have never left Violet at night (I've only left Cherry twice at night and once was to have Violet!) so I have no insight to offer on how she would cope away from me for a night. I have spent the odd full day away from her and she's been absolutely fine. She does want to feed when I get back, and I am always so bursting that I would keep trying even if she didn't want to!

I think the difference between breastfeeding Cherry and breastfeeding Violet is how I feel about it. As much as I loved breastfeeding Cherry I thought of it as simply being about food, a way of dispensing nutrition. With Violet I view it as a relationship, even a mothering 'technique' if you want to call it that.

In a way it's a metaphor for the difference between the way I have approached the early days with both of them. With Cherry I was far too anxious to trust my own instincts and to trust her, and so I complicated matters with routines and methods and techniques and not 'letting her get into bad habits!'. With Violet I listened only to her and myself everything has just flowed beautifully. It's been a far easier, more natural and more rewarding way of parenting. Although I concede I've had far, far less sleep.

And it means that (hopefully) I don't have ahead of me the difficult second year I had with Cherry, in which I realised things had to change but had no real blueprint for what attachment parenting a toddler would look like, so we had to kind of feel our way and make yet more mistakes on top of mistakes until we found a balance that suits all four of us.

Today I sat watching Cherry and Violet while I ate breakfast. Violet was pottering about in her new Thomas the Tank Engine pyjamas in a particular shade of blue that suits her so beautifully. I caught her eye and we just had a little moment in time, the two of us together.  She stopped her pottering, came over to me, held out her arms and said 'cuddle Mummy!' I picked her up and she cuddled into my lap, put her little arms around me, and leaned against me.

It felt like a real concrete example of the connection between mother and child that breastfeeding is so helpful in building. I'm not for a minute suggesting you can't build that connection formula-feeding, before anybody jumps to that conclusion. It's a connection I have built with my older child only after weaning! But this is a post about breastfeeding and those are my honest feelings on that moment. Breastfeeding Violet is one of many very easy ways in which we maintain that connection. It requires no thought whatsoever, it's completely instinctive for both of us and for that reason I can't see either of us wanting to stop any time soon. (Although because I have been asked this more than once, no I don't imagine I'll still be breastfeeding her when she's 21, much as I don't imagine I'll still be changing her nappies, reading her stories and helping her wash her face, brush her teeth and get dressed when she's 21 either)

Morning pages

If I were to do everything I wanted to do in the mornings, I would have to get up at about 2am. In an ideal world I'd get up, meditate, write morning pages, work out, do yoga, make a smoothie and sit down to breakfast with the children.

I'm sure it could all be achieved if I didn't spend 4-5.30am breastfeeding Violet who intermittently bellows MORE EAT! should I attempt to disengage her. She's a wakeful little thing in the early hours, so without me in bed, there would be no V in bed.

Then at about 5.30am Cherry comes and gets into bed with us all. Once in a blue moon she will fall asleep next to me, usually if Violet is already asleep and I can turn over and cuddle Cherry. But most of the time she wriggles about for a bit, whispers a few things then looms over Violet giggling, Violet's eyes ping open, and that's that.

We're morning people, people.

With two girls up and about from 5.30-6am Noel and I have plenty of time in the mornings before he leaves for work and I can usually fit in a workout and morning pages. I find these two the most important of the long list.

Meditation will have to wait, I can become an accomplished yogi another time, and I manage smoothies about four times a week.

Morning pages are the most powerful of all the morning tools in my humble opinion. I came across the concept reading The Artist's Way. The idea is simple. First thing in the morning, you sit down and you write three pages of longhand.

And then you go about your day.

You can write, literally, anything. Even if all you can think is 'I can't think of anything to write. What should I be writing? Am I doing this right?' You just write that, and keep writing. Even if you have three pages in which you have simply repeated 'I can't think of anything to write,' then you have done it 'right'.

Only you're highly unlikely to have three pages of 'I can't think of anything to write' as it turns out once you disengage your sceptical brain and simply spill the contents of your head onto a page, you have plenty to say for yourself.

All those worries, niggles, thoughts, arbitrary things that pop into your head. Down they go, onto the page.

It's really freeing to just sit and write in this way. I'm a writer by profession and that means initially I had to work hard not to over-write, just to convey thought from brain to page.

I find all sorts of things become clear through the morning pages. On a very practical level they are great for problem-solving. It's basically impossible to continue to complain about the same thing over and over again without identifying some form of solution, or at least acceptance. I also find them very powerful creatively. All kinds of ideas and plans come through the pen onto the page.

Taking the time to write three pages feels like something I can do to help take care of myself. I have been thinking more and more about the concept of self-care recently, as in what does self-care look like on a practical level? Unloading my mind in the morning definitely falls into the category of a very practical way looking after myself.

One of the most overwhelming aspects of having two very young children is the lack of freedom of thought. I have to work hard to stay in the present moment with my girls, as much as I love them, because I have always been very much a dreamer. Feet on the ground, head in the clouds, always.

Children can sense when you aren't present and they don't like it - well, mine don't. The demands of being a mother have stretched into the very roots of me. Thoughts cluster up and become crowded, knocking against each other like one of those awful corporate toys to be found on the desk of a high-flying business executive.

Spilling it all out on to a page, however jumbled the end result, creates space for my children. I feel safe, knowing that I haven't lost anything if I let go, that whatever it is that seemed so important is written down, waiting for my attention another time.

Funny, I've been a writer my whole life but am only just starting to discover the true power of the written word.

Living Arrows 3/52

You on your bike. Don't you just make me burst at the seams with pride. You ride to pre-school now. It's a good mile. I feel anxious sometimes, we're only going down residential streets but they get so busy especially around school run time. But I choose to trust you, with the odd (OK regular) reminder to be careful, stay close and stop when you get to the road. It's been freezing cold all week but there's no holding you back, little love. And there's no getting you to wear your coat either! This fluffy cardigan is as close as you'll get.

Your latest trick is…wait for it…SLEEPING! You still wake when Daddy and I come to bed at around 10pm, and then again at around 4am for the restless pre-dawn hours which you spend feeding, shouting for Cherry and dozing. But for the last few nights, that's been it! I'm so glad I let you get there in your own time. It's been a conscious decision not to night wean, push you to sleep through or 'train' you out of your natural restlessness at night. I had faith in you. It's not exactly the 12 uninterrupted hours we as a culture are so obsessed with, but if there's one thing I know about you, and your sister, it's that you do things your own way. 

My name is Cathy and my children cry

The first time anybody commented upon one of my children's crying, I had been a mother for exactly four weeks.

The feeling of shame, mortification and outright failure has stayed with me ever since.

Cherry's crying as a baby was, I'm told, not normal.

I only have Violet to compare her to and certainly Violet didn't cry anything like as much as Cherry did. But then Violet also didn't, and still doesn't, sleep anything like as much and as well as Cherry did and still does! Swings and roundabouts.

Nonetheless parents and grandparents of other children chose to inform me that their children or grandchildren didn't cry like Cherry. For this reason, and many others, listening to either of my children cry sparks a powerful emotional reaction with me.

It's not always a desire to stop the crying, I have to admit. Sometimes I am the cause of the crying, after all. When I say no to Cherry, as I do, because I must, she is 99% likely to cry. This crying I can cope with. I offer love and support, cuddles and empathy, I'm sorry you're upset darling but the answer is still no, would you like a cuddle?

When I say no to Violet, as I increasingly must, I take the same approach.

Sometimes I find crying annoying. Cherry does go on, bless her, and then some, even if she's just crying because I haven't bought her a cake or she wanted the entire snack bar and I only offered her half. She's loud. Violet is LOUDER. She knows the exact pitch and decibel level to best drill through my skull. Her longevity isn't on the same scale as Cherry's but her pitch - oh her pitch, it just crucifies me.

Often I feel sympathy. They both cry when they've hurt themselves, when they're upset or fearful or shocked or experiencing some other powerful emotion. Cherry fell off her bike last week, a proper head-over-heels somersault, crashing to the ground with the bike tangled up on top of her. She cried for about 15 minutes and I sat on the cold ground with my arms around her, wishing I could carry her pain and disappointment and shock for her.

Violet bit her finger today whilst eating dinner and she cried loudly and indignantly, her little face crumpled and bewildered, holding out her poor indented finger for me to kiss and inspect, begging 'duddle! Duddle!' and straining to get out of her chair and into my arms.

Sometimes I feel frustrated. If one starts sobbing at the exact moment the other needs me the most. While I sat and cuddled a screaming Cherry after the fall from her bike Violet began to wail in the buggy. When Violet was a young baby if she cried Cherry would almost inevitably join in.

Nothing chills my heart like the, mercifully fairly rare, sound of both of my children crying. Sometimes there's not enough of me to go round. They both want both my arms around them, not an arm each.

But sometimes when my children cry I feel a deep sense of inadequacy, failure, hopelessness and despair. I would do anything - ANYTHING - to make it stop, but nothing I do has the slightest impact.

At three, Cherry is finally and thankfully past the stage of producing this kind of crying. I can nearly always comfort her and even if I can't, I know her well enough to know she is drawing something from my presence. Once or twice after epic emotional meltdowns she's cried herself to sleep in my arms, and when she wakes up she seems deeply at peace.

My reactions to her crying have changed too. I can remind myself that the world is a strange and often unfair place to her, and that contrary to popular internet photography memes she's not crying 'because the sky is blue', she's crying because of experiences and feelings and emotions and hormones she doesn't understand and can't control and couldn't name or tell me about even if she wanted to.

At 17 months Violet has just taken up the mantle Cherry has finally discarded. At the moment bedtimes and nap times are an excruciating affair involving feeding and settling and soothing and her chatting and shouting and yelling and singing and squirming and rolling about and crying and more settling and soothing and comforting and crying and feeding again and cuddling and crying and her asking for a cuddle, then crying and asking to be in her bed, then crying and asking for another cuddle, then crying and asking for bed, then just crying….

It breaks my heart. It tears me to pieces. It kills me. But not just because I feel so desperately for her.

I feel shame. I torture myself because I can't stop her crying no matter what I do. I wonder if it's what I do that makes her cry more. Scenarios and possibilities flit through my head. Perhaps I should wean her. Perhaps I should move her into Cherry's room. Perhaps I should night-wean. Perhaps I should stop getting into her cot with her if she seems to need it. Perhaps I should stop bringing her into bed with us.

I needle away at myself, convinced this doesn't happen to 'other' parents, convinced that attachment and gentle parents who follow the philosophies and practices to which I ascribe just don't have this problem, that their babies and toddlers are constantly smiling cooing happy contented chilled out peaceful bundles of joy.

I tell myself it's my fault and that I'm not a good enough mother. That truly good mothers have children who never, ever cry.

One of the many parenting books I read before I even had Cherry had written in bold, capital letters A CRYING BABY DOES NOT EQUAL A BAD MOTHER.

I believed this for just four weeks. Then the doubt kicked in, then I started to hear other mums talking about how they 'never let' their children cry 'even for a second' and all I could think was HOW? And what am I doing wrong?

When Violet cries and I can't comfort her I feel like the worst mother, the worst person, in the world. I used to feel exactly the same way with Cherry.

And I always worried about the impact of the crying. The effect on them, physically and psychologically, of prolonged exposure to cortisol and other stress hormones. If I believe, as I firmly do, that it's wrong to leave a child to cry alone, then how is being with them, cuddling and comforting and soothing and settling but being unable to stop them from crying, any different?

How can I truly say I believe it's wrong to leave a child to cry when I can't and have never been able to always stop my children from crying?

I don't necessarily have any answers but I found this piece by Sarah Ockwell-Smith, author of one my favourite books ever, Toddlercalm, very reassuring.

In particular I was strongly moved by what she says about being able to remain present with our children through unstoppable tears. That this takes strength and patience. I used to become highly stressed, frustrated and anxious with Cherry when I couldn't stop her crying, I wondered aloud what was wrong with me and what was wrong with her, and it's entirely likely my reaction fuelled her rather than comforted her. But as I said above, my reaction to her crying has, eventually, changed.

This gives me hope for Violet's crying too. I have more strength and patience, I feel less judged and scrutinised than I did as a new mother with That Baby Who Cries All The Time. I know I have it in me to stay present with V.

I don't always manage it, I do become despairing and anxious and stressed sometimes, but increasingly I don't. I think having read this piece I will be able to stay calmly present with her more often, accept that I am being good enough rather than anxiously fretting about not being good enough, and whether it helps in the moment or not, in the long run I know it will make a difference. Until it passes, which it will. It always does.