The Weaning Process

When our first son was born, I used to look at him as he was sleeping, literally willing him to wake up just so I could feed him.   I was head over heels in love with him and breastfeeding only served to make that bond stronger.  I loved it.  I loved the whole mental and physiological process of breastfeeding.  The feeling of utter relief as engorgement slowly reduced was only one aspect, the main one though, was a pure and unadulterated loved up sensation as the feel good hormones were released to aid relaxation and contentment.  Absolute bliss.  For me anyway.  Conor had a tiresome habit though of feeding for hours. My tail bone would hurt so much I resorted to walking or just standing up to feed him.  I learnt with him that the magical three month transformation was just a myth.  Another fabrication of the baby stage.  But we got over it and I developed a massive fondness for crosswords which I would store up to keep for the marathon evening cluster feeds.  There was a little gentle persuasion used for day time weaning with Conor.  But this was met with little or no fuss which made the transition easier, especially as I was pregnant. Knowing I was going to be feeding a newborn again was a big incentive to encourage our toddler onto the next stage in his development.  When our second son came along, I was a tad worried about his potential feeding habits, given the fine dining custom of his older brother.  My fears were unfounded.  The sling I invested in gathered dust as this child proved to be a very quick and efficient feeder almost from the get go.  I hardly noticed the six week growth spurt.  A far cry from the 14 hour feeding session our eldest enjoyed.  Iarla piled on the weight very quickly and continued to do so with very short feeds.  He also loved his grub which didn’t make much of an impact on his milk feeds either.   All babies are different and the contrast this time round manifested itself not in feeding routines but in sleeping ones.  Iarla didn’t sleep.  His frequent wakings quickly sent me into a downward spiral of depression.  As they say, this too shall pass, and indeed it did.  I was pregnant again and day time weaning was underway.  This time I found I could not sit down as it was a beacon signal for him to feed.  He never seemed to bother when I was standing so I stood a lot.  I was six months pregnant when Iarla went to sleep for the first time without his night time nurse.  He was 16 months old, weaned, and for the first time ever, he slept through the night and has continued to do so ever since.  I wasn’t sure if there was a connection but I certainly didn’t question it.  I embraced three full and glorious months of sleep before Liam came along.  Liam’s birth was different to the other boys; he was born via emergency section and for the first time as a mother, I truly thought breastfeeding may not work out for us.  Day two dawned bright and clear, I asked for that damned morphine drip to be removed from the back of my hand and we got down to business.  We never looked back.  Liam was a combination of the older boys, he went through his growth spurts and I noticed them but was very quick to feed.  For some reason things are a little bit hazy during Liam’s very early days.  I think this may have had something to do with a pending house move, changes in the economic climate and quite possibly, largely due to his being our third child.  It wasn’t new to me anymore and I was getting quite good at this mothering lark.  Liam had a hard time, a very hard time with teething and I experienced my first ever nursing strike.  He refused me for a little more than 24 hours and a four hourly cocktail of teething medicines barely cut a dent in his pain.  I was at my wits end until he finally accepted his very first and only bottle of expressed milk.  I was still very much engorged but it seemed his gums were too sore for him to latch on and I simply had to wait until he decided he was ready to nurse again.  One thing I can definitely remember, however, during Liam’s first six months of life, is a feeling of tiredness.  I loved breastfeeding, that never changed, but I was starting to feel that the end to all the stages and phases that are part and parcel of parenthood, would never come to an end.  I was hankering after some good old fashioned “me time.”  I had immersed myself into mothering my boys and hadn’t bothered to secure some down time for myself.  It made me reluctant to consider another child even though I knew I wanted one but didn’t know when.  I wanted a break from it all but feared that break would not find its end.  I was also slightly concerned there might be implications from the c section.  In the end I decided I was in the deep end anyway, and I may as well keep going.  Again, Liam was gently encouraged to day time wean and this too, like his brothers before him, was met with no fuss.  The night time feed was the last to go, and in keeping with family history, he was also 16 months old and slept the night.  I adopt a “don’t offer, don’t refuse” approach but supply issues, I feel, really played a massive part in the weaning process.  Again, I was 6 months pregnant and looking forward to the break before the new baby arrived and another stint of unbroken sleep.  That is, once the numerous bathroom visits and all the tossings and turnings to rearrange a huge bump were removed from the equation, it was as good a night’s sleep as I had been getting till then.  Brendan came into the world after a shaky start and once he got down with the business of being born, breastfeeding proved to be, once again, one of the best decisions I ever made in relation to my kids.  Brendan loved his sleep and when he was a few months old, he once slept an entire 16 hours.  He was sleeping the full night when he was two months old.  This was utterly unheard of for me.  Not only that, he enjoyed long naps during the day too.  He was so easy and chilled out.  Maybe he was using his innate baby wisdom to suss out the fact he was fourth in the pecking order and had no choice sometimes but to wait his turn.  Call me cynical but as much as I enjoyed and relished his lengthy slumbers, I didn’t take them for granted.  Things can change in a heartbeat where small babies are concerned and true to form, he began to wake at night in order to make up for what he may have been sleeping through during the day.  I didn’t mind too much as he was very quick about his business and I always enjoyed those cosy, relaxed night time feeds.  It takes a year, as far as I am concerned, to make a baby, and a year for your body to recover from that process.  It certainly took me that length of time, perhaps slightly longer to start feeling like myself again.  I admit, I was lazy in the getting back into shape after each baby, believing that I would be pregnant again within the year so there was no point.  I am blessed to have always found that to be the case.  After Brendan, I felt it really was time to take myself in hand, whether or not there was going to be another baby.  That last pregnancy, certainly the last trimester, was very hard.  I was unfit and very out of shape.  I think this contributed greatly to that heavy feeling for the next year.  That and the baby hormones that were still coursing through my body.  Those cannot and should not be forgotten or even under estimated.  I got busy and embarked on a new health and exercise regime and pretty soon began to see and feel real results.  Then the day arrived when Brendan celebrated his first birthday and I wasn’t pregnant.  This was a whole new planet for me.  I wasn’t sure how to take it.  I was in the middle of the “break” I had been afraid to take previously.  It was decision making time.  Brendan was very much enjoying his food and still fond of his breast milk.  He had continued his habit of waking at night for a feed, sometimes maybe twice.  It was a no brainer for me.  As there was no new baby pending and I was getting very close to the maybe never viewpoint, I was going to let Brendan take complete and total charge of when he wanted to wean.  When our first son was a baby, 6 years ago now, I remember actively thinking of the day when breastfeeding would forever stop and how I would feel about it.  I remember feeling a sense of loss.  The end of an era, a real sign that my baby was growing up and away from me.  At the same time, I knew I had loads of time left, that day was still far far away.  Not as far as I thought.  The child I thought I would nurse for a couple of years took me completely by surprise and all but dropped every single one of his feeds over a weekend.  I never thought I would be facing into a cold turkey situation.  Brendan, our smallest son, at 15 months old, “went off me” two weeks ago.  His day time feeds had been hit and miss for a while now but he still nursed from both sides before his sometimes two day time naps and always at his bed time.  Plus he was still waking at night for a quick sup.  It came completely out of the blue that he would decide this wasn’t for him anymore.  I’m still not sure how I feel about it.  He has become quite social and attempting to walk in the last month.  Our house is very loud, busy and active and as a result I have had to feed him away from his brothers since he was about 4 months old.  He is just too curious and busy at the moment for boob.  I have been replaced with raspberries, slices of apples and sips of water.  That first weaning weekend, I abandoned my “don’t offer, don’t refuse” tactic in an effort to tempt him to nurse.  He found himself almost being force fed over two days in an effort to help me out of a bind.   One of extreme discomfort.  I didn’t have lumps in my breasts, I had corners!  But instead of objecting with a wail, he laughed at me, struggled free of my grasp and crawled off at lightning speed to catch up with his older brothers.  He is happy as Larry and that makes it all the easier.  He has just lost all interest.  He still loves his cuddles and hugs as much as he ever did and indeed, I cannot rest myself in a chair without him coming over to grab the tail of my top to hold as he sucks his thumb.  Then he’s clawing at me to climb up into my lap.  The self weaning process began and ended in under 48 hours.  This is what it feels like.  At least this is what it feels like when the child takes charge and not the mother.  Something I am well used to but not in this respect.  I did hope that the night time feeds would last a little longer but it didn’t work out that way.  I think it’s going to take me some time to get used to it.  After 6+ years of feeding my children this way, it’s an adjustment.  Time will tell.  He could start walking next week, discover it’s not all it’s cracked up to be and return to me.  He was never one for a comfort feed after a tumble or a fall.  Always satisfied with a quick hug and a kiss before he was back on the ground and off looking for more punishment.  He’s a tough little cookie and really finding his own personality at the moment.  It’s lovely to see.  It’s only the end of one aspect of motherhood and a part of me (ok a big huge part of me) is thrilled at the reality of more than one glass of wine every now and again.  I am looking forward to maybe the odd night out and feeling able to stay longer than midnight.  Cinderella always had to be home, not for the babysitter, but in case the baby woke and wouldn’t settle without a feed.  I am embracing going shopping for a decent bra or two.  Indeed, buying something that has buttons up the front and down the back, with zips everywhere and not having to be concerned about how I am going to “feed him in that!”  And last but not least, maybe now I will effortlessly shed that last half stone (plus some) that has been stubbornly hanging on.  It’s a well-known fact that some mothers retain an extra layer of fat whilst breastfeeding. Something about the possibility of a famine and the body having extra fat stores in order to produce milk in the possibility of such an event.    Breastfeeding is not meant to be complicated and I apologise if my ramblings have hinted at the opposite.  It is not the only part of motherhood and bonds have formed via smaller decisions, but for me, my husband and our family, it was a foregone conclusion that I would nurse any children that may come along after Conor, our first born.  None of them remember being breastfed, but hopefully two of them at least will remember that their little brother was.  I breastfed and I am proud.  Damn proud!                        

Letting it all out

Something distressing happened last Thursday.  Our four and a half year old had a major melt down. It was the first one in quite a while.  We had been free of them, or that should be, he had been free of them for a long time but something set him off that day.    It may not sound like a lot but for those of you who have witnessed your child throwing the mother of all tantrums, you get what I mean.  Everyone is left exhausted and upset in the aftermath, least of all the tantrum thrower themselves.  The outburst was over something so simple and small I can't remember what it was but there was hot chocolate, a biscuit and a seating arrangement.      Although naturally it wasn’t small and simple to him, otherwise he wouldn’t have felt the need to vent so strongly.  I managed to diffuse the situation by distraction.  I showed him the pictures of the rented house on the beach we are going to in a few weeks. Unfortunately, his big brother was very enthusiastic and put his head in front of the computer screen to have a better look and things escalated again.   It was awful.  He screamed and roared, sobbed, bawled and snotted everywhere that he couldn't see the pictures. His brothers looked on in alarm and one of them even clamped his hands over his ears in an effort to drown out the noise.  I was shaking with the uselessness of it all.  There was no talking to him, no calming him down. He slammed doors, screamed and howled some more and threw things about in his fit of rage and frustration. He hated me and everything and everyone.   After it all he sat there sucking his thumb with a big red, shiny swollen face on him, his face still looking like thunder.  I wanted to hug him and I wanted to shake him.  I knew if I approached him too soon, it would only enrage him further so I sat there and waited.  He is extremely head strong, stubborn and at the same time, quite sensitive.  During that rampage, I saw him as a fifteen year old and it frightened the jeebus out of me.   He is starting school in September and as a baby, it took him months to settle into crèche. He was only there for a couple of hours each morning (it's his aunty’s crèche so he was with family!) and he would exhaust himself by crying so hard that he would crawl around looking for a beanbag in which to collapse and fall asleep. He had his hour in Big School two weeks back and was so quiet and shy I saw a different boy altogether.   At this stage his brothers had left the room and he was sitting on the chair at the end of the table. I went over, knelt down and gave him a hug. I asked him were we friends and he resisted a little bit but didn't pull away. I took this as a good sign and hugged him a little bit more.  I chanced getting rejected altogether and I told him I loved him and I know it's very hard sometimes.  No reaction which encouraged me and I kept hugging him and rubbing his back.  After a while he put his head on my shoulder and I decided to go for broke.  When all else fails in our house, toilet humour is your best bet so I unleashed my inner Dumb and Dumber comedian.   I was halfway through my bad taste joke and as soon as he heard the word “poo” I could feel him smile against my shoulder. I shed a little tear then I'll admit, from relief and realising I, too, was jaded after the showdown. I picked him up. The skinny little body of him!  The baby had just woken up so I carried my boy down to the bedroom.   I put him in my bed and covered him up. He began to talk to me about his various cuts and bruises and I listened for the umpteenth time as he showed me a scar on his hand from an old accident.  Something was ringing in my head.  His chat was so banal yet so telling.  He had my full and undivided attention and he was making the most of it, by any means.  The baby was bouncing around in his cot behind us, eager to be free of its confines but I remained concentrated on the small boy tucked up in my bed.  His chatter wasn’t important; I think he knew that too, it was more that he had me, all to himself, for that minute.  I felt like shit.   I always feel like shit simply because I haven't got the time to spend one on one quality time with them all. I love that they are all so close in age.   I wouldn’t, I couldn’t, do it any other way.  But a direct hard hitting down side is that the stages and phases are very close together. One of them stops roaring and another will start.  It's exhausting.     He’s a spirited boy, but it doesn’t mean he needs to be “handled” a certain way.  I took a long hard look at the situation that day.  That evening, Mister Husband had a late appointment and he took Iarla with him.  On their return, it was clarified that yes, all he wants is a little attention.  Again, the chatter from the boy to and from the meeting was repetitive but he was making full and proper use of there not being any competition from his brothers.  I spent a little time sitting on the side of his bed at bedtime, just listening to him babble on.  The same stuff he had already told me a couple of times that day.  My heart was breaking for him.  It was so obvious, so patently clear how ignored he had been feeling.  The bad form he had been in the grip of for the last few weeks was his way of vocalising his needs and I neither listened to him nor heard him.  I berated myself and for good reason.  It’s not ok to say and believe there are not enough hours in the day to tend to your child’s needs.  It is much easier to catch a problem, any problem, and nip it in the bud than wait till the matter develops to such an extent it spirals out of control.  I don’t think I am being too hard on myself over this, I think I needed that little wake up call.  One of my boys was floundering; thoughts of Big School were playing heavily on his mind, he was feeling a bit swamped by the natural capabilities of his older brother and ignored due to the primary needs of his two younger ones.  It was easier for me to tend to them and instruct Iarla to watch telly or read a book whilst I did so.  I took advantage of knowing that he would give up after a while and go off by himself.  Not good enough.  Not one bit good enough.  I see an improvement already.  A reaping of the rewards of that tiny little extra bit of time I spend with him at bed time.  That first night, I let him chatter on until he literally had no words left.  I tucked him in and gave him his Monster Kiss (our boys believe a monster kiss on the forehead keeps bad dreams at bay) had a little joke with him and finished up by telling him that I loved him very much.  The next morning, he sneaked into the bed beside me bright and early.  It had been his habit of late to crawl in beside his daddy.  Skinny little arms went around my neck and he tightened them as hard as he could, saying he remembered me telling him that I loved him the night before.  I don’t know how I didn’t bawl into the pillow.  I have made it a priority to spend that bit of time with him before he falls asleep now.  During the day when he approaches me with any one of his many thoughts, requests and Show and Tells, I take the time to stop whatever it is I am doing, turn to look at him and listen.  Even if I just repeat what he has said to me, and nothing else, he is happy and satisfied that he has been heard and more importantly, his needs have been acknowledged and met. The spontaneous hugs he used to give me, the ones that had had dried up without my even noticing, are back and being doled out regularly once more.  My head and heart are light again.

I Swear, Therefore I Am

Foul language is the mark of the uneducated,

The ones who didn’t persevere. 

Whilst the educated stuck it

To avoid obscenities like fuck it,

From the learned, oh fiddlesticks is all you will hear.

At the time of writing this, Screecher Creature No. 3 was shouting “bollix, bollix, bollix” over and over again.  I have often caught him swearing at a toy, calling it an “effin’ yoke.”  Insert full and proper obscenity here.  I do it myself.  When I hear something I like, I tend to retain it but once I repeat it back, it’s gone.  Whoosh!  Out of my head, never to be thought of again.  I wish Screecher Creature No. 3 would forget his expletives as soon as he uses them. Kids are like sponges, or so I’ve read often enough.  They will soak up everything, oblivious to the appropriateness of whatever it is they have just heard, and spit it back out again.   Apparently when I was three or four, my father had me spell the poo word for a friend of his.  Outside the church of all places.  It was received with great merriment.  When I was a lot older, to know better at least, I told my mother where to go by writing it on a blackboard.  I cannot recall the crime that was committed against me that drove me to do it, and allow her to see it in retaliation, but I do remember getting a wallop for my efforts (my mother has mellowed a lot since) and sent to bed.  If I hark back, it was a bright Summers evening and after about a half hour or so, by my reckoning, I crept out of the bed thinking all would have been forgiven. I got another crack for myself and was sent straight back to the scratcher.  Right now I am ignoring Screecher Creature No. 3 in the hope that he stops swearing or at least takes it down a notch and doesn’t waken his sleeping baby brother.  (I need to get this done.  I haven’t time to discipline.)  I swear myself sometimes.  I admit it.  I probably do it a lot more than is strictly necessary.  Oh alright then, I definitely do it a lot more than is strictly necessary.  I get great liberation from it.  I tend to get colourful when I’m cross, when I feel passionate about something and when I drop things.   I didn’t always do this.  At least I don’t think I did.  I remember working for a female boss who swore like a trooper.  It shocked me.  Probably because it was my first proper job outside my home town and up until then, employers always behaved and spoke professionally.  I didn’t know how to take this profanity liking woman.  She admitted that her husband hated her swearing.  Hated it but she got great release from it.  I get that now.  Mister Husband doesn’t like me swearing either but *whispers* he should talk.  Bland outbursts like “sausages” “sugar” and “fiddlesticks” just don’t cut it for me. Only a full on hard core expletive will do the job.  I’m not Quentin Tarantino now or anything, I do have a cut- off point; I just have to find it is all.  In fairness to the Screechers, for boys who are exposed to their fair share of bad words, they don’t indulge themselves.  It is just Screecher Creature No. 3 who gets colourful on occasion which is a good thing because usually I can’t help grinning when he gets vocally artistic. Yes, they call each other “stoopid,” and “dumbass” has been used on occasion.  Those fekin American cartoons!  “Poopy head” is one that is guaranteed to be followed by howls of hysterical laughter.   I always pull them up when they insult each other.  Telling someone they are stupid, in my opinion, is worse than swearing.  A cuss word is, after all, just a word, but an insult has real power to hurt and scar.  I feel there is a big difference between selectively ignoring the odd four letter word and not getting shirty with them when they disrespect each other.  Screecher Creature No. 3 really is just repeating what he has heard so it is up to me, his teacher, to make a conscious effort to cut back on the profanities.  I’ll try to keep them in my head now but like a lot of things these days, sometimes they just escape!   

A Gentle Reminder

I am due to have a womanly examination next month. I am neither looking forward to it nor am I dreading it.  It simply has to be done.  It takes literally a couple of minutes and it could save my life.  It is a smear or Pap test.  This is the light scraping of cells from my cervix, a painless procedure even if it does involve “sticking my bum in someone’s face” which will then be sent to a laboratory to determine whether the cells are normal or not.  It is recommended that women aged 25 to 44 have this test every three years and women aged 45 to 60 every five years.  Regardless of age however, once a woman has her first test, she needs to have two normal results before she can move onto the five year test.  This time frame will obviously change if abnormal cells are detected in the meantime.   So that’s one slightly uncomfortable and undignified two minute test every few years to keep you healthy.  What could be less time consuming?  It takes longer to brush your teeth.  If you’re brushing them properly.  The reassuring thing about cervical cancer is; it is one of the good cancers to have.  If there is such a thing as a good cancer to get.  I hear that a lot lately and I wonder who are they trying to kid.  Personally I don’t care how good or bad a cancer is; cancer is still cancer and if there is a way to significantly increase my chances of remaining cancer free, I will do it.  Quitting the smokes is one way of reducing that risk.  But giving up the habit also significantly reduces every other cancer risk as well so you are onto a winner immediately.  See your GP straight away if there are any changes in your cervix.  You will know because you may have bleeding or spotting at irregular intervals. And the best way of all to reduce the risk is go for those regular smear tests.  I keep repeating this. I don’t think you can say it often enough.  It’s important that people are getting the message because I know there are plenty of women who avoid going for this test.  They go out of their way to avoid it.  I know of someone who changes their doctor every three years or when the doctor starts pressuring them to have the test, whichever happens first.  They reckon they are too squeamish.  Cancer doesn’t know or care what squeamish is.  I know a mother of two who has never had this test done.  Ever.  They may even have said they just never got around to it.  Cancer doesn’t give a toss about your timetable either. There are younger people out there, in their twenties, who are of the opinion that being in your twenties is enough to protect you.  They are not in the “risk” category, apparently.  Cervical cancer isn’t fussy whether you lost your virginity at 15 or 35.  Once you are sexually active, you are “at risk.”     Cervical cells change so slowly and take so long develop which makes it a preventable disease.  Once you go for the test that is.   This is why a test is required only every couple of years.  That’s how leisurely it is.  All the same, it is the second most common form of female cancer in Europe.  It is also worth noting that if a family member has abnormal test results, i.e. has been found to have cancerous cells; this does not mean that your chances are increased.  In other words, cervical cancer does not run in families.  This test is free.  If you received an offer from your car dealership, optician or even your dentist, offering you, free of charge, a full road test, a complete eye exam or a dental clean, would you turn them down?  Would you drive your car if the tyres were bald?  What about with broken wipers on a wet day?  Would you let your child out on his bike if the brakes were dodgy?  Yes, you have to go in, drop your drawers whilst grinning (or maybe not!) and bearing it for a couple of minutes for an intimate examination.  I can think of better and nicer things I would rather do as well, but I’ve had enough of these tests done now to know how quick the procedure is.  We owe it to ourselves to have this test.  We owe it to our kids.  Cervical cancer may be an easy one to “catch” and treat but if it’s the one that we let get away, it can and will kill us.  Our kids will be without their mother.  And all because we didn’t find the time, we were too squeamish or were of the opinion that it won’t happen to us.  It can and it could!  Please, do you and yours a favour today; research www.cervicalcheck.ie for more details on cervical screening.  Once you are registered they will even send you out a reminder for future checks.   It will also show you where you can go for this test if you don’t want to visit your family GP, the one that has known you since you were in nappies.  I know they’ve “seen it all before” but if they haven’t seen yours nor do you want them to, that’s fair enough. Go somewhere else.  Anywhere else.  Just go!