Breastfeeding to the Bittersweet End | Motherscope Magazine
This article was developed for Motherscope Magazine from an earlier En Route blog post on extended breastfeeding and weaning.
I never imagined our breastfeeding journey would last so long. Yet here we are, still feeding more than two and a half years later. The early days were fraught with problems – from initial delays in my milk arriving through to engorgement and blocked ducts followed swiftly by mastitis. With great perseverance, daily doses of sunflower lecithin and an array of complex feeding positions (some upside down and worthy of yoga names), we eventually broke through the difficulties and grew to enjoy our breastfeeds.
Despite its inherent challenges, breastfeeding proved to be our most precious sanctum. Even when it wasn’t quite working as it should, breastfeeding still provided a way for us to close the doors on the confusion and chaos around us, and meditate on our bond and the fascinating unconditional love we were discovering.
Even now, with years having passed and our newly forming identities strengthened, we find safety in this space, anchored by the physical continuum of those feelings of love, which ignite the hormonal activity that enables my milk to flow.
In the moments following his birth – when my son slowly guided himself to my breast, searching out my nipple using primordial instincts that I will always marvel at and never fully understand – our bond of mutual dependency was sealed. He knew what he was doing, even when I didn’t. I took great comfort in this knowledge and the realisation that somehow, he carried an innate biological understanding of how this mother-child symbiosis was meant to work. As I stumbled through the motions of motherhood, making haphazard guesses as to what I should be doing when in truth I had no clue, I vowed to keep listening to him and to follow his cues.
Through sickness, hunger, exhaustion and fear, breastfeeding has remained a safety net, allowing me to hold him close until he finds the strength to the face the ever-present challenges of the wider world.
During my pregnancy, whether or not to breastfeed was not a choice I deliberated over. I was resolute that if I could, I would. The choice, should it ever present itself as such, was always going to be around the decision of when to stop. In my naivety, I never imagined how complex the factors in that seemingly simple choice would turn out to be.
I’d read the World Health Organisation advice that breastfeeding was beneficial to age two and a Moroccan friend I met mentioned that the Quran also advocated for the same. Though I’m not religious, the idea of an ancient culture supporting the most up-to-date medical advice struck a reassuring balance in my mind. Conversely, the cultures and voices that promoted earlier ends seemed to be heavily influenced by the external pressures of our fast-paced world and of course, patriarchy – both of which were forces I had no intention of allowing into our sacred mother-child space. And so two years became my unspoken aim.
As his second birthday drew nearer, my son showed no signs of wanting to stop and as a co-sleeping toddler he was still regularly feeding through the night. Around me fellow mums had all successfully weaned, many naturally – either at their child’s initiation or through a natural end to the mother’s supply. A few brought things to an end through deliberate weaning but in all cases the transitions were smooth for all involved.
I’d hoped for a similarly easy and natural end to breastfeeding to present itself to us around this time, but it never materialised.
Photo by Stuart Milne
As our breastfeeding continued, I began to feel slighted by the inevitable surprise from people who discovered we were still breastfeeding. My increasingly anxious mind couldn’t help but read this surprise as being laced with judgement. I grew resentful of carelessly delivered advice and, in particular, suggestions that I was encouraging the feeds due to an inability to let go. If anything, as an individual (if not as a mother) I was desperately craving a little autonomy and independence.
Despite my inner resolution that only my son and I could possibly know what was best for us, the human in me became haunted by the words of others. The obvious myths that my bones would become weak and that my son would never drink alternative milk or sleep on his own began to blur the lines of my genuine worries. I began to wonder if, in fact, our extended feeding was the reason he was relentlessly crying for me at his morning preschool sessions, which were in turn resulting in daily early pick-ups and a lack of independence on both our parts.
I was also becoming increasingly troubled by my own physical aversions to breastfeeding. I longed for uninterrupted sleep and felt frustrated during play sessions and classes when my son wanted only to feed and not take part. When my breasts grew sore or my body ached from awkward feeding positions I even grew to resent my son’s incessant need for me. I increasingly craved my own space following toddler tantrums and difficult behaviour that inevitably ended with an angry and upset, but still suckling toddler.
As the chorus of voices against my extended breastfeeding began to outweigh my arguments for it, I caved. I convinced myself that to take control of the situation and change how I felt I had to take action. I told myself it was ultimately for my son’s own good.
I reached out to lactation consultants offering free support to discuss an approach to weaning and they asked if he was still feeding three or four times a day – their reactions when I confessed that sometimes it was closer to ten made me realise that gradual weaning was never going to be a realistic prospect for us. We’d never established any sort of feeding routine beyond regular demand feeds and our experience of trying to delay or postpone feeds to reduce the overall number had never proved successful. So instead, following the lead of the mums around me who had successfully weaned toddlers, I explained to my son that my breasts were sore – which they were – and as he was growing up, it was time to drink milk from the fridge. I let him know that I would be there to hold and cuddle him whenever he needed me.
The ensuing four days of withheld milk hurt us both in ways I hope never to repeat. My breasts grew swollen and painful and nothing I could do would pacify his desperate cries for milk. As I bore witness to the visible confusion behind his tears – as he struggled to comprehend why he was being denied the comfort of my breasts and the safety and reassurance he’d come accustomed to there – it all began to feel increasingly unnatural and wrong. I was watching the person I most loved and wanted to protect, grieve. Whilst I shared in his grief, it was underpinned by the awareness that I had deliberately thrown him into this deep state of mourning at a point in his life when he was most vulnerable and when he most needed me to protect him.
On the fourth night, when he’d finally cried himself to sleep, it was my turn to cry in my husband’s arms. I begged for his support in undoing this. To his credit, despite having experienced the first and only night of uninterrupted sleep since my sons birth as a result of the weaning process, he encouraged me to follow what I felt was right. A few hours later when my son reached for me, I let him come to my breast and the immediacy with which everything felt right again validated my feelings that this was not the right time or way for us to wean.
I took some time to take stock and came to the realisation that, to the outsiders looking in, it may well look like a relationship of dependence. But my honest belief is that, in continuing to breastfeed my son, it’s actually his long-term independence that I’m nurturing.
If we are lucky enough to be able to continue breastfeeding until he makes a conscious decision to self-wean (and I realise not everyone is able to get to this point), my hope is that he will do so with the strength of mind and lasting independence of a child who is truly ready to face what comes next. After all, true and healthy independence is something we choose for ourselves when we feel ready and equipped for it, not something that is forced upon us.
In the mean time, he may cry at preschool and prefer the warmth and comfort of my bed, and I will try to remind myself that though at times these things may be inconvenient or require the sacrificing of my own freedom and independence, they are also short lived, entirely understandable and very, very human.
As we approach the three-year mark, my son is still feeding as regularly as ever. I never offer the breast, but also rarely refuse if he seems to genuinely have a need for it beyond simple boredom.
To the people who ask me when we’ll stop, the answer I’ve finally come to settle on is when we are ready.
Update: M turned three recently and is still breastfeeding albeit far far less than he was at the time this article was written. I’ll post more details on this in an updated blog post soon.
Motherscope magazine cover artwork by Dani Aziz
