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Abigail's Diary Entries Diary Navigation: Choose A Diary Entry -------------------- Latest Entry: 10/13/02 -------------------- 4/17/02 3/15/02 2/4/02 1/15/02 9/14/01 8/16/01 7/26/01 7/20/01 7/7/01 4/17/01 4/17/01 12/5/00 10/25/00 10/14/00 7/12/00 6/21/00 6/7/00 5/31/00 5/23/00 5/17/00 5/9/00 5/3/00 4/25/00 4/19/00 4/12/00 4/4/00 3/28/00 3/22/00 3/15/00 3/7/00 2/29/00 2/28/00 2/23/00 2/15/00 2/9/00 2/4/00 2/2/00 1/26/00 1/25/00 1/18/00 1/11/00 1/4/00 12/28/99 12/21/99 12/14/99 11/1/99 10/28/99 10/21/99 10/5/99 9/29/99 9/1/99 8/1/99 7/1/99 6/1/99 5/1/99 4/1/99 -------------------- Abigail's Introduction

January 25, 2000

I'm throwing my "What to Expect..." books away! I read "What to Expect When You're Expecting," and I had been reading "What to Expect the First Year," but I haven't picked that up in quite a while. The last time I picked it up was a few months ago to read a little about solids and it suddenly struck me that it isn't very pro breastfeeding. I can't even remember what it was that I read, but it made me freak out and think that I wasn't feeding Lena and Liberty enough solid food. I thought I was being a horrible, stupid mother. It really made me doubt my own instincts that they weren't all together ready for a lot of solids. It made me feel that my breast milk was not adequate nutrition, even though Lena and Liberty were absolutely fine.

Thankfully, I am on the breastfeeding email list through Pregnancytoday.com and the mothers there gave me a lot of reassurance and suggested some books that are endorsed by La Leche League. Needless to say, I promptly threw the book in the trash. I thought about donating it to the library, but I decided I'd rather donate my copy of, "The Nursing Mother's Companion," instead. Anyway, I hadn't thought about that in quite a while until I came across my copy of, "What to Expect the Toddler Years." I thumbed through it to find what I should expect if I continue to nurse my toddlers. The book is written in a question and answer format and the question on page 31 is, "I'd really like to continue nursing my son for at least the next year or so. Why should I wean him when neither of us is ready yet?" I thought that was a great question. Why should she? The authors validate the woman's feelings of wanting to continue breastfeeding, however, they go on to say that there are other factors that the mother needs to consider, such as, the toddler needs more than just breast milk to grow (as if the mother were going to deprive him of *all* solid food), he might get "baby-bottle mouth," breastfeeding may take away his appetite for solid foods, increased risk of ear infections, the toddler won't know how to comfort himself, and the nursing toddler may come between the mommy and daddy. Each of those is laughable and can be disproved within seconds right here on this web page or various others, including the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The next two reasons are the ones that made me laugh out loud so I'm going to quote them directly: "Sometimes mothers get so much pleasure from breastfeeding that they don't realize that they aren't spending enough time doing other things with their toddler -- playing games, reading stories, going to the playground. Once your child is weaned you'll have more time and energy for these fun activities." Right, because we all know that nursing a toddler takes up 59 minutes out of every hour and it is not a fun activity. Last but not least, "Possible overdependence of toddler on mother, and/or of mother on toddler. This isn't a clear-cut issue. Although there have been no scientific studies to support this concern, it's worth thinking about." Did you catch that? NO SCIENTIFIC STUDIES. And you certainly wouldn't want your child to depend on you too much. Are they serious? I read this quote somewhere, "You can't teach a child to be independent, you can only teach him that he can't depend on you." I really wish I knew where that came from because I would like to give that person a lot of credit.

Needless to say, the book went straight into the recyclable bin, but I had to dig it out so I could make fun of it a little bit today.

I'm sorry this is so long again -- I'll try to cut it down next time. But if you read this far, thanks for hanging in there.

Abby