After eleven years of breastfeeding three babies, with part of a year off for one pregnancy, I have officially weaned: myself, my babies, my body. I no longer lactate. I have no nurslings. I am done with my breastfeeding time.
Of course, this is bittersweet. I thought a lot about what I did and didn't want to do to commemorate this change in my life. I didn't want to know when the exact last nursing was, for instance. Karsten petered off around age three and a half, and I let that be vague in my mind. I didn't want to know: This is how it ends. I didn't want to worry it wasn't the bestest nursing session ever or wonder if it would repeat. I don't know when the last time was, and that's fine by me.
It's your legal right to feed your child in whatever way works for you wherever you're both allowed to be, so feed on. You can find a quiet space or cover while feeding your child if it works for you & your little one, but it should never be forced on anyone.
I think my favorite part was when Trevor Noah wondered if the guy comparing breastfeeding to peeing didn't realize women pee, too.
I am equally agog with the show that breastfeeding in public is still an issue in 2018. HOW?
Keep on keeping on, folks. Spread the word that feeding a child is normal and natural and perfectly reasonable to do in public.
Breastfeeding on the left side so my right hand is free
for important swiping-related activities.
I was curious why button-down shirts tailored to women button right over left whereas men's button left over right, and I came across this article from The Straight Dope by Cecil Adams (emphasis mine):
"Buttoning left over right — the man's way — is supposedly easiest for right-handed people. According to legend, women button right over left because in medieval times they were dressed by their right-handed maids. Don't buy it? Can't say as I blame you, but the alternative explanation is no improvement: men had to keep their right hand tucked into their coats so as to be ready for cold-weather swordplay, whereas women always breastfed with the left breast (hey, that's what it says here) and protected their babies by covering them with the right side of the dress or coat."
Now, these might not be the real reasons for the button differential, and I don't really care. (I find theories just as satisfying as answers for some of these burning questions in my brain.)
What interests me more is the new question that formed: Do you breastfeed more on your left side than your right, too?
I don't have a very good overarching theme for these images.
I just thought I'd celebrate Wordless Wednesday
(in my usual non-wordless fashion)
by sharing some fun pics from Instagram
(@HoboMamacom & @PirateFamilyFun).
On a trip to Barnes & Noble, I was pleased to see this sweet little sticker in the window:
Have you been to Great Wolf Lodge,
the indoor water park-slash-hotel?
We went for the first time this fall
with a homeschooling group
(fabulously discounted!),
and it was a ton o' watery fun,
even for our three non-swimmers.
Here's a splish-splashy video:
I think we had a great (wolfy) time,
but Mikko,
in the spirit of total honesty,
said the place should be named
Ok Raccoon Hotel.
He said they decorated more with raccoons than wolves,
that "lodge" was inaccurate,
and that "great" was perhaps overstating it.
(Did I mention this post isn't sponsored?
Clearly it is not.)
The rest of the family & I think he's just a goof.
Have you been to a Great Wolf Lodge near you,
or do you want to go?
In honor of my eighth blogiversary (how the time flies!), I'm giving away a box of delicious, lactation-boosting MilkBoosters cookies to one lucky reader.
I have an advertising partnership with MilkBoosters (formerly Making Mamas Milk), where Dori sends me 40 yummy oatmeal chocolate chip cookies every month. They always make me full to bursting with mama's milk, no joke! I want to share the wonderfulness with you, so I'll send along my September box to someone who wants it.
If you're a nursing mama and would like to enter to win, please leave a comment telling me how long you've been nursing!
Please include your email address with the comment so I can reach you! You can write it like this to foil spambots: hobomama {at} gmail {dot} com. You must have a U.S. shipping address, because I'm sending it USPS Priority Mail.
Mikko looks on as his newborn youngest brother, Karsten, nurses on the first day.
There's so much to love about breastfeeding beyond infancy: the closeness, the health benefits for you and your nursling, having a tool to calm and connect. Here's one that continues well beyond the time nursing stops: Your child will think breastfeeding is normal and natural. Because it is.
Mikko is eight years old, and our nursing days are literally years behind us. But he breastfed till five years old, old enough to remember, and what he remembers is all pleasant. He describes nummy milk as the best milk in the world, sweeter than ice cream, even though he has no current desire to taste it; the memory is enough. He remembers snuggling and being close, and he's confident and content in those memories as well.
And he's taken those memories and projected them on to his baby brother. Karsten is nine months old, and still breastfeeding like whoa. Mikko loves it. He cheers him on. Whenever Karsten makes the slightest fuss, Mikko will turn to me: "Give him nummies, Mama."
When Karsten's eating, Mikko will lean in close and say affectionately, "You're a nummy thief, aren't you?" Karsten will break off nursing to smile milkily up at his brother. Mikko loves that Karsten's being nourished, body and soul, just as he was.
I've breastfed in some unusual places in the past eight years of nursing my three sons. My philosophy is that breastfeeding can happen at any time or place, wherever I am and whenever my baby wants to eat.
That's led to some interesting breastfeeding locations! I hope you'll share some of yours in the comments, or even in your own post.
At a lavender festival
(I wanted somewhere to sit, so originally they directed me to a sheltered spot. But eventually I wanted to get back to work on my lavender crafts so I just propped Mikko up while I got to it.)
In a mountain village (And on the way there. My father-in-law was rather exasperated we had to pull over.)
On ferries
On a tour boat (That was during my only — failed — attempt to use a blanket as a cover — it kept blowing off!)
On a sailboat (I still question the wisdom of taking a newborn on a sailboat…)
On a motor boat
(That life jacket was pretty hilariously big for Alrik.)
At Pike Place Market (I remember how awkward I felt getting settled on a bench there with newborn Mikko, with strangers sitting and standing all around me, but we managed!)
He's got those ninja moves
where we don't see him making any efficient or particular forays,
and yet when we turn around,
he's in an entirely different location.
Alrik is learning how to write Superherocatpony
(his choice).
That E is epic. It's got, like, fourteen lines across.
Every E should be so lucky.
We got this little lap board at Target in the $1 bin, fyi.
I don't know if you've noticed, but things have been a little slow around here lately. It turns out it's challenging to parent a new baby, take care of and homeschool two other kidlets, run a home business, and blog. Who knew! (You can see a day in my life here.)
I thought something fun would be just to show off a few of the cute pictures of Karsten since the last time I posted a Wordless Wednesday when he was not yet two months old. He just turned five months and is a chunka-chunka burnin' love, but I've edited pictures only for the rest of two months through three months. Yup, photo editing is one of those things that's hard to fit in as well!
Anyway…here are some adorable pictures of all three kids from December and January!
Hipster baby
Mikko & Alrik writing on the sliding door with a gift of window markers from Nikolaustag
I wrote this post in its entirety in November 2012 but hesitated to publish it, I suppose because the subject matter is so grim. But I think it's a worthwhile topic to consider, so here it is now, one further baby in for me!
I'd like to share some more of my notes and thoughts from reading Mother Nature: Maternal Instincts and How They Shape the Human Species, by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, a weighty tome I picked up in the immediate postpartum period after Alrik's birth and dutifully and interestedly crawled my way through — all 541 densely printed pages. I found it fascinating, and disturbing — informative and resonant (Hrdy is an anthropologist, so she knows humans) and yet frequently distressing (humans don't always play nice, even — especially — with babies).
Today's article is about the crowded foundling homes of Europe, which were most used in the 1400s to 1800s. I give you fair warning now to bow out if talking about abandoned children and high infant mortality rates is triggering or overly distressing for you. (I wouldn't blame you one bit. I sometimes wonder why I read Mother Nature when I had a newborn, but I actually think the discussion of maternal ambivalence dovetails perfectly with the sleep-deprivation period.)
Welcome to the December 2014 Carnival of Natural Parenting: Greatest Gifts
This post was written for inclusion in the monthly Carnival of Natural Parenting hosted by Hobo Mama and Code Name: Mama. This month our participants have suggested go-to gifts and gifting experiences for the holiday season for all your loved ones.
I couldn't resist when the topic was gifts this month — my mind turned to my sweet new baby, and I felt the itch to make a list of all the gifts we haven't gotten him.
See, the grandparents have been asking us what they can give Karsten. They asked when he was born in late October, and now they're asking as Christmas looms. And we keep answering them truthfully: We have everything.
This is the third baby, and the third boy. We're set!
But that means I've been around the block a time or two, and I know now what sort of natural-parenting baby registry I would make if we weren't living in Hand-Me-Down City and needed to start from scratch. My btdt experience can be to your profit! Just copy this list of must-haves and would-love-to-haves on over to your own baby registry or holiday wish list, and outfit your natural nursery like a boss.
Note that, since I'm constantlynak-ing a newborn, I'm going to veer toward minimalist (my preference for our small space) rather than comprehensive and crunchy, as is my family's wont. So this list will be the essentials we needed for breastfeeding, babywearing, cosleeping, cloth diapering, and other attachment parenting choices. If you made different parenting choices (and that's valid!), you might need to add and subtract to this list, but it can still be a good starting point as you consider your options.
Cloth diapering: Keep things super simple, and ask gift givers to pre-load gift certificates to a diaper service. Not an option where you live? Keep things still pretty dang simple, and go with prefolds and wool diaper covers, plus some wool wash and lanolin. If you're buying supplies yourself, eBay is a good spot to look for high-quality but reduced-price diapers and covers. You'll want at least six covers in small or newborn size and at least 18-24 of the small prefolds. Then you can move up (probably relatively quickly) to medium and park there for awhile, so don't blow your whole budget on the smallest sizes. The good news is cloth diapers have a good resale value! Throw in some wipes, use a small daypack as a just-right diaper bag (reasonable size and easy to sling on your back to have hands free for baby), and store your dipes at home, both clean and dirty, in a wet-dry hanging bag. I thought we'd need a diaper-changing pad or table, and I was wrong. You can (and will) change diapers any-old-where. If you want to throw in some elimination communication, add a little potty — it'll come in handy eventually either way.
Babywearing: My hands-down (hands-free, ha ha!) favorite carrier is my handmade mei tai (tutorial here if you sew, and tutorial for a no-sew option if you don't!). If you want something available for purchase, other magnificent options are commercial mei tais and soft structured carriers like the Babyhawk, Infantino Wrap and Tie (frugal option), Ergo, and Boba. Any of these will work well for little babies on up through toddlers, so despite the initial price tag, buying one is a thrifty choice. And might I recommend my book, The Natural Parent's Guide to Babywearing? It will help you learn to wear your baby with confidence and ease.
I thought I'd give a little update on how the big boys are handling a new little brother. In general, Mikko and Alrik (7 and 3 years old) can't stop swooning over baby Karsten.
Now, it's not all fun and games. Mikko's adapting really well. Alrik's much more prone to meltdowns and seems to need a ton of attention from both Sam and me (which is fair).
We successfully went out for Sam's birthday a couple days before Halloween,
so the baby & I were emboldened to join in on a short
trick-or-treating jaunt at our local business district.
Sam and I had different, themed costumes planned,
but Karsten's somewhat tardy arrival meant mine
didn't fit my postpartum mummy tummy. (Nerts!)
So I'm the ocean, and Karsten's a shark. Bam.
We are happily enjoying our babymoon with Karsten, who is a week old. What with one thing and another, his birth announcement didn't get posted till several days after I wrote it, so he's already a more peaceful little guy than it first appeared. I think having lots of milk now is to thank for that!
Li'l sleeping dude.
With the proud mama.
He's beginning to open his eyes
and take in the world.
Today he made his first pre-cooing sounds,
and I just about died of cuteness.
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living.
Riding the rails with my husband, Crackerdog Sam, and our hobo kids, Mikko Lint Picker (born June 2007), Alrik Irontrousers (born May 2011), and Karsten (born October 2014). Trying every day to parent intentionally and with grace.
by Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, a weighty tome I picked up in the immediate postpartum period after Alrik's birth and dutifully and interestedly crawled my way through — all 541 densely printed pages. I found it fascinating, and disturbing — informative and resonant (Hrdy is an anthropologist, so she knows humans) and yet frequently distressing (humans don't always play nice, even — especially — with babies).
Babywearing: My hands-down (hands-free, ha ha!) favorite carrier is my 
I'm Lauren Wayne, writer and natural parent. I embrace attached parenting with an emphasis toward green living. 
