my road

So, Dani got me thinking with her reply in my last post. I started thinking about when V was younger and we were just getting to know each other. When I was pregnant with him, I knew I wanted to breastfeed, but I only wanted to do it for 12 months. People who nursed longer than that were weird. And really, what was the point? I mean they can eat food.

I wanted to breastfeed because I knew it was what was best for baby and it was free. I had no idea about the emotional side of it. I had no clue about the bonding, for both of us. I didn't realize that I would use it as a parenting technique. I didn't know how much I would love it.

Late nights nursing my baby when everyone else was sleeping was so peaceful. Seeing his milk drunk half smile melted my heart. Being able to use nursing as a "snooze button" to get a few more minutes of sleep was fabulous and I was often able to turn a bad mood into a good one with just a few minutes of "boobies."

I often said that I didn't know how to mother without nursing and I really didn't. If V was having a fit I would bring him to my breast. If he fell down and was hurt, right to the boob. I didn't know what else to do.

Since he isn't nursing now, I have had to expand my bag of mommy tricks, and we are managing, but I have to say that I often wish I could just nurse him because it would be so much easier.

That brings me to why we nursed for as long as we did. I am a lazy mom. I really am. We co-slept so that I didn't have to actually wake up at night to nurse him. I could just get him latched on and fall right back to sleep. I couldn't even tell you how many times at night he woke up on most nights because I didn't fully wake up (either that or I just couldn't count that high!). We cloth diapered because I didn't want to have to buy diapers (and really, if you're doing 10 loads of laundry a week, does 2 more really make a difference?). And I nursed because it was easy. I didn't have to wash bottles, I didn't have to mix formula, it was easy. And when we got to the 12 month mark of nursing, it was easier to keep going than to stop. Same goes for 18 and 24 months. I just felt like nursing wasn't doing anything bad for him (and really it was doing a lot of good--he never got sick until this year and I don't know that it was a coincidence that it was also after he stopped nursing) and it wasn't worth the fight to stop. I could either nurse him for 3 minutes, or listen to him scream for 30. On the boob was easier, so on the boob it was. At some point though, he stopped asking and I stopped offering and that was that. It was easy. It was painless.

Sometimes, though, it makes me sad that he doesn't nurse anymore. We still get lots of cuddles in, but I miss the way he looked at me when he was nursing. Like I was the best thing in the world. Like I was his everything and he knew that he was mine.