Ask Judy: How Can I Prevent Mastitis?

Dear Judy, I have a breastfeeding question. Every time we drive in the car for long spells, my daughter doesn’t nurse as often. I have been getting these crazy bouts of mastitis. It’s not just a surface plugged duct, its a sudden, deep plug that hurts worse than you can imagine. I don’t know if this is normal, but basically this happens, my body cranks up a crazy fever, chills, etc. I just let it burn (I’m a naturalist!) and in about 6-8 hrs, its over. For the next 24 hrs its still “plugged” or whatever, but I make sure she still nurses that side even though of course she doesn’t want to. And within a day or so its gone. I have been getting them more and more frequently. Can I prevent them? This happened two times in the past month – both times from a long car ride. My daughter is currently 18 months old but nurses very frequently and still does not eat very many solids. She snacks, but I don’t think gets a lot of calories from food. I doubt this will stop me from breastfeeding, but man, in the car with a fever, I have to say it crossed my mind!

I’m so sorry to hear about the mastitis. Some women are more prone to it than others. For those long car rides, you might want to try either hand-expressing or pumping if your daughter isn’t nursing enough. You should also make sure you are wearing a loose fitting bra. One of the ones you purchased from me had an underwire – you probably want to avoid wearing the underwire when you go on a trip and wear the non underwire one instead. That way your milk ducts won’t be getting compressed. Not nursing as much during trips is pretty common – my son did the same thing. The car ride probably lulls her to sleep a little more and then you are out and about doing things once you arrive, so there are too many things to see and do.

I did a series on my blog about mastitis – some of these articles may help you as well – take a look:
Childbirth Followed By Mastitis
Experiences Of Mastitis
Mastitis: One Mom’s Journey And Advice

I hope some of these articles will help!

Have you ever had mastitis? Do you have any advice for this mom? Please leave a comment and share your experiences and recommendations.

Funny Things Toddlers Say And Do

This is my son, when he was about 2.5 or 3. He loves mommy-baby stuffed animals and he had a Tiger that his grandmother had given him. Well, she mailed him a “baby tiger” to go along with the “mommy” that he already had. He took the tigers and held them up so that they could meet:

Mommy Tiger: “Hello baby”
Baby Tiger: “Hi Mommy”
Mommy Tiger: “Let’s Nurse”

Baby tiger falls into Mommy Tiger’s Arms and starts to “nurse”

This is just one of the many joys of raising a nursing toddler! Do you have a funny story to share about your nursing toddler? Please leave a comment!

Ask Judy: Has My Baby Weaned?

Dear Judy. So as you know we recently moved. The move allowed us to put our two older boys in the same room, giving the baby his own room. So the other night we set his crib up and let him sleep there. He ended up sleeping from 9:30 pm to 9 am! Needless to say I was SORE in the morning.

I Thought no big deal – it was his first night and I’m sure tonight would be different. Sure enough he ended up passing out in his play pen at 8:30 pm and my husband just moved him into his crib and he slept all night. For most this would be wonderful news. But he has been falling asleep without nursing. So that’s 3 nights in a row he has not nursed. I think he may have weaned!

I do NOT want him weaned. I really want to nurse him till he is two and I still have until February until that happens. I just want to cry! This is our last baby and my last chance at that bond

This can be so difficult on a mom, but don’t give up yet. It is very rare for a baby to wean that suddenly. He is probably reacting to his new environment and all of the new exciting things. He will want to nurse again! Is the nighttime session the only time that he nurses? If you aren’t ready for him to stop, then offer the breast after dinner – a little earlier than bedtime. That will give him the ability to still fall asleep at bedtime without nursing, but still give you the ability to continue your bond with him.

Be forewarned, though – if you re-initiate breastfeeding, he may not want to give it up when he turns two and then you may end up going much longer! I also thought we would go until two, then I thought age three was my max. My son will be four next week and I think we are finally done.

Keep in mind too, that even when weaning does come, you will still have many ways to bond with your baby. He is lucky to have nursed so long – and if this does end up being his time to wean, your bond with him will continue through all of the other ways in which you nurture him.

HUGS

Ask Judy: When Should I Introduce Cows Milk?

Dear Judy, I have a question for you. My daughter just turned one. What do other breastfeeding moms do? Should I introduce cow’s milk or just breastfeed before meals? From @Leslielu2 (on Twitter)

It is really up to you. Some mom’s introduce cows milk at age one and some don’t. If you are planning to continue nursing your baby, then there is no need to introduce cows milk. The main reason that milk is important is for the calcium. If your child drinks plenty of water and eats a diet that is rich in calcium (or takes a calcium supplement), then there really isn’t any need for cows milk at all.

When my son was about 15 months old, he started refusing to drink anything (other than water) from a cup or bottle. He no longer would even take breastmilk from a cup (only directly from the source). I tried cows milk (skim, 1%, 2%, whole), rice milk, soy milk – he didn’t want any of it. I even gave him my breastmilk in a cup and he wouldn’t drink that either. The only thing he wanted from his cup was water. So I let him continue to nurse whenever he wanted and made sure he was getting enough calcium from other sources (multivitamin and his meals) and we stopped offering ’substitute’ milk. Today, my son is nearly 4 years old and still won’t drink cows milk (unless it is chocolate milk, of course!).

Nursing Toddlers And The Funny Things They Say

I went away on a business trip for 4 or 5 days in October last year and my parents came out to stay with my husband and help with my son. At the time, he was 3 years old and was still nursing 1-2 times per day. While I was away they went to a train hotel and did a lot of fun things. When I returned, I asked my son if he enjoyed spending time with Grammy and Grampa and his response was

“Yes, but Grammy didn’t nurse me.”

I was pretty surprised by his response because I never dreamed that he would think his grandmother WOULD nurse him. No one has ever nursed him except for me – so I don’t know where he got the idea. So I asked my mother. She said that she wasn’t even sure if he was still nursing anymore because he didn’t talk about it, ask for it or even seem to miss it while I was away. I told my husband and he said that my son did ask him if Grammy was going to nurse him and he told him simply that “Grammy’s don’t nurse”. Nursing a toddler can be full of fun moments like this!

Are you nursing a toddler? Do you have some funny anecdotes to share? We’d love to hear them!

Product Review: Learning To Wean

I don’t normally do product reviews on this blog, but when Bea Lorimer approached me with her book “Learning To Wean” I was thrilled to review it!! It fits right in with where my son and I are in our nursing relationship and I thought it would be the ideal item for me to look at, try out and review. If you have been reading this blog, then you have probably seen my “Journey Through Breastfeeding“ post, which is all about my journey with my son and the methods of “gentle weaning” that I have used to encourage his “child led weaning.” For me personally, I really wanted to let my son lead the way with our nursing relationship, but there have been little things that I have done to “help” us along the way. You can read our whole story here.

Where we are now: My son is 3 years 10 months old. At this point we are nursing on average one time per week or a little less. There have been two times where I thought we had weaned (in April he went 10 days without even asking to nurse and just last week, it had been nearly a month since he had nursed). Both times, just as I thought we were done, he started asking again.

The Review: I received the book, Learning To Wean, from the author, Bea Lorimer, a few days ago. I immediately took it out and read it myself. I have since read it three times with my son.

What I like about this book: Learning To Wean is a very simple straight forward book. I like the fact that is has a gender neutral toddler as the main character. “Sam” can easily be Samuel or Samantha. I also like the fact that it helps your child address the emotions that they may be having by talking about sadness and feeling proud. It is an easy read and enjoyable for both mom and child. Another thing I really like is that the author includes a letter with each book. The letter gives you some other resources for weaning including a tip list and it talks about the book and how you can personalize it for your own situation. It is a very nice touch and shows that the author truly cares about your breastfeeding journey and wants to help you wean gently and with love.

Things I might like to change about this book: This is a wonderful book, and there is really only one change I would make if I had my choice. It was written by an author from New Zealand and uses the word “mum” throughout the book. When I read it to my son, I just substitute Mommy or Mom, but if I had the choice, I would rather have an “American English” version of the book that was available for those of us in the States to purchase.

My Recommendation: I think this is an adorable and very useful book for mothers with nursing toddlers who would like assistance in broaching the subject of weaning. My son is older and we have had several conversations about weaning already (as you can see my post on my breastfeeding journey). For us, I think this book would have been more helpful if we had it one or even two years ago. Right now we are at the stage where he often forgets about nursing, so reading this book makes him think about it more and ask more. But when he was two or even in his early threes, it would have been a very helpful way to start talking about the fact that he won’t nurse forever. I highly recommend this book for anyone who has a nursing toddler and would like to be able to discuss weaning with their child. Learning To Wean is a very gentle, easy way of talking about this very delicate subject with your nursing toddler.

Bea Lorimer is a mother to a 6 1/2 year old girl. Although her daughter has now weaned, it was a long and interesting process. She is also a La Leche League leader, an artist and this is the first book that she has written. She blogs about the weaning process at All About Weaning and her book can be viewed and purchased at the Learning To Wean website.

ENTER TO WIN!!

Bea has generously donated FIVE copies of her book to be given away to Mommy News & Views Readers. To be entered, please leave a comment sharing your nursing experience and the age of your baby. (this activity is required in order to be eligible to win)

Extra Entries:
You can get extra chances to win a copy of Learning To Wean by doing any or all of the following activities. Please leave a separate comment for each activity so that you will be entered to win. We will be using a random number generator to pick the winner, so be sure to enter a separate comment for each activity:

• Follow @MommyNews on Twitter – leave a comment here telling us that you are a follower. Tweet about the contest up to once per day to earn extra entries. Be sure to include a link to this post in your tweet and leave a comment for each one so that you will get your extra entries!
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This contest ends at 5 PM on Monday, June 29th. Enter now and tell your friends to enter too!

Nursing Through Pregnancy: An Unexpected Bonus

We are running a series on tandem nursing this month on our blog and have recruited stories from great moms across the globe! You will hear stories about nursing while pregnant, challenges of tandem nursing and the joys of nurturing your babies. Our third story comes from Carla Molina Martins. Read on to share in her story of breastfeeding while pregnant.

by Carla Molina Martins

My husband and I are one of those couples who knew immediately after our first born arrived that another baby was in our near future. Dessa arrived in the summer of 2007 and we decided in all fairness to her, we’d wait a year to try and get pregnant again. We reasoned it would give us a good year and then some to devote solely to her, to really get to know her. When we got pregnant with our second baby, I was surprised at how many of my emotions centered around Dessa and not the new baby in my belly.

One of my biggest concerns when I got pregnant again was if Dessa would continue to breastfeed. When I got pregnant, she was over a year old and still nursing a lot, mainly in the evenings. I’ve loved breastfeeding since the beginning and it broke my heart to think our decision to get pregnant so soon was going to rob her of such special bonding. I did research and spoke with my midwife; everything told me one of four things might happen – a. the change in my hormones would alter the taste of my milk to a flavor my daughter might not like and, as a result, gradually wean herself off or b. her natural instinct to wean would just happen to coincide with my pregnancy or c. the change in hormones in my body might cause me to stop producing milk or d. if I were really lucky, my daughter would just keep at it like nothing.

As optimisitc as I am, I was sure my pregnancy would lead to an abrupt, unnatural end to Dessa’s breastfeeding days. Despite my instincts, I kept on nursing on demand. We hit the 14 week mark – still breastfeeding. We hit 24 weeks – still going strong; 30 weeks – still loving the boob. Don’t ask me why but I still didn’t believe I’d make it all the way to the end of my pregnancy successfully breastfeeding. Now I’m 39 weeks and still nursing our first born. She doesn’t nurse quite as often or for quite as long but we still have our quiet, snuggly moments together.

The key to my lasting breastfeeding relationship with Dessa is based on three components – faith, mutual desire and a great support system.

I had complete faith in what my body could do and faith that Dessa would let me know if she still wanted to nurse. Even though I had anticipated not going all the way, I stayed positive; I’m a firm believer that your attitude towards breastfeeding makes a world of difference. Mutual desire was also a key factor because we both want to keep doing it. If at any moment Dessa or I didn’t want to nurse anymore, then we’d stop.

A solid support system is essential at any stage of breastfeeding – if you’ve got one little one, twins or one in arms and one in your belly – having folks who support you is priceless.

I have my husband, our families and amazing friends who all believe in the value of what I’m doing. For every weird look I get for mentioning I’m still nursing a 22 month old, I know I’ve got at least 3 people who think what I’m doing is awesome.

If you’re thinking about getting pregnant with your next child and are still nursing your first, keep my story in mind. I’m just one example of what’s possible. I know not everyone wants to nurse through a pregnancy so if you don’t want to, be sure to look for resources on how and when to best wean your first child. If you’ve been able to nurse your first child, then you’ve already given them a great gift. Nursing through a pregnancy is just a nice bonus for mom and baby.

Carla Molina Martins is a mom to one with one on the way! She blogs at Mama Hearts Baby and The Mami Diaries.

Have you nursed while pregnant? Do you have questions that Carla or our other guest bloggers can answer?? Please share your experiences and post your questions here!

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