Dear Laura-- I totally sympathesize with you on the whole issue of being
misunderstood when online-- while it hasn't happened to me here in lactnet
(at least that anyone has responded to), it certainly has happened to me
elsewhere in cyberspace. It is real easy for us to read a few key words that
stand for some particular issue, and respond to the issue as we already have
it framed in our own minds rather than to the issue as the writer intended
it.
As a pediatrician, I know what you mean about families who use food as a
substitute for meeting other emotional needs; I see it quite dramatically in
some families, altho' I had never really thought about it as a breastfeeding
issue, since the breast is offered not just specifically for nutrition but
also quite specifically for the kind of comfort that you gave your son today,
that was not intended to be nutritional.
Actually, I think that emotional nurturing and nutritional feeding seem to be
linked in some kind of deep psychological way, (maybe because we are all
programmed to breastfeed, whether we do or not?) When toddlers and
preschoolers and young school aged children are at that picky stage, when
they just "live on air", so many of us as parents have so much trouble
dealing with this, even when we intellectually know that they're growing
fine, healthy, etc., and that it's normal for kids this age. When my kids
were little, I'd spend all day long at work telling the moms in my practice
not to worry about their kid's tiny appetities, and then go home and have to
bite my tongue as my son walked away from his dinner.
We seem to be wired to be concerned (appropriately) if our children won't eat
because they're sick or whatever, but then we are also concerned if our
children won't eat when it's perfectly alright. Perhaps one of those things
for the survival of the species. So it isn't surprising, or necessarily
pathological, when we give or want chocolate or other food as (emotive,
connecting, reaching out) gifts, nor is it surprising that a mother who
doesn't breastfeed might offer the bottle to her baby for almost every cry,
and end up with an overfed infant, not necessarily because she is a mean
selfish mother who just wants to shut up her infant, but because it is the
"second best" way, and perhaps for her the only way she can think of, to meet
those nurturing needs. She offers the bottle for the same multiple reasons
breastfeeding moms offer the breast. Unfortunately, the message to the baby
may be different from what is intended.
Like you, i've read the literature and evidence that suggests that when
emotional needs are met by food instead of by the emotional connectedness
that is sought, that eating disorders can result. However, and of course I
can't find it now, I thought that there was something about this not being
the case w/ breastfed kids, the thesis being that it is precisely because the
breast was offering emotional connectedness and not just "food" and hence the
breast was not substituting or replacing anything. Ie. the baby didn't really
get "food" the baby got skin to skin contact, or just the feeling of being
valued and important and empathized with.
When I forcibly weaned my son at age 30 mos or so (something I to this day
feel guilty about) I was surprised to discover that I did not get engorged
(true confessions-- I went away on a trip specifically to do this-- if only I
had known about all of you nursing in the closet!)-- I had next to no milk,
even tho he had been nursing 5 or 6 times a day, a couple times in the
morning, as soon as I got home from work, bedtime, and a couple times at
night. So he wasn't getting any "food" he was just getting what he needed,
comfort from his mom, who was gone all day at work. And when I got back from
my cruel trip, he was indeed through nursing, but he still loved my breasts,
stuck his hand down my shirt, squeezed them, etc., which was the just
desserts I got for my ill-conceived plan. So, he continued to get what he
needed, and it wasn't milk.
And it wasn't just my breasts, he became infatuated post weaning with all my
flabby body parts-- breasts, tummy, thighs, and upper arms-- drove me totally
crazy-- I had to "wean" him to my flabby upper arms, the discomfort I had
with his play with those other body parts (especially my inner thighs) helps
me try to understand the feelings of other mothers for whom even
breastfeeding itself is too sexualized for their comfort.
Apropos of all this, I don't remember what Jay called nursing, but I do
remember his name for the love he had fo my flabby upper arms-- "ocho gammo!"
he would say in delight, jiggling the flab of my arms, while I tried to find
something positive in the fact that at least someone delighted in these body
parts I found so lacking. My husband and my daughter (by then about 6)
thought it was pretty funny. Ocho came literally from the Spanish 8, from a
movie he'd seen on tv about a vw bug with a licensce plate 8-- don't ask me
the connection, and who knows where gammo came from.
On the other hand, I remember reading in New Beginnings many years ago, (10
or 12?) when one or the other of my own kids were of a preschool age) from a
mother who was wondering why her preschooler had zero interest in weaning
(she was tandem nursing and had a very busy schedule of housework and
babycare etc.) until she realized that about the only "quality time" she had
for her preschooler was when she was breastfeeding. She started doing more
things with this older child, reading and playing and special time, and sure
enough, his interest in breastfeeding declined.
Tina Smillie
P.S. Thanks Jan, for quoting me (about if we tell a mother her maternal
instinct on something is wrong (i.e. no, you shouldn't pick up the baby every
time he cries), then we have effectively negated her ability to ever trust
her instinct again) and I certainly have said it a lot over the past many
years, BUT I have to give credit where credit is due, I am practically
positive that i picked up this concept from Dr. Sears, back when I read him
for the very first time, had never before heard of him, when my first child
was born (14 yrs ago). I remember after that I had a couple pages from him
that I copied and gave it to the new moms in my practice, to counteract the
"let them cry it out" philosophy they were getting from their inlaws. It
made a lot of sense to me, so I passed it on.
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