Jennifer,
This is a private response that I'm also going to mail to the list in case
others could benefit from it.
I'm going to give you a more complicated answer from a pediatrician's
perspective. What you're feeling sounds normal, what your daughter is doing
may not be. The change in breastfeeding behavior could just be a reaction to
growing up and wanting to hold onto baby things and possibly a reaction to
your [normal] pulling away when things get too public.
The fact that it occurred at the same time as the new hand washing behavior
is sort of concerning. Some kids are particular about staying clean, but
washing until they're chapped and red is another.
Part of whether this is a serious problem or not will depend on the answers
to the following questions:
Do these behaviors persist? Are they going away, or do they seem to be
getting worse? Are any new unusual behaviors occurring? Are they occurring
at one particular time of day? After any medication?
Have there been any new stresses in the last few months? marital issues,
death of a grandparent or pet, move to a new home, new baby sitter, etc?
Are there any physical reasons for the hand washing? Scabies? Flea bites?
Change in soap (allergy)?
Is there a family history of mental illness? Especially OCD [obsessive
compulsive disorder] or psychosis?
Is there any possibility of sexual abuse?
The reasons I ask these questions is that sometimes kids do weird things.
For example four year olds often have a problem with stuttering - it comes
with the age and disappears on its own it is short lived. This is also a big
age for nightmares and night terrors. The line between fantasy and reality
is blurry. Kids are egocentric and think that when something bad happens
that they caused it.
The handwashing could be a reaction to a physical feeling - a skin
irritation for example. If it is connected to OCD it doesn't necessarily
need to be repetitive. OCD behaviors tend to be relied on in moments of
stress and not make sense in context. The act of doing the behavior is what
relieves the stress, not so much the result of the behavior. Unfortunately,
mental illness tends to run in families.
I would answer the questions and decide based on that how concerned to be. I
tend to trust my parents' judgement. If something "doesn't feel right" to
them it usually bears at least looking into. As someone suggested, I would
go over "appropriate touching" both what is expected of her and of others.
If you don't wand to mention the extended breastfeeding to your doctor, you
could at least have her hands checked for scabies or allergic reaction.
Please feel free to email me privately.
Gail
Gail S. Hertz, MD, IBCLC
[log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jennifer Herrin" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, August 14, 2004 7:26 AM
Subject: My sort-of nursing 4-year-old (long)
> Hello wise ones,
>
> I'd appreciate some input about my own nursing situation:
>
> My youngest is 4 (5 in November). She stopped nursing with any regularity
about a year ago, but she still occasionally snuggles up and latches on for
a few minutes for the comfort. That's fine, and I still treasure those quiet
moments, but in the last month or so she's become OBSESSED with my breasts
and nipples. She talks about them, she grabs them in public (something she
never did before), she can't get close to me without pulling my shirt up and
feeling around. And that isn't fine -- I find it so annoying that sometimes
I snap at her and push her hands off me, and then, of course, I immediately
regret rejecting her so harshly. But it happens so fast that it's almost
instinctive; I feel like a mother dog pushing her pups away.
>
> At about the same time she started doing this, she also started some odd
handwashing behavior. Whenever she gets mad at me, my husband, or her two
older sisters (which is pretty often these days!), and sometimes just out of
the blue, she'll run to wash her hands. At least, it seems out of the blue
to me, but I realize that something must be upsetting her. For instance,
yesterday she was carrying her little rocking chair from one room to the
other, and she suddenly dropped it with a cry bordering on anguish and ran
to the bathroom to wash her hands. She doesn't wash them over and over, but
it's still weird, and it's happening enough that her hands are getting red
and chapped.
>
> Because the two sets of behaviors appeared at about the same time, I'm
wondering about their connection. Is she anxious about growing up, and thus
sort of asking to be a nursing baby again? Should I actually try to get a
supply back and encourage her to nurse, if that will comfort her, or would
that be prolonging and possibly interfering with the natural growing-up
process that children must go through? Any ideas on how to handle my
irritation when she grabs me? (Hmmm, it just occurred to me that maybe I
should buy some new, less breast-accessible clothes -- after eleven years of
almost non-stop breastfeeding, most of my wardrobe has nursing slits.) At
this point, I'm reluctant to ask other health professionals about the
handwashing thing because I'm afraid they'd connect it in a negative way to
extended breastfeeding.
>
> I'd appreciate any input!
>
> Thanks,
> Jennifer Herrin, RN, IBCLC
> Heidelberg, Germany
>
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