The Better Decision

I laid in the near-dark, feeding E2 down for the night, her little body curled into mine, and me drifting in and out of semi-sleep as she fed.  After awhile, I became conscious that she’d stopped and I could feel her breath, slow and even, across my skin.  I gently pulled my top back into [...]

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Extended Breastfeeding: What’s on the Cutting Room Floor

I was contacted recently by a television producer from LA who was looking for people to take part in a documentary she is making about extended breastfeeding.  I was excited, flattered, and… a little wary.  Depending how it’s handled, the women on the programme could end up looking like amazing mothers or absolute freaks.  I [...]

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The Last as Much as the First

I was bored and hot on Sunday in church and letting my mind wander, when I spotted a family across the aisle and a few rows in front of us.  The two older daughters looked to be in their early teens and very close in age, and were sitting on either side of their mother.  [...]

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Size Matters Most When You Are Small

I was lying on my side feeding E2, the two of us snuggled up together on the couch with my arm under her head and her feet resting on the top of my legs.  I took a deep breath and drew in the sleep-smell clinging to her hair, then ran my hand down her bare [...]

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Over the Rainbow

I was chatting with a friend today — another mother I have met whose children are the same ages as my girls — and I was describing the way E1 breastfeeds her doll.  Now, I know that might sound strange if you’re not used to the idea, but it makes sense — little girls mother [...]

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Keep This to Yourself

Shhhhh… Don’t tell anyone — and you didn’t hear this from me, but… On Tuesday night, E2 woke up and started to cry as normal twice, but never really got into a full cry, and then settled herself back down before I got up to go in to her. To my utter [...]

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It’s Not Over til It’s Over

I gave birth to E2 nearly 18 months ago and, to all appearances, that birthing process is long over and finished. She is a lively little girl now, toddling about under her own steam and babbling in her own language to anyone who will listen. That I am no longer pregnant is obvious, [...]

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Poisoned Kiss

There are many reasons why extended breastfeeding is a pain — the continued broken nights, the physical strain on the mother, the teeth! — but so many ways that it is a joy. Probably the biggest way is how it gives a mother and child a chance to recapture of that same intense intimacy [...]

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Co-sleeping: more like NO-sleeping

Desperate times call for desperate measures: last night, we tried co-sleeping. Now, I realise co-sleeping is not drastic to a lot of people, but I’ve just never felt comfortable with it — I worry enough about safety and suffocation and suchlike as it is, without bringing my baby into my bed while I lie [...]

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Applebee’s unfortunate response to a breastfeeding mother

Applebee’s, the popular American restaurant chain, recently let itself down when it made a very disappointing public statement, after one of its Kentucky employees asked a nursing mother to cover herself up despite knowing of the state’s law protecting a mother’s right to breastfeed. Instead of using the opportunity to formulate a good breastfeeding [...]

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