Letting My Daughter Self-Wean: A New Level of Love and Trust

July 10, 2017.

I’m still in bed on a rainy Monday morning looking out over the Cocles river in front of my rustic Caribbean cabina. It's mossy green today.

The banana trees hide most of it from view, but I can still see it through the leaves. Toucans are flying back and forth through the trees squawking to each other eager to get out and play now that the rain is letting up.

It’s a different kind of life I live here on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. I used to live in Central Pennsylvania, U.S.A. and I used to live a normal life.

I had a mortgage, a car loan, utility bills and a busy schedule. I used to be married to a corporation, actually - married to someone who was married to that corporation. A big one. He first sold drugs to doctors, then was promoted to selling surgical equipment. We had a crazy monthly entertainment budget…the higher up the doctor was in the chain of command – the more money we had “available”. A big dirty business, I discovered. 

I had 3 kids at the time, each one born "normally" in the hospital. They were fully vaccinated, went to normal schools, and to church on Sunday. It seemed like the perfect life.

I remember laying in my hot tub one evening looking at the brand new swimming pool outside in the back yard through a very expensive stained glass window while I sipped wine out of my favorite crystal glass – feeling such a deep level of despair. Like I was rotten to the very core of my soul. It felt rotten brown. And sick. And un-redeemable. I imagined what I could do to end it all. A bottle of sleeping pills and a bottle of tequila in the hot tub? After the kids go to bed? The emptiness was deep.

Fast forward to now…after:

I left that husband (did you know the root of the word “husband” means “owner”?)

Created a new life for myself and my 3 kids

Eventually left the Matrix

Moved to Costa Rica

Gave birth to more children, this time at home

Began living my life in freedom and beauty

So probably by now you’re wondering what any of that has to do with letting my daughter decide when to wean herself. And the answer is that all of these things, this cascade of events, eventually led to my questioning everything about what I believed “normal” was.

For example – I used to think that going to the grocery store in my minivan, walking through a climate controlled building that had soft music playing in the background, putting packages into a metal and plastic shopping cart, and then paying for all of it with money that I had in a bank – to source the food for my family – and then filling up the gas tank in my minivan as I left the grocery store parking lot…was normal.

I see this now as insane.

Ludicrous. Comical even. Something out of a science fiction novel.

Food – real food – grows in the ground. You plant it, nurture it, harvest it, then eat it. It doesn’t come in plastic.

That’s just one example of where I used to be and where I am now. Another one is that I also used to think it was normal to have my babies in a hospital. Again…something I see now as insane and ludicrous.

When I had my first out-of-hospital birth, it changed everything I thought I knew. It was incredible. Life changing. Sacred.

First of all because…

Nobody pulled out a scalpel and sliced my perineum with no anesthesia without asking me or even telling me first, which happened in my first hospital birth.

Nobody slapped my hand when I reached down to feel my babies head as I was pushing him out, which happened in my third hospital birth.

Nobody made me lay on my back during the birth, like they did with my fourth hospital birth, with my baby’s shoulders stuck (the hospital wants you on your back – so it’s easier for them – ironically, it happens to be the very WORST physiological position to give birth in – and could be the cause of a shoulder dystocia). In that instance, I had no other choice than to push my baby out so hard that I broke not only my own tailbone, but his collar bone.

Yes, each one of these things happened to me and my babies. There’s even more, but now is not the time…

I just wanted to give you more background on why I’m still breastfeeding my daughter.

All that I thought was normal has changed - things I used to just accept blindly, I now rebel against.

When you begin to change your thoughts about a few things, it seems to have a domino effect and other things begin to look differently too.

By the time I gave birth to my daughter Zara, my seventh baby – I had a very different perspective on life. She was born in the water at our house in the jungle. A family of monkeys even came to visit. It was beyond magical.

By the time I gave birth to her, I wanted to do things differently. I was pretty sure that her being number 7 – that she would be my last baby. I wanted to do everything possible to give her and myself the best that I could, knowing what I knew now.

Breastfeeding was one of those things.

I knew how powerful it was on so many levels – and how IMPORTANT. In fact, did you know that within a baby’s gut, there is the ENS (Enteric Nervous System) and it regulates the immune system, contains neurons, and is the center of where all health stems from – is permanently effected by what you first introduce to it?

So much so that adult cancer, obesity, SIDS, Autism and overall health rates are significantly effected by whether that person was breastfed or not. As a mother – you are making life long health decisions for the person that your baby will be. Including mental health.

A big responsibility that I didn’t take lightly. As a breastfeeding advocate (the first as far as I know in the U.S. to be arrested for being a “Lactivist”) and a Birthkeeper, as well as my experience of breastfeeding all 7 of my children - it's been a big part of my life. I also try to keep up with all the latest research and I am constantly surprised at the amazing things that we're discovering about breastfeeding.

First it's good to know what the “normal” age is for a human to wean from it’s mother. Keep in mind that when the baby makes this choice, there are additional major neurological and emotional benefits - basically the most primal feelings of needs being met. This age is between 4-7 years old.

Knowing this, I decided that I would breastfeed my “last” baby until she didn’t want it anymore, and allow her to self-wean. Full transparency - it was also a bit of a science experiment. I was really curious to see how long she would go.

The results? Well she just turned 7 recently and if you ask her what her favorite thing in the whole world is – she will say “NUNNY”.

There comes a time, of course, that a baby is getting all the nutrition that it needs through solid food - but still, it’s so weird to me that most people then think that there is no need for breastfeeding anymore with the assumption that there is no utilitarian value anymore. In comparison, it's as if the purpose of sex is only for fertilizing an egg in order to propagate the human species. Technically that’s all it is, when you think about it. Hopefully, though, for most of us, sex is much, much, much more!

I even think that we should replace the word. I’ve thought this for a long time actually, that the word “Breastfeeding” just doesn't do it justice. I’m not sure what a good replacement would be though as there are so many levels to it. When my daughter has “Nunny”, I know she feels comforted, she feels nurtured, she feels protected and safe. This I know for a fact.

I know there are more benefits – and for this there is no proof – but my instincts tell me that whenever she has Nunny, she feels the connection that she had when she was first born, and since her very first memories would have – at that time – been in the womb…she can return to the feelings that she had of her very first, primal home and Nest. And we don’t know exactly what THAT MEANS - what kind of impact that has on a human.

I would say that it’s possible that during that time, in utero and the first days following birth – that she was fully cognizant of the place that she was in prior to the womb. Wherever that was.

Maybe by reinforcing and solidifying this continuum of connection through breastfeeding, she never forgot these very early memories, and continued to carry them with her as her brain and nervous system matured. Maybe the neural connections that were happening early in her development while being fed by the breast of her mother (after birth – the MOST primal need of a newborn mammal), gave her a foundational security that will give her a better chance of thriving in this crazy life.

Our cat just had a kitten the other day – just one – and Z and I can’t stop watching them together. Of course there is nothing cuter for a 7 year old than a newborn kitten. So after endless hours of watching them, sleeping in a make shift bed so that we can “be next to them in the night in case they need something…” – I’ve been reminded in this immediate tangible way, of that deep mammalian primal instinct to find the breast – and once it’s found – there is the completion, the rest, the Nirvana. There is the bliss – there is the HOME for both mother and baby. The kitten purrs like crazy when she's finally found it, sucking, pushing on her mothers belly with her paws and then falling asleep, curled up in a ball on her mother, just a fractional barrier of skin and fur from where she was just a few days ago inside her mother.

Maybe when Z has Nunny – she feels like this kitten. Safe, blissful - HOME. Maybe she has a sense of love and security that can’t be found anywhere else. Ultimately, isn’t that what we all really crave? The sense that all is good, that we are taken care of. That we are loved and we belong.

All speculation of course – but for me, I’m willing to keep giving this to her on the off chance that it’s true.

I know now (my oldest child will be 33 this year) – full well – the despair of not being able to go back and change things in life. The solid, concrete result of a decision made that you have no choice but to live with for many, many years – and because of this visceral knowledge that I carry with me, I now put 100% effort into deciding how best to make choices. This choice felt the best to me.

I know that one day she will not want Nunny anymore. One day she may even be embarrassed that she loved it so much. But I’m letting her make the decision on when to stop. 

In the meantime – she loves it more than anything – and as a mother who loves her so much, it would be too hard to take it away from her especially since there are so many other ongoing benefits.

She was stung really badly the other day by a wasp. I ran to her, picked her up, and her screams subsided instantly when she got Nunny.

Every night, she falls asleep within 3 minutes because she has Nunny.

She literally has not cried more than a few minutes her entire life when she’s been with me – because I had that to give to her, and it always calmed her down completely. Even with a dislocated shoulder once when she was 4.

One day maybe we’ll be able to measure the benefits of long term breastfeeding that allows the child to decide when to wean – being able to prove the positive impact on that persons life and from there, shifting our understanding of what we believe is normal.

Until then, I’m going with my instincts and sticking with it – and in honor of my beautiful Zara, instead of the word “breastfeeding” I declare that it is now NUNNY.

*Postscript.

Zara would end up having Nunny until one week after her 8th birthday. She's now a teenager with a crystal clear memory of her breastfeeding experience. Her biggest takeaway - in her words is this - "the feeling of feeling your skin and having Nunny was just the best thing - better than anything else in life - like being in heaven - like pure love." And yes, she's a bit embarrassed about it now that she nursed for so long - and that her friends didn't which probably wouldn't be the case if more people were given the option to self wean. Maybe by the time she has her kids, things will be different...