The End of My Nursing Journey & Thoughts on Infant Feeding
It’s been nine months since I had a peanut butter sandwich. Or even any peanuts, for that matter.
Last December my youngest child had an allergic reaction during a controlled peanut trial in our home. He was six months old and still breastfeeding, which meant I had to start avoiding peanuts immediately.
I’ve shared a little bit about our experience becoming a food allergy family here and here. Unfortunately, there is no cure for food allergies. According to Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), the only way to manage food allergies is to avoid the problem food(s) and learn how to recognize and treat reaction symptoms.
Eliminating peanuts while nursing served as a tangible bond that let me feel connected to my food allergy child as we navigated this scary new life together.
At the end of the road
But last week I reached the end of my breastfeeding journey with my final baby.
To be honest, I never thought that I would get this emotional about a simple peanut butter sandwich. It was a food that I had previously eaten daily for over two decades. In the crazy mom space within my brain, I’m processing guilt, fear, sadness, and selfish excitement over this one peanut butter sandwich.
All these emotions are in addition to the normal mourning that many moms experience as they face the end of this road. Part of it is the realization that my little baby is no longer a baby. Part of it is excitement to reclaim a small piece of my body autonomy.
I’m feeling all the feelings right now. To help process some of these emotions, I reached out to friends on social media to see if anyone else might be willing to share their infant feeding experiences.
The response was completely overwhelming. I was blown away by how many women volunteered to share their stories, but also surprised at the solidarity I felt after reading through the shared experiences that often go unsaid between friends.
My initial plan to reflect on the end of my breastfeeding journey has now morphed into plans for several parenting stories and themes that need to be shared and normalized.
Satter Division of Responsibility in Feeding for Infants
Nutrition has become such a divisive topic lately. The mommy wars between breastfeeding and formula start before our babies even come into this world. The choice that expecting parents make on how to feed their newborn is met with support, criticism, concern, and even judgement from friends and family.
Maybe this is because we as parents have so little control over the actual feeding process with newborns. The Satter Division of Responsibility in Feeding identifies specific roles for parents and babies at this life stage:
Parents are responsible for what (breastmilk or formula).
Infants are responsible for providing cues about how often, how much, at what tempo, and at what level of skill.
Most first-time parents are not prepared to hand over this much control to their babies. Especially when everyone has their own two cents to share about what and how to feed a baby – grandparents, great-grandparents, OB nurses, lactation consultants, co-workers, friends, and even strangers on the street.
“Babies are born with an innate sense of how much they need to eat in order to grow at the rate that is best for them.”
Yet there is so much we can learn from an infant when it comes to our own relationship with food. Babies are born with an innate sense of how much they need to eat in order to grow at the rate that is best for them.
Think about it – that hungry baby cry is one of the first things that parents can distinguish from all the other noises that an infant makes. It is a natural instinct for us to make our need for food known. A newborn ready to eat will cry until nursed or offered a bottle, drink until full, and then turn their heads away when done.
As parents, feeding on demand is the best thing we can do to help our newborns maintain that healthy relationship with food. This instills a sense of self-confidence in our children that their need to eat is appropriate and will constantly be met.
I wish I could go back in time and share this nugget of truth with myself as I struggled to nurse my firstborn. There was so much screaming (from him) and crying (from me) in addition to pumping and measuring and so much concern about his low weight from our initial healthcare team.
Several years later, I relished how easy it was to nurse on demand with my final baby. Especially when I compare it to the energy it takes to battle stubborn toddlers and picky eaters at the dinner table. If only I knew then what I know now… I would have cared a lot less about what my firstborn was eating and focused more on understanding when and how much he wanted to eat.
Breastfeeding, mom guilt, and mental health
My friend Steph Brimeyer is also a dietitian based in Iowa. She was one of the first to reach out to share her infant feeding experiences with me.
“The choice to breastfeed definitely impacted my anxiety… big time. I felt like I was hanging on for dear life every single day. I was so, so scared one wrong move would ruin our breastfeeding journey for good. There are so many things they tell you to do and not do with breastfeeding – it was all just fuel for my anxiety.”
Steph also found that nursing her second child was much easier. “I knew what was coming and that I didn’t have to be so rigid this time.”
Kara Foster is another friend that answered my call. She is a maternal child health professional based in Omaha that works with health departments across the nation to improve family health outcomes at the local level.
“I think mom shaming and mental health can be factors that influence infant feeding choices, rather than just being the result of infant feeding choices.”
Morgan Witte agrees. “This is a time when moms should be surrounded with love and support, not a time to fill them with doubt and guilt. I chose to breastfeed because I felt it was a healthy option for my baby and in the same breath the easier choice - no mixing formula or heating up bottles.
“This is a time when moms should be surrounded with love and support, not a time to fill them with doubt & guilt.”
She went on to share that nursing came with its own difficulties, such as her milk taking nearly a week to come in or experiencing breast pain from improper latching.
“I breastfed for 10 months and pumped throughout, but I largely pumped when I started back at work. Although external and internal factors supported whatever worked best for me and the baby, I felt an underlying pressure to breastfeed, tremendous pressure to pump, and guilt when I had to supplement breastfeeding with formula when I was back at work.”
Morgan added that after this experience she would be kinder to herself and shift her focus from what to feed her baby to how to best support her mental and emotional health. For example, “realizing that formula would still nurture my baby and ease the pressure I felt.”
Kara points out that some of the interpersonal guilt and shame that moms feel can be related to the systems in our country that expect so much from mothers without sufficient support.
“We don’t have paid maternity leave across the board, and many moms are returning to work environments where breastfeeding and pumping are difficult…while at the same time we are hearing messages that breast is best. It’s impossible for moms to make their choice and feel 100% supported from all sides.”
Lessons from a peanut butter sandwich
My newfound freedom to enjoy this peanut butter sandwich comes with a side of sadness than my youngest child no longer needs me to provide peanut-free, egg-free breastmilk for his main source of nutrition.
The initial decision to breastfeed my babies was not a difficult choice to make. As a dietitian, I knew the benefits of nursing, but I also was aware that I turned out just fine as a formula baby myself. My initial plan was to give it a month to see if I could do it, and then switch to formula if needed.
But somewhere along the way I got swept up in the fear of mom shaming and postpartum mental health struggle. I wonder what my pre-mom self would have thought about not eating peanuts and eggs just to continue the breastfeeding journey a little longer.
For now, I’ll focus on appreciating what all my babies have reminded me about the simplicity of a healthy relationship with food. And continue to work on controlling my anxieties about their eating so that they can continue to trust their internal hunger cues.
Because just like with everything else, there is a learning curve for new parents when it comes to feeding a child. The good news is that it is never to late to start helping our children nurture a healthy relationship with food, from infancy to adolescence.
Want to learn more?
I’m offering a FREE Family Nutrition mini-course, which starts September 13th. In addition to learning more about the Satter Division of Responsibility in Feeding, we’ll cover picky eaters, vegetables, children’s weight, and sugar.
You can learn more about the course or sign-up here!
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