The tricky questions

Obi wan Kenobi

Most parents expect their children to ask questions which they do not know the answers to or make them feel uncomfortable. Even the most laid back parent can find themselves feeling awkward when their child asks questions about sex and how babies are made. Then there are the questions you just never thought anyone, let alone your child, would ask you.

I suppose all parents get these jaw dropping questions & how they handle them just depends how they’re feeling at the moment the question arrives.

My son Jacob asks a lot of questions. Each page of a book has at least four queries to accompany it. It’s partially that he’s exploring language and clarifying what words EXACTLY mean. It’s also that he’s adjusting how he thinks about the world & the way it appears to work.

On an average day he’ll ask things like: “What does blue container mean?” “What does red container mean?” “What does container mean?” Bang, bang, bang – just like that he’s clarified that the only difference between a red container & a blue container is mostly probably just it’s colour and that a container is something that can hold something else inside it.

Some days I have endless patience. I answer calmly. I ask him what he thinks things are. We jostle gently back & forth words, concepts, meanings & ideas.

Other days if I’m tired or having to give my attention to household chores or another child I can snap and shut down the questions. I’m not so proud of those moments. I am proud to have a little boy who asks questions and who wants to find out why, what, when & how and if. I love his beautiful brain and love the particular take he has on the world around him. He is incredibly imaginative. He changes his clothes four or five times in just a morning as he changes character. His current obsession is Star Wars & anything related to its universe. His dad & I have sat through the movies with him, answered the many questions and made sure he wasn’t scared.

Jedi Knight has a bo

Today as I was making him his bedtime bottle of goat milk he asked, “Do Jedi Knights have bos?” (bo being his word for bottle) A brief pause and then I replied, “Well, I guess when Jedi Knights were babies they probably had a breastfeed or a bo.” He was happy with this and said “Yeah, Darth Vader had breastfeeds.”

Before Star Wars Jacob was a pirate

a knight

and a lizard

(Post script: When Jacob was born I was unable to breastfeed him. The information at the time around medication I needed to take was that it was toxic for babies. Subsequently further studies have shown that in lower dosages and with the baby closely monitored through blood tests it is possible to breastfeed. My daughter, born before I was on medication, and my youngest son, born after the new information was available, were both breastfed until around their second birthday. I am a strong breastfeeding advocate but I also know that sometimes it isn’t possible for women for a variety of reasons. I talk to my children about the different ways that babies and toddlers are given milk and what the reasons for this are.)

everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt

alternate title: grieving breastfeeding?

a good friend asked me yesterday as i was bottle feeding my son whether i had found any differences in the bonding between the bottle feeding of this child and the breastfeeding of my first.

when i had my daughter i was a breastfeeding queen. once we overcame our initial difficulties with latching on and supply and demand i felt unstoppable. two years unstoppable.  my daughter, now almost five, remembers “bressies” with great fondness. she would probably start up again if given the option!

breastfeeding was a life saver for me. i suffered terrible post natal depression and many anxieties about my abilities as a first time mum.  breastfeeding was something concrete that i did well. the physical closeness it provided her and i with through low times cannot be understated,  and when i chose to go back to work being able to come home and sit feeding her with my own body allowed to us to reconnect, rebond in a powerful way.

through all this i had tremendous support from my mother. when my milk supply needing boosting my mother would arrive at my home put me to bed, feed and water me, let me feed my baby and then take her away so i could rest.  she would do this for days on end until my breasts were overflowing again and my baby was no longer hungry. not many new mums get the help i was given.  i did not take it for granted. despite this, i was internally a breastfeeding reactionary – i could not understand how or why other mums would choose to bottle feed. i thought they must be selfish or lazy or both.

three years later when i became pregnant with my twin sons i was told by my doctor that breastfeeding was really not an option.  not because of twins but because i had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder and was now medicated with lithium. lithium crosses the breast (meaning my milk would be full of the stuff) and is toxic to babies.  i could have fed them but they would have had to have daily and then weekly blood tests to check their lithium levels and kidney function. not a good option at all. so it was with much sadness that i said goodbye to breastfeeding.

nine months later our beloved boys were born. one little guy first and then our second fella.  unfortunately due to a freak accident in the womb (completely unrelated to lithium or my bi polar disorder) our second son was stillborn. i was in shock for the first three days, barely able to hold my surviving son i avoided feeding him until my family forced the issue.  it felt weird, disconnecting and false.  all these other people were perfectly capable of feeding him. i was no one special.

nine months on. i have just fed him his goodnight bottle. as i feed him he reaches up and strokes the mole on the right side of my neck. his soft hand rubbing backwards and forwards helps me realise we are strongly connected, i am someone very special. i am his mum and it doesn’t matter that i am feeding him with a bottle.  that awful frozen feeling i had in the early days was shock and grief and fear. intense fear that i might allow myself to love another little human being. intense fear that he might die like his brother.  i no longer judge people their feeding choices because that is what they are: their feeding choices. and if anyone were to ask if i am still grieving for breastfeeding i would say no, i am just grieving for findlay. and the bonds between my children and i are stronger than ever.